I am writing an article about competitive videogame players and I want
to get some textual support for the idea that some players turn down
the details on their graphics because a) it provides them with a
better framerate, which is more important than good graphics because
framerate is directly related to being able to win the game and
graphics aren't and/or b) it is less distracting to their gameplay to
have fancy graphics and they would rather see simple shapes so they
can concentrate on beating other players instead of looking at a pretty scene.

I would like weblinks and/or citations (I have access to a good
research library) for at least 3 articles about competitive gaming
that reference this practice. I would prefer that the reference be
more than one sentence long, but I don't demand articles that are
primarily about this specific topic (that would be great, however).

It's possible that this used to be a popular practice but is no
longer. That's ok if the article talks about this trend.

I do not want articles that talk about turning down graphics to make
games run better in general, and I don't want technical articles that
are about graphics card specs or detailed discussions of programming.
The articles must talk about competitive gameplayers and mention that
they are turning down graphics because it helps improve their ability
to win competitions and/or beat other players. Articles that talk
about a general sense of 'the games work better' won't help me.

When I say competitive gameplayers, I do not necessarily need articles
about players in professional or amateur leagues that have formal
tournaments, but I would like at least some of the articles to be
about that. It's ok if some articles talk about people that play
competitively in their own homes or informally.

Thanks!

It might be as well to do a search on Google groups instead - after
all this would produce first hand evidence of what you seek, rather
than that filtered by the article writer?