What do these do?

Antialiasing
Anisotropic filtering
Show all resolutions check box
Radial blur quality
Decal quality
FXAA
Specularity fade

Im trying to max the looks but keep the fps so i want to know what I can turn off that i wont care that much about or just lower. Heres what I got

AMD radeon HD 6620G (I believe this is two graphics cards)
AMD A8-3530MX APU with radeon HD graphics 1.9 GHz (can be over clocked to 2.6)
6 GB of ram
Windows seven
HP pavilion dv6 notebook PC
Quad core

Skyrim default setting was set to high

I get lag on low (and I can live with lag) but I got this laptop FOR skyrim, As I wanted it to run it on high. So I want to lower the lag but sill have it look good.

also side thing I play games with Vary bad graphics. But I wanted to paly this one on high. so pz dont try to say I need graphics or anything.

1.8 GHz isn't going to do you justice. That's probably why your framerate is suffering.

Antialiasing makes edges less rough and more smooth. This is less important if playing at a high resolution though.
Ansiotropic filtering, in simple terms, makes textures a bit nicer.
Radial Blur quality... I turn this off. Blur is ugly.

Turn off vertical sync. It's not needed and can reduce your performance. Set Antialiasing to about x2 or off completely.

If you purchased that laptop for Skyrim you made a big mistake, it's a weak system at best and that graphics card barely meets the requirements. That being said, from what I've seen is putting the settings on high and then turning off AA will no doubt improve your performance.

Your specs have utterly confused me so I'm just going to quickly explain the settings. Perhaps someone else a can decode your hardware, however from where I'm standing it doesn't look good.

Antialiasing - Smooths edges out, gets rid of "jagged edges". Generally the higher the resolution of your game, the less "jaggies" that are visible. Entirely personal preference if you like AA or not, however it can come with a hefty performance hit, so be wary of that.
Anisotropic Filtering - Makes flat textures (like the ground) sharper in the distance. Generally makes things look a lot better without affecting performance much.
Show all Resolutions just shows all compatible resolutions with your monitor.
Radial Blur - The blur effect you get when you're hit. Decrease it if you dislike the effect or you get slowdowns in combat.
Decal Quantity - How many blood decals are shown in combat. Decrease if you want less or get slowdowns in combat.
FXAA - A "cheaper" version of AA. A kind of blur/softening shader that decreases "jaggies", but also smooths out the whole game. Can actually increase performance, and I really like the effect it gives, however others hate it. Entirely up to you. If you do enable it however, turn off AA. Don't use both.
Specularity Fade - Specular effects are when objects shine depending on the light being cast on them (armour on guards for example). This just determines how far this shiny-ness can be viewed away.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_11.html is a great read about what AA/AF is.

Just shows what resolutions are available for you to play at.

From the Fallout 3 TweakGuide: Radial Blur Quality: This setting controls the degree to which the 'radial blur' effect occurs, visible when you are hit in combat for example. An example of radial blur is provided in the screenshot above - the edges of the screen are blurred more than the center to simulate action and disorientation. The available options for this setting are High, Medium and Low, and in practice while altering the setting only lessens its visual effect slightly, it can improve performance, especially during combat. For those who dislike radial blur, or indeed the other blur effects particularly during combat, it appears you cannot disable them completely, even via advanced tweaking.


Amount of blood you want in the game.

It is is AA (Smoothes the edges) but it 'blurs' it, so it is a alternative to having smooth edges without loss of performance. personally, I do not like this setting as it makes things look blury in each frame but thats just me, so check it out if you like it.

How far you can see 'light'. For example, how far you would see light shining off water or armor in a distance.

Shadows in this game are...a complicated sort. I have it at low and it gives me a good boost in performance. Everyone has preferences so spend a hour or two fiddling with those settings.

1.9 can be overcolcked to 2.6 (and i got 4 cores so is that not like haveing 10.4 GHz?)

No. Skyrim uses 2 cores at best. And multiplying cores by clock speed isn't how it works

I can run startcraft 2 on ultra with no lag. (How is this weak?) (not mad just asking)

so then what ? 3.8 GHz?

I doubt that you get above 20FPS and Starcraft is more CPU heavy. Just set your settings to high and turn off AA, then who knows? Maybe play some Skyrim?

Amount of time people spend on the forums worrying about what settings are best for them, may as well just play.

No lol. Considering it's a Notebook CPU it's slower per clock, it's about half the speed as a i7 Desktop processor at the same clock speed.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=AMD+A8-3530MX+APU+with+Radeon+HD+Graphics

Well to give you an idea, most gamers here have quad-core CPUs that are anywhere from 50–70% faster than yours at both stock or overclocked speeds (2.9–4.5 Ghz). This is not mentioning stuff like cache and so on, which is why laptops have always been poor choices for gaming.

The fact that it's a notebook processor does NOT mean it's slower per clock. I have an aging laptop that's great for gaming.

I'm running Skyrim at 40 fps outdoors, 60 fps in dungeons. I've had no crashes at all other than when I use alchemy.

Dell XPS 1730M
Core 2 Extreme 2.8, overclocked to 3.0 ghz (can reach 3.8 stable but the fan gets too loud)
2x GeForce 8800 GTX w/SLI
4 GB ram
OCZ SSD
1080p display, 17"
Windows 7 64 bit


I also have a second laptop similar to the OP's:

Gateway NV75S02u
A8-3500M Llano quad-core APU 1.5 ghz, turbo to 2.3 ghz
Radeon 6620 - This is part of the APU and has roughly the performance of a HD 5570
1680x res 17" display
4 GB RAM

Seagate hybrid HDD

This laptop plays Skyrim surprisingly well. 28 FPS in battles outdoors, 35 fps just traveling, 40 fps in dungeons. Med/High settings. Shadows at medium. Turbo mode in the APU kicks in when just 1 or 2 cores are being used, which is perfect for Skyrim.

One more Q what dose tdt do? dose it show fps?