Perfect representation of my problem across various games. Inb4 "AA will fix this". Pro tip, it won't without pushing it to 8x/8x/2x DSR. Much more than what was and or should be required.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn-DqpcMcCU
Hello and good day, my friends. I am cross posting this in order to see if anyone can come to (or close to) a conclusion on a wide-spread issue many gamers are experiencing across a variety of titles. Please read carefully; I apologize if this is amateur sounding, poorly worded or in the incorrect subreddit. Any help is appreciated but it is paramount the information within is read to avoid redundant conversation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlg4C0_3fUM
This is a small example, but it is not limited to textures like this. This problem is not limited to Skyrim but effects it in a very pronounced way. It includes all textures in the game near or far, ground, trees, weapons, mountains, grass, clouds, building textures, pixels in general. It is not a sharpness issue as it persists beneath blurring, so FXAA brute force yields no true result other than poorly masking the issue which is clearly visible, as is the case with forced techniques via inspector. The best managable results I have achieved are 4x NCP aliasing, and 4x in game aliasing at 2x DSR. I am sure people with better CPU's than me (FX 8350) could obtain 8x/8x/4x dsr and see quality but that's pushing the limit for many people who otherwise were previously fine. Many people are also likely unaware this problem exists because they were introduced to it as "normal".
Please read below before commenting that this is normal, aliasing, or about deferred rendering. We know it is not normal, we know it is aliasing, we know about deferred rendering, so please read carefully.
This is a long post but filled with vital information that may help someone narrow it down: Firstly, I do not have a fix. I am working on it. Secondly I want to make it clear to people posting who suggest this is normal; it is not. Yes, it appears to be an Aliasing or Filtering issue. I do not believe it is Z-fighting/buffering. My old GTX 970 worked beautifully. Crystal clear, 0 aliasing with 2x DSR on a low res monitor. I then swapped to a 1070 and received this issue, like most people, on ALL of their games. Most of the other games (the lists are long) are more or less solvable via DSR (which should not be required to achieve an appealing level of smoothness/lack of jaggies and shimmering). Yes, we are aware of TAA/TXAA addressing temporal aliasing, but unfortunately it does not exist in most games. Again, it isn't a matter of "the game should look like that" because there is a clear difference in what once was and what now is. This is not hundreds + people hyper focusing, we've all been triggered by the sudden change, some people without changing hardware or drivers at all. I am sure we have all cleaned our drivers with DDU and reinstalled and backrolled. I am sure we've all tested different cables and I've personally tested various monitors. Even with DSR, 8x NCP aliasing, 8x in game aliasing and Nvidia inspector, etc, the problem persists although it is nearly rectified.
The real issue here is that it did not PREVIOUSLY take THIS much effort to smooth out Skyrim and many people also do NOT have this problem to date. There are other theories, less likely, about ENB needing to be cleanly removed (some people don't use it at all, of course) and about electrical issues stemming from the home or PSU (neither of which are my problem). My old 970 is now in the hands of my girlfriend who has 0 issues. The one piece of evidence I have that confuses me is my 55" TV shows no signs of this problem where as my old 720p and my current 144hz 1080p monitors DO. The only single change for me was the GPU. We've also attempted various NCP settings and ensuring we've tried 3d app, forced settings, quality settings, etc.. I have a feeling it may yet be driver related, perhaps something back door in some update that is component related but it seems next to impossible for us to track down a relative cause between all the people having this issue... To me this says there are multiple possibilities effecting people in a variety of ways, but it burns down to the architecture and component communication between GPU, mobo and CPU.
The only people I see that have been able to fix this issue are people who have constructed entirely new rigs. This problem persists for many people even years later and we are still unable to pinpoint what the exact issue is, but it is not solely related to Skyrim as it effects a variety of games as well. It is not about deferred rendering, as in the past it worked perfectly fine for many of us. It is not a specific GPU as many people express it happens with 970's and WELL below, as well as all members of the 1k series as well as AMD products as well. I am sorry I don't have a fix, but this is all vital information in the movement to resolve this issue.
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