Okay, was happliy running the 1.6 beta and was feeling sorry for all those who complained about terrible shadow problems. I myself had the annoying "strobe-lines" in outdoor areas, but the ini tweaks to "fSunUpdate...whatever" basically took care of that. And I felt great pity for those who had a problem with shadows on character bodies. My character shadows were nice: crisp, clear, no real popcorn or strobe-line effect. I was happy. Well-satisfied. All was good.

Then, I update my game to 1.6 official.

W. T. F. ?.

Shadows are now an utter mess. The strobing and appearence of diagonal lines in outdoor areas is atrocious! And character shadows are simply haphazard blocks of popcorn darkness that flicker on my character like a disco ball while I'm standing still. If I, oh, I don't know, turn or something, I get a hideous, migraine-inducing strobe effect that is only magnified if I should have the audacity to actually attempt walking in 3rd-person.

Needless to say, I disabled all shadows and am playing that way with a fixed frown on my face.

Does anyone know what changed? I've tried renewing the ini, performing the usual tweaks (shadow resolution, distance, etc.) and nothing works. I'm assuming that the shaders were updated, so if anyone knows how to roll back to an earlier shader package, that would be great.

ASUS G73S (New Revision)
GeForce GTX 460m (296.10 drivers)
8 Gigs RAM
WIn 7 64-bit
Skyrim at Ultra settings (Shadows High)