So I have Windows 7 - i7 @2.80GHz - 8GB ram - Nvidia gtx 560 ti . I am running Vista Optimizer, Game Booster, acceleration layer, and I have Skyrim HD lite. I have 4X AA active in the Skyrim options with anisotrpic filtering turned off. In the Nvidia Inspector I have AASS set to 2X Supersampling and anisotropic filtering to 4X. Ambient Occlusion is disabled. With these settings, I am barely getting 40 FPS. I feel like I should be able to do better than that. I would love to get this game looking fairly nice and still get 60 FPS. I thought I had a pretty decent rig, but maybe it's just not capable of that?

Any suggestions?

You don't need to turn AF off or down, just keep it at x16. It depends where you are and what resolution you're running. If I was you i'd wait for the 1.4 patch.

Also, I think if you really want to make use of your i7, you need a 570/580.

So AF doesn't really effect performance that much I take it?

What version of Skyrim are you running? Because with V1.4 you don't need AL or Skyboost as its now built in and makes a big difference.

No, no now days with modern cards.

Couple of things not mentioned that could have big performance impacts:

- shadow settings (be specific)
- that i7 has some OC room...have you tried that before?
- what fov?
- monitor size and resolution?

EDIT: also, what nvidia driver version are you using?

Hmmm but isn't the new patch having issues with AA?

Not in general, although in some special instances, maybe - I can't run CSAA in 1.4 for example, but that not everyone else having this - otherwise AA working as it was in 1.3.10

Couple of things not mentioned that could have big performance impacts:

- shadow settings (be specific)
- that i7 has some OC room...have you tried that before?
- what fov?
- monitor size and resolution?

EDIT: also, what nvidia driver version are you using?

My fov is about 77... I am playing on a Samsung 50 in plasma at 1080..

my shadow settings in skyrimprefs are as follows:


iBlurDeferredShadowMask=3
fInteriorShadowDistance=3000.0000
fShadowDistance=4000.0000
iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=2048
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048
iShadowSplitCount=2


iShadowMapResolution=2048
fShadowBiasScale=0.2500
iShadowMaskQuarter=4

Oh and I have an HP desktop computer which apparently they make it very difficult to OC the CPU.. I might look into it a bit more though..

Oh and thanks for the help by the way.. Much appreciated

ok, well this is explaining it:

- samsung 50" plasma as monitor...that taxes your gpu...most running on 22" or thereabouts...I don't have hard numbers at hand, but your AA settings (particularly that SSAAx2 transparency) plus this monitor size is costing you
- fShadowDistance=4000.0000...knock that down to 1500...4000 is overkill for the performance hit (which is significant)
- iShadowMaskQuarter=4 ....try 3...skyrim shadows are crap anyways, might as well dial down the crap

No problems with AA for me personally but apparently there have been a few reported cases. I do get the weird sound when accessing the map screen! Anyway, just try it and if it makes your game worse, you can just opt out and revert back to 1.3.10.

Don't think screen size makes any difference, only the resolution.

yes good eye...I just noticed that his res was still 1080, so no difference (I think)...although the game would look better on a smaller monitor at that res....

Awesome thanks guys. You have been most helpful.

I will give the new patch a shot. Also, in case any of you have a nvidia card like mine, do I need to be turning on AA in the Skyrim options? Should stuff like that be forced on in my card settings instead? I have my SS at 4X but there are other options for AA in the same panel. I am not an expert when it comes to stuff like this so I am not sure if there are settings that I could change in Nvidia Inspector that would work better than the AA settings in the Skyrim options.

lol, screen size has nothing to do with performance, only the resolution it's using.

My experience (but some people have seen otherwise) is that with nvidia you can't externally force AA on the game when AA has been turned off altogether in-game. Therefore, I apply 2xAA in-game, then play in Inspector. 8xCSAA was good...better than 4xMSAA at same cost...but is busted for me in 1.4.

Realise that for transparency, SSAA comes at a pretty nasty performance cost. Anything more than 2x is expensive, and I'd not use it at all unless you can see the difference during game-play (for most part only visible in screenshots).




Ya we saw that part already...I thought he had cranked his res to go with that 50" plasma

Good to know. Thanks again.

Personal experience: AA through either the skyrim settings or through the Nvidia side at 2x and 4x have an almost negligable impact on performance but increasingly significant cost of vram (depending on the kind if you're setting it with Nvidia Inspector), at 8x it hurts me pretty badly on both fronts at full triple resolution. Meanwhile very recently I started looking into the SMAA D3D injector, its based on the same sort of stuff as the FXAA injectors and EMB series stuff and one of those universal Direct9 post processing methods. From tinkering with it to integrate it into an existing ENB setup I've been using with great results and very importantly once you've got it figured out with say the ENB engine or even on its own you can in-game toggle its influence on and off to watch performance and visual impact which was invaluable in concluding that this thing rocks compared to either engine or driver based AA methods.

Here's a link to that injector:
http://mrhaandi.blogspot.com/p/injectsmaa.html

Again, it took some fiddling to integrate it into my existing ENB modding efforts but its very easy to try out as a stand-alone post processor and you'll likely agree as I do that this thing is fantastic. I still only run it at 'high' (which I'm pretty sure is its equiv of 4x) as I can't visually see the difference between that and its 'ultra' (again I think that would be its 8x) but when I watch the FPS and the vram consumed its far less then the traditional methods. Huge bonus points for this being one of those 'universal' injector things you can drop into any directx game and use it on the spot.

Word of advice: The logo right on the main menu is an excellent demo of it to toggle it on and off and watch its edges clean up or jaggie out accordingly.

At 1080p, you can probably not tell a difference between 8x and 16x AF, I challenge you to see a difference in any screenshot.

Be reasonable. Put it on 8xAF, 2xAA (or alternatively, FXAA), shadow distance set to reasonable levels, and if you use ambient occlusion, use the performance option (nvidia)

Game should look amazing, and run like a dream. There's no reason you shouldn't be getting 60FPS almost everywhere, with Skyrim 1.4. Your computer is better than mine, and I get upwards of 60FPS everywhere.

2xAA is pretty great at 1080p. If your performance is great with this, you can try more. I personally don't use any AA, because I prefer FPS instead.

You can tell the difference between AF x8 and 16 and you won't notice any frame-rate hit. PC isn't an console you know where AF limitation is x4 for performance reasons.

Just as a note, I'm currently playing on a Phenom II x3 720 OCed to 3.2GHz and a GTX 560 Ti. Everything's maxed except shadows (as I see no difference between high and ultra, and a few extra frames are always welcome), 4x AA, Supersampling Transparency AA, 16x AF at 1080p, and I get 60fps in the wilderness and 35-60fps in cities.

I hope this doesn't come off wrong, but can you prove those statements?

I've never been able to tell a difference, comparing screenshots side by side, and performance is dependent on hardware. A 560ti has good memory bandwidth, but still. AF uses a lot of RAM, but not as much as AA.
It's not worth it to me to have 10 more little tiny pixels more accurately placed, at the cost of 2x the memory.

It's common knowledge that AF doesn't affect performance much at all on modern hardware, so unless you have a 7 series NVIDIA card, it's not an issue. AF doesn't use a lot of VRAM and it's the least thing you should be worrying about then it comes to the list of things that impact on performance.

Also AA uses a ton more memory bandwidth than AF, what are you talking about?

I don't think any of that is true, except for the last statement you added. EDIT: I also have the 460GTX. What exactly is your average FPS difference for 8xAF and 16xAF?Jesus christ how do you work this editor