Objects in a 3D video game are made up of triangles called polygons. The more polygons a GPU can draw, the more detailed and less blocky an object can look...or the more objects in total.
Textures are the art work that is applied to the polygons visible surface. They are just like your computer .jpg type images such that resolution, file size, zoomed in/out, etc...can affect how sharp the texture looks.
Special effects can be applied on top of the textures to give them a snazzy appearance such as a dirt map to make it look dirty or a highlight map to give a shiny effect.
Further more you can apply shader effects which work much like the extra texture maps but are harder to render. Bump mapping can add shadows and texture to a flat looking surface for example.
The rEVOLution is not being televised
