So I'm a short way into the game and I'm noticing that a lot of little detail items such as small bushes are popping in at really close distances, it's kind of irritating, and I notice no options whatsoever to configure my graphical settings.

After looking into it a bit, I believe I'm supposed to edit a file to improve things, but I have no idea how. I also downloaded it from Steam if that matters at all.

EDIT:

Ok actually I believe I found it, my MeshDistanceScale was at 0.5, I increased it to 2.

I have a pretty good rig and it's been able to handle every other game at max settings, so I have no idea why it was set so low.

Would anybody be able to tell me if I should increase any of these as well? I'm a noob and don't really know what the numbers mean.

AllowAntialias=1
AllowBloom=1
AllowBlur=1
AllowCutsceneDOF=0
AllowDOF=1
AllowDecals=1.0
AllowMotionBlur=0
AllowRain=1
AllowSSAO=1
AllowScatterDOF=0
AllowShafts=1
AllowSharpen=1
AllowVignette=1
AtlasTextureDownscale=0
DanglesLimiter=0
DetailTextureDownscale=0
Fullscreen=1
MaxAtlasTextureSize=2048
MaxCubeShadowCount=1
MaxCubeShadowSize=256
MaxSpotShadowCount=3
MaxSpotShadowSize=512
MaxTextureSize=2048
MeshDistanceScale=2
ShadowQuality=0
ShadowedLights=0
TextureDownscale=0
TextureMemoryBudget=400
UberSampling=0
VSync=0

I have an AMD 965, Radeon 6870 Black Edition, and 8 gigs of RAM if that matters.

Really odd, I changed the number on the mesh distance and it didn't affect a thing. I have no clue what I'm supposed to be doing then.

You could try using the config tool (from "options" in the launcher) and changing LOD distance to "far" and keeping the texture memory at very large. Might help the pop-in effect, but even people with max settings and powerful rigs seem to get this effect sometimes.

I think the mesh distance only changes geometry render distance for terrain/building objects on screen, not grass or foliage.

Thats the absolute maximum You can get from tweaking User.ini:

[Rendering]
AllowAntialias=1
AllowBloom=1
AllowBlur=1
AllowCutsceneDOF=1
AllowDOF=0
AllowDecals=1.0
AllowMotionBlur=0
AllowRain=1
AllowSSAO=1
AllowScatterDOF=1
AllowShafts=1
AllowSharpen=1
AllowVignette=1
AspectRatio=3
AtlasTextureDownscale=0
CharacterLodGameplayDownscale=0
DanglesLimiter=0
DetailTextureDownscale=0
FoliageDistanceScale=10
Fullscreen=1
MaxAtlasTextureSize=4096
MaxCubeShadowCount=3
MaxCubeShadowSize=2048
MaxSpotShadowCount=3
MaxSpotShadowSize=2048
MaxTextureSize=2048
MeshDistanceScale=10
ShadowQuality=3
ShadowedLights=3
TextureDownscale=0
TextureMemoryBudget=800
TextureTimeBudget=10
UberSampling=1
VSync=1

If Your display is 16x9 format, just delate the line AspectRatio=3.

+setting AFx16 in CCC
+adding FXAA injector with sharpen filter (playing with different values of FXAA and sharpen recommended, i've found good balance that works well with res 1680x1050 but for full HD values might be different).

Theres still a little popping, but seems thats how that engine works... at least screen is crisp and clear with no jaggies.

I got 16:9; with presharpen, FXAA and postsharpen gives excellent results and I percieve it to be better than enabling AllowAntialias=1 + AllowSharpen=1.

Also the Anisotropic Filtering around 16x is not suitable, as 8x seems better. AFx8 appears to introduce a bit realistic transition of terrains(smoothen it out) with respect to shifting from lower quality to higher quality texture mapping while moving around.

After a lot of testing i've set: 0.70, //fxaaQualitySubpix (default: 0.75)
0.133, //fxaaQualityEdgeThreshold
0.0312, //fxaaQualityEdgeThresholdMin

and #define SharpenEdge 0.15
#define Sharpen_val0 1.105

i think those values might differ between 1680x1050 and 1920x1080, but i might be wrong. And i'm using FXAA and postsharpen along with in game AA and sharpen.

Thanks for a tip, i'll try lowering AF on my next playthrough.

Keep in mind that you may be suffering - to whichever extent - from the bug described here. Most don't notice it at all, while others seem to have more severe symptoms; I've had it confirmed by tech support, but they admitted it would be difficult for them to pinpoint what's causing it.