So I've been noticing that only small trees are swaying any in this game. I'm wondering why any tree taller than me isn't moving at all, and is just....still, yet that shrub that shouldn't move at all is swaying. Anyone know why or know of a fix?

Might not be the right sub-forum for that one - most of the questions in here are about the game running like crap... I'd love to notice trees not swaying if the game would run reliably for 15 mins

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/457762-trees-not-swaying-on-ati-cards/

Thank you for pointing this out, hopefully bethesda fixes the issue soon so that we don't need to worry about a workaround.

Are you talking about the far distance or up close? As up close trees and bushes are moving/swaying fine for me (HD 5870 Toxic 2GB)

You mean the tree branches right? Not the trees themselves?

Yeah I meant the close up ones, turning on object distance fade seems to have fixed the problem though, hopefully we can still get a patch that keeps the trees moving no matter what is going on settings or game wise, it's a huge immersion breaker to see no movement in nature.

Here's your FIX

Put this under [Trees] in your SkyrimPrefs.ini
bForceFullDetail=1
bEnableTreeAnimations=1
bEnableTrees=1

Enjoy

I will also add these options to the http://donotargue.com/cfg-makers/skyrim/

Have added the above lines to skyrimprefs but still not tree sway. Any ideas? Now I've noticed it it's bugging the hell out of me.

Not sure about this, but for anyone having incredibly choppy bush and shrub swaying animations...the trick for me was to just turn down the shadow quality to High. This could be a no-brainer, but just thought I'd put this out there.

They dont sway cause the consoles dont have the power to cope with that.

Unlike BF3, in real life, tree's that are 2-5 feet in trunk diameter don't sway unless their in a hurricane force wind.

Dude that page is great, promote that some more, try Reddit /r/gaming or /r/skyrim

Care to elaborate on this or even better, post evidence?

Uhh never used Reddit up till today, still don't fully understand what it's all about and it comes across as a very cluttered website to me?

Anyhow the Skyrim CFG maker has been updated several times already hope you have the Trees working?

Oh just shuttup.

I had this issue with my Nvidia GTX 570 and Radeon 6870, and my cousin also had it with his Radeon 5830. I was messing around with different .dll files one day for performance imrpovements on my GTX 570 computer, and noticed the trees had started swaying, so I went and checked what was different from the GTX 570 machine and my 6870 machine. I noticed in the Skyrimprefs.ini file, fTreesMidLODSwitchDist was set to 0 by default(even when I had selected ultra), but one of the .dlls made a config that had set it to like 4000 or something. Right now I have fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=12000 which is a good spot for my system. The higher the value, the further away the trees sway. Try it, hopefully it fixes your issue

Just to add my two-penneth, my CPU is a 2700k Sandybridge, and my fps remains a consistent 60+. Yet the trees in Riften still don't animate. I wouldn't have thought my processor really needed a helping hand and the game is still making the forests look stiff and lifeless. Good job...

Go into Skyrim.ini and add the lines

[Trees]
bEnableTreeAnimations=1

I'll try it, thanks. And fyi, my fTreesMidLODSwitchDist is currently set to 14000, so that's not it...

Is worth mentioning that trees don't animate if your FPS is below 30. It's to save performance.
So if you have below 30 FPS your trees will never sway.

I already said, my fps is a constant 60+. And none of the trees sway, even with the suggested fixes. They used to though, when I first played, and turning settings down doesn't make a difference. So what's up with that?

Edit: And I upgraded my system, so I have more juice than I used to, not less! It doesn't make sense.

SkyrimPrefs.ini

fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=10000000.0000

That should fix it. I assume yours is set to 0?

Edit: You already said that. I'm sure that is the line. I'm very sure. It can't be anything else really. That worked for me all the time.

If you haven't tried already, you should delete your .ini and temporarly untick all esps (you could start a new save game to try it out without any esps at all) and let the game regenerate a new vanilla .ini for you. If trees sway then, then there is a problem with your .ini or mods, which is actually most often the problem.

If that doesn't work, then it could be a new, messy Skyrim update, or your drivers. Try update your video drivers if you haven't already (I've heard it solving pretty strange problems for some).