Here are a couple of great articles by former LL staff member Joel Foner on getting the best performance from your viewer. Although aimed at users with less powerful PCs, there are some useful tips for everyone. Some of them are obvious and there are one or two surprises. Equally valid for worlds other than SL:
http://joelfoner.com/2009/12/8-ways-to-make-low-perf-computer-second-life-faster/
This one is specifically about the Maximum Bandwidth Option. Again. some points may be obvious and others less so:
http://joelfoner.com/2010/03/understanding-the-maximum-bandwidth-option-in-the-second-life-viewer/
