[quote='techangel85' pid='16159' dateline='1354686195']
[quote='stoppingby4now' pid='16155' dateline='1354683648']
[quote='z929669' pid='16149' dateline='1354674823']
[quote='stoppingby4now' pid='16148' dateline='1354671155']
[quote name=''z929669' pid='16102' dateline='1354578917']For the record' date=' any final frame rate consistently above 20 FPS (in all situations) is acceptable. Few people using Baseline
STEP with any ENB will consistently get over 32 FPS.[/quote']
Have to chime in, because this is purely subjective. I personally can't stand anything close to 20FPS.[/quote]
well, you are spoiled with that uber card of yours on that ivy bridge chip :P Clearly, you did not play a heavily modded TES3-4, where you were happy to get over 20 FPS

[/quote]
I only played Oblivion for a bit, but didn't even know about the modding scene at the time, so no I didn't. But I have played plenty of other games that were mod-able, and managed to stay above. I never go with the expensive latest cards, but always managed to upgrade during the first major price drop of the next best thing after the new stuff comes out, so that has always helped. But I still guarantee that if I were modding and I was getting close to 20 FPS consistently (occasional drops can be OK such as transitioning to new areas), I would start reversing things to get it back up.
[quote]
[quote='stoppingby4now' pid='16148' dateline='1354671155']
[quote]AA and AF are definitely redundant if using most ENB, and this saves a good amount of FPS. I don't even find that SMAA has a noticeable effect on top of ENB (but it doesn't hurt to use it anyway).
I would like to test loswering texture and shadows in Skyrim Options as well to see if any gain can be reclaimed. I suspect that ENB can significantly reduce the need for these performance killers.[/quote]
The first sentence above comes across a bit misleading, so just adding this to avoid confusion. If using only ENB, AA and AF are very much beneficial. If using something like SMAA, then AA is not needed. But even if using SMAA, AF should still be beneficial.[/quote]
Well, the difference is very VERY subtle then, as I can hardly notice any difference with SkyRealism Cinematic with/without SMAA, AA or AF. The smoothing of the ENB takes care of much of this all by itself (high monitor res also helps). Following are 1)
SRO + Vurts without ENB and 2) with ENB, then 3) without ENB but with 4/16 AA/AF via Skyrim options (in that order). If you blow up the images, you will see just how effective ENB is at smoothing edges (presumably via bloom/SSAO). Not perfect, but you will hardly notice in game at high res (accept where you have a lot of light and straight edges, but ENB drastically reduces this):



Note the FPS hit imposed by AA/AF and imagine the cumulative effect with ENB (and I am running CrossfireX on HD 6850s)[/quote]
ENB does not apply any kind of AA, and there are some "side affects" with ENB shadows seemingly smoothing, but it's just a trick. Further more, those screenshots are not going to provide you with any great examples as the majority of the scene would require TxAA. However, when you look at the rocks and even portions of the fallen tree on the right side, edges are clearly better with 4X AA. The difference will be even more noticeable when the scene is in motion. Check the outside of Whiterun where you have the walls, buildings, and bars in windows for a better compare.
Obviously the video card(s) that folks have will affect whether or not they can use AA, but to claim that it does no good when using ENB is just plain false.[/quote]
I have to agree from experience with all my testing. ENB and bloom doesn't do anything for AA unless you're using FXAA. FXAA isn't as big as an impact as regular AA and it does clean things up a big. RCRN's FXAA is actually not bad and cleaned up a little of the AA on straight lines with no performance impact at all (it's not perfect but it's better than nothing). I've never used SMAA to compare. As for AF, I find it most noticeable around water and and shadows.
Bloom...let me just say I dislike it. It hazes the graphics which might look pretty at times but it's unnatural to me. When I take a stroll outside, I never walk around in a haze...unless isn't allergy season. This is why I prefer to disable it.[/quote]
Good thing to point out, bloom (and DoF at least for blurred objects) will also affect what folks will perceive in terms of needing AA or not. I like them both, but only in small amounts. If it's too strong, I disable it (at least until I learn to adjust them myself). You should definitely try out SMAA. In several regards, it does a better job and produces less texture shimmer. It's not perfect either, as no "fast" AA filter will be, but I found it to be better than FXAA personally. You are still going to get some texture shimmer and aliasing that are noticeable with either one.
You should also go
here and download the movie there. It provides comparisons with FXAA, various levels of SMAA, and SSAA. I personally use MSAA 2X/SGSSAA 2X and the scenes are phenomenal. Still get some slight aliasing on certain objects, but they aren't bad and only really noticeable when I'm looking for them. I just can't stand texture shimmer, which FXAA is the worst at accentuating.