I unchecked the Smooth Polygons option because things were turning out "bloated" for some reason.  I WAS unchecking the option for each individual item in their properties tab, but then I got sick of doing it and just unchecked the option in the render settings.

So I should try a bucket size with x^2? (Where x is some number.)
Does it depend on my RAM and/or CPU at all?
Also, what could be the highest that I should try in order to maximize the use of my system?