I've been fiddling with a number of mods and settings that are meant to improve/alter the textures/lighting in Skyrim. Just for reference, my system specs are an i5 2500k, 8gb DD3 @1600, 7200rpm HD, and a PCI-Express 2.0 GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2gb DDR5 with 1080p LED. Consequently, I expect good performance even at the highest quality and haven't experienced any lag yet regardless of what I add/tweak. Furthermore, I use 2k HD textures as well. The problem I'm having is that I just don't see that much of a difference when making most changes. I can say that all the ENB mods I've used have caused things to blur and distort at random (especially noticable on the load screen). However, I've also toyed with the in-game AA, in-game FXAA, nVidia Ambient Occlusion, nVidia AA override up to 32xCSAA, as well as mod based FXAA. Except when turning almost everything off, I don't notice that much of a difference when enabling/disabling, adding/removing these features. I saw a much bigger difference when altering these settings prior to installing 2k HD textures, but it was never extraordinary. Don't get me wrong, I do see some difference, but it just doesn't seem to be as pronounced as I've seen others suggest it should be.

So, my question to you is, of those of you with similar configurations, how much of an impact do you notice when using various combinations of these settings? Can you see the difference? Does it really have that big of an effect as far as you can tell?

Well, yes, but each person's system and subjective perceptions are different, of course. You can also see screenshots people have uploaded to places such as TESNexus or videos on YouTube and elsewhere.

That's my experience, anyway.

Hell yeah there's a difference, just check the comparison screenshots posted on the TweakGuides skyrim article.

Some of them make very little difference... some make massive differences..

But this is very subjective and is VERY dependant on the circumstances.... for example your monitor... size.... quality and distance sitting from it.

Someone gaming on a 20" 1080p monitor for example would see significantly less of a change in lets say FSAA settings then someone playing at 1080p on a 27".. sitting the same distance away, as the 27" pixels would be consideralby larger... just like a higher FSAA would be even MORE noticeable on a 55" 1080p tv sitting either nearly the same distance or just a bit further back due to the pixel size.

this is why i find it funny that some people insist on using crazy FSAA values on high density monitors... it's unnecessary in most cases.

Different modes of FSAA for example effect things differently, higher FSAA may not necessarily clearly effect forground objects.. but they do have a tendency to significantly improve background or distant ones. Lets take skyrim's grass or foilage/trees... stuff up close doesn't show major benefits of FSAA being used, where as if you pay attention to stuff that is considerably further away, the higher values REALLY start to make them look very good, even recognizeable without all the pixely goopy garbage appearance that lower or no fsaa would.

FXAA i think is just bleh... people insist on using injectors and such.... and having tried them all.. while some aspects such as lightning can make suttle or huge differences improving it overall... there are quite often massive negatives that follow... FXAA is essentially the poor mans FSAA.....i get almost a better result by disabling all filtering options completely and then running on MSAA at low quality (performance mode)

In the end it's really just your choice..... I personally just replace all the textures with high quality ones..... and then make sure i use the highest possible settings for level of detail...

Having posted screenshots.. i've had numerous people ask me what mods i'm running.... when i say just textures that's it... some have said ... no... can't be... mine doesn't look that good.

yeah the fxAA is terrible! turn that crap off and use SSAA, or the FSAA(assuming thats a gforce option?).

get your vanilla running how you want. the start adding the mods 1 by 1 and test each on as you go. you will see the differences(if any) and the performance cost.

I imagine that most of the settings available in the default game don't change the game experience that much once you reach a performance threshold that you're comfortable with. If you are actively playing the game, you're less likely to sit still and stare at things. The effort behind the visual overhaul of the game as seen in mods like ENB and its innumerable variants seems driven to cater to two different types of players - those that want to produce stunning screenshots without utilizing Photoshop and those that want an altogether different experience while playing the game. I enjoyed playing Skyrim without these mods (well, at least until Esbern's alternate voice actor spoke), but I can understand the desire to make Skyrim look more like a 2012 game than a 2004 (XBOX 360) game.

I can hardly get any quest done now! I literally just walk around and look at stuff.....I see ants on my trees stumps...ants!!