Just recently started playing Skyrim (like yesterday). Hardcopy of the game patched to v1.6 via Steam.
So far I'm very impressed with the game visuals. TBH I wasn't expecting my PC to run it so well:

Asus A8V-Deluxe Motherboard.
AMD 64/3800 x2 - 939
1.5GB RAM
ATI Radeon X1950 Pro/512MB AGP
Soundblaster Audigy 4
Windows XP SP3
Up to date DX9

Running the game (no mods) at 1280x1024 32bit, 4xAA with full HDR and in game settings set to high and getting some damn good frame rates (not sure how to get the exact number).

My video card drivers are a little old. I had issues running Fallout 3, Crysis, S.T.A.L.K.E.R and a few other games and was told to roll back to an earlier driver version (was told Catalyst? Version 07.11) was pretty solid across the board, so I'm running with that.

The issues that I'm running into are when looking around the landscape or in a town is that once my view stops panning left or right I notice the shadows on walls and rocks shimmer for a couple of seconds. Any reason why this should happen?
Also when exiting buildings, caves or mines I'll notice grey artifacts in the style of thin grey lines coming from the aiming curser. These will disappear if I do a 360deg turn.

Another issue is the overall volume of the sound. I've got the Windows volume maxed out, the in game volume is also maxed out, but I have to wind my speakers (Dell 2.1) right up. If I forget to reduce the speakers' volume and either shut down the PC or start another game I almost blow the windows out.

Any solutions to the above issues at all?
Any suggestions welcomed.