I've got rid of SOME of the flickering lighting, but its still mainly there But the game runs a lil better

FXAA improves my performance and makes the game look better. I love it.

OH MY GOD I cannot believe how simple this tweak was I had 8AA before and it was laggy as hell even if I went to 4AA on my GTX 580 but with just FXAA its so smooth and looks exactly the same lol

FXAA *is* a kind of (fake) FSAA. Using some form of Multisample or Supersample AA together with FXAA is pointless and redundant. This is obvious. FXAA is more efficient than 2X MSAA but looks nearly as good as 4x MSAA. Unlike MSAA, it also anti-aliases alpha-textures like tree leaves and grass.

I still get some mouse lag, especially indoors where the framerate is higher, for some reason. There's actually *less* lag where the frame rate is higher.

This by the way also fixes the texture/decal pop-in problem on some AMD cards.

Thank you for mentioning that! I was having the same problem. Fixed it right up!

I don't run AA or FXAA at all, jaggies don't bother me. I just run 16xAF

You know, I've always been an "AA purist", trying to push it to 8x or even 16x (I hate jaggies) in every game I play, but I must say that I find FXAA a more than acceptable compromise: I'm also using it in Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

This actually helped me with my Micro stuttering problem. And I can't se any visual difference either adn now i got 70 fps on Ultra.

FXAA does look better if you use it in conjunction with MXAA, though. I can run 8x MXAA just fine — everything looks sharp, except for the foliage that uses transparent textures. Turning FXAA on softens everything and smooths out the foliage, and that's on top of the MXAA, which is also still in effect. I don't know of any image upload service that allows me to upload 6 MB lossless images, else I'd upload screen shots to show you guys.

There's a way to test, though. Turn off MXAA, turn on FXAA, then look at some stairs in the distance and walk around a bit. You'll see the stairs flickering as such things tend to do without MXAA. Now turn on 8x MXAA as well, and the stairs will no longer flicker.

TL;DR: If your machine can handle it, you can use MXAA and FXAA together and the effects stack. You get the benefits of both.

What looks better, the regular aa or FXAA?

Regular AA, FXAA = blurry textures.

GTX 460
WOW! This gave me a (slight) boost in performance AND improved image quality.


Edit - This fixes a lot of the 'sparkling' problems I was having in game too!

Personally I don't quite see why everyone seems to like FXAA so much (in any game, not just Skyrim). To me, 4X MSAA looks better, and gives me almost the same performance (on my radeon 5850 at least). Sure it doesn't smooth out transparent textures, but it still does a better job for everything else. Things like rocks, small objects and stairs are typically left out by FXAA. Then there's the fact that it makes everything blurrier. It just looks "cleaner" with MSAA for me.

I'd say softer, not blurrier. It looks perfectly fine, at least it does if you also have 8x MXAA enabled.

And here's the thing: If you just use MXAA 8x, everything will be sharp... except for bushes and such, which will be completely jaggy and look like they came from a PS2 game. Very jarring. If you don't use FXAA to correct this, your only other option is TrSAA (transparency multisampling), which can be enabled in your GPU control panel or the SkyrimPrefs.ini (I think).

Problem with that is, TrSAA causes a HUGE performance hit.

It's a waste of space yet it has helped a lot of people? Are you sure your comment isn't a waste of space to this thread?

MDLAA is the best antialiasing i ever used , performance wise. it 's inside OBGE V3 shader pack. when i will buy skyrim , i'm sure bug , most of them ,will be gone , unofficial patch released, and SKYGE will be ready . FXAA make texture blurry. far more than MDLAA. you should use a sharper filter (light) to compensate the degradation

ummm. Your 580 must be defective or something i am running with shadow tweaks and lod distance increase tweaks on all ultra and getting 60 fps constant on 570 SC. Or if you mean laggy by stutters then its hard disk access.

Makes stuff blurry by a lot. You can see it right a way after loading.

And how do I turn on MXAA?

FXAA is part of Skyrim in the advanced section of the launcher. Many of you know that, but some here seem like they don't and are confusing it with other AA settings in their driver control panel.

If you using any form of AA and have FXAA checkmarked, don't. Disable AA just as OP is recommending. For example, if you have 8xAA and FXAA checkmarked, it looks the same as having no AA and FXAA checkmarked. The difference is for those having performance issues, you will gain about 8 frames per second.

FXAA introduces a slight blur and not everybody is a fan of it. As a nice side effect it smooths out the transparencies so it kind of evens itself out. With AA disabled, FXAA will still smooth the jaggies. I usually run 4xAA in 1920x1080 for most of my games and Disabling AA, Enabling FXAA looks the same as 4xAA. If you have no performance issues and a powerful video card, don't use FXAA, use your driver's control panel for transparency AA. With most of my games, MSAA at 4x usually doesn't impact performance. It does for Skyrim.

If you have performance issues, turn off AA and enable FXAA like OP is suggesting. You will not have jaggies, it will look like MSAA at 4x. You will gain a boost in fps. If you are already using FXAA and normal AA methods, turn off AA if you have fps issues because it's a waste. Try it out

FXAA is usually nicer than no AA at all.


But in all seriousness, 2xSSAA > FXAA. Until AMD releases their fecking crossfire profile for Skyrim I am forced to play on 2x SSAA instead of 4 x SSAA.


Seriously, SSAA is the way to go. IF you have spare graphics power, FFS ENABLE SSAA. 2xSSAA > 8xMSAA + FXAA. srsly.

It's not a waste, saved infront of a stair and when i turned AA off and FXAA on, it was pretty jagged, when i had FXAA and 4x AA on it looked better. I can prt screen it. Where does the Screenshots get saved?

2xSSAA will still give you a better image.

Where does the screen shots get's saved?