Why is it whether I turn on AA through the game settings of Skyrim or force it through CCC, the game grinds to a halt? It goes from 50 FPS to 15 FPS for 2x AA. I am using the 11.12 drivers with CAP1. Currently, I am only using FXAA, which by itself does a pretty good job getting rid of the jaggies, but I can still see some and would therefore like to have AA 2x without loosing 30-35 FPS. My card should be able to handle this! Any ideas why this is happening?
I'm going to download the previous drivers and see if anything changes. Norezar, what is MSAA? How do I enable it?
Oh, I found what MSAA is. I have the adaptive multi-sample. What is the difference or is there none? [tested] switching from adaptive MSAA to normal MSAA made no difference.
Something to do with some transparency nonsense, pretty minimal from MSAA and Adaptive on image quality - Adaptive is a far larger performance hit on Skyrim at least, though. (Some do better with other modes, MSAA, Adaptive, Supersampling) Make sure you don't have the SMOOTHVISION HD:Anti-Aliasing Filter set on "Edge Detect" - it'll kick your GPU in the balls. You can also turn Skyrim's built in AA off all the way, and force it thru CCC - it'll probably be a FPS hit though, unless you use "BOX" Filter or "Wide Tent." (I have a similar card.)
Use SMAA (injector) over FXAA (ingame?) and also use the Enchanced HD shaders mod (they also have some post processing going on) and its noticeably better. I think 2x AA looks too "fuzzy" and I guess obviously enhanced anyhow. With Cat 12.1 Preview, SMAA on Ultra, HD Shaders, about 7HD texture packs loaded and the 4GB mod Im getting no more stuttering on turning and near consistant 60fps outside of major cities, which is more a CPU load (still getting 40fps'ish there). When I did use 2x AA on my 5970 even using one GPU (pre-crossfire driver) it wasnt running at 15fps anyhow so something else is wrong there.
I use 4X AA and 2 X AF in Skyrim with no problem. My Vision center is set to use application settings with box as the AA mode. I tried the game using FXAA and it was just too blurry and didn't perform any better. It runs the same on both the 11.11 and 11.12 WHQL drivers. Tried the 4gb mod and it did nothing so I deleted it. On this laptop I get 25-30 fps in most of the world and cities, 35-50 inside dungeons.
If you dont get random Crash to Desktops and "Purple textures" and are not using any HD mods, then I guess you dont need the LAA mod. I said wasnt running at 15fps, it was basically fine, just not as good as a fully enabled 5970.
An 8800+ is enough for Skyrim, it's not your GPU but a configuration problem. Shadows, AA, can all do wierd things and Skyrim is heavily tied to CPU performance. (A great deal more so than GPU)
