Keeping LOD on 0 is the best way to get good performance. However with your GPU, I assume it is the 2GB 840, you should be able to easily do some decent graphical settings in Main.cfg. You may even be able to pull off playing at LOD 1.
Try using these and let me know how it functions, all of these are in main.cfg and not all settings have been changed.
Code
// memory settings
VideoMemoryDynamicDetect false // use auto detection of available amount of video memory (VRAM) in runtime
VideoMemorySize 2048 // video memory size to use if VideoMemoryDynamicDetect = false
VideoMemoryMaxPercent 90 // max video memory consumption (percents)
GalaxySysModelCacheSize 20 // do not change this!
ClusterStarModelCacheSize 200 // do not change this!
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// texture rendering settings
TRMaxImpostors 8 // max number of impostors
TRMaxSkyBoxes 1 // max number of skyboxes
TRFloat true // use floating-point impostors (for HDR)
TRImpResolution 0.500 // impostor resolution (fraction of window width)
TRSkyResolution 1.00 // skybox resolution (fraction of window width)
TRImpUpdateThreshold 0.005 // impostor update threshold
TRSkyUpdateThreshold 1e38 // 0.0006 // skybox update threshold
TRSkyMinFOV 20.0 // skybox min FOV
TRSkyMaxStep 1e-7 // skybox max velocity (normalized on object's radius)
TRBlackHoleResolution 4096 // resolution of black hole billboard
TRLensFlareConvRadius 3 // "super" lens flare convolution radius
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// screenshots and other settings
ScreenshotFormat "png" // screenshot format (jpg, png, dds, tga, tif)
SkyBoxFormat "jpg" // skybox export format (jpg, png, dds, tga, tif)
JpegQuality 99 // jpeg compression quality
RealTime true // use RealTime mode (velocity not depend on FPS)
RealTimeFPS 24.0 // RealTime mode velocity calibration (FPS for video capture)
ConvertRGBAtoPNG false // if true, any loaded RGBA or Grayscale images are saved in PNG format in the same directory
There are other settings that can also improve quality in the user.cfg file but those are more subjective settings.
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