OK, almost there. The game now performs flawlessly - no loads, no hitches, nothing but sweet sweet buttery smoothness. I'm using angular's config with some launch options:
RageConfig.cfg:
vt_pageimagesizeuniquediffuseonly2 8192
vt_pageimagesizeuniquediffuseonly 8192
vt_pageimagesizeunique 8192
vt_pageimagesizevmtr 8192
vt_maxaniso 4
vt_restart
image_anisotropy 4
Steam Launch Options: +com_skipIntroVideo 1 +r_swapInterval 1 +vt_maxPPF 16 +cvaradd g_fov 10
For my Radeon 6950, i7 and 8 Gigs of RAM this seems to be the perfect fit.
BUT...
I don't know if its just me, but once I hit Wellspring I started noticing some character wonkiness. Flickering and weird transitions. Try as I might I have no idea how to get rid of it or whether its something that will have to wait on a patch. Its pretty horrible when it does happen as you can see below:
In motion it looks crazy, like they're phasing in and out of the world. Anybody else seeing this? Any ideas on what could be causing the ruckus?