Nvidia says that for specific titles like Skyrim and Battlefield 3, Ambient Occlusion can be enabled this the new beta drivers on a per-game basis under the Nvidia control panel "Program Settings" tab (as opposed to the "Global Settings" tab). However, when I try this it says that Ambient Occlusion is not available.

What graphics card do you have?

I have the GTX 570.

I've the GTX 560 and its greyed out to. Have you downloaded Nvidia Inspector? You can enable AO for Skyrim and it works like a charm:


http://www.techspot.com/downloadget.php?id=5077&file=1&evp=8f5198313ef42ef50e0842a19955b609

Also running the gtx 570 and the option works as stated on the invidia page.

Id try doing a manual uninstall of your Nvidia drivers, then reinstalling, good luck

wut? 570 here too and no option to enable ao

Girlyman is probably right. I just remembered that I chose the option to keep my old settings from my previous install, so maybe that is keeping it from recognizing Skyrim's Ambient Occlusion compatability. Oh well, at this point I'll just continue using the Global Settings to enable it.

If you have a pirated version it won't recognize the .exe

Owned.

WOW really.....

You do realize that IF one fixes their game, (cause Beth BROKE it) that it is ALSO not recognized?? LLA...4gig launcher!!

Edit: sorry...back on topic...I did a manual install last night. Totally cleaned out drivers took 4 restarts., I am using a modified driver still (Xtream-G) and that version is now 285.79 and on the "Global" tab showed greyed out . But on the "program settings" drop down Skyrim is listed for me and the option is there. Off>Performance>quality are the Choices.

You could also use Nvidia inspector. I was using that since launch Day!

Actually, there is an issue with the drivers that does not allow them to detect installed apps.
There are two solutions for this:
1, It can be worked around by creating a shortcut to TESV.exe on the desktop.
2, If you uncheck the 'show only programs installed on my computer' in the nVidia control panel, select Skyrim and make the settings, they get applied fine when you launch the game.

Oh, and AO even works with the LAA launcher.

I for one however don't really like the result, as you can see the AO shadows even when the objects themselves are obscured by fog, like in mines or underwater... highly unrealistic. Better to stick with tree and land self-shadow setting.

i had this and had to uncheck the show only installed programs box.

it was only listing about 10 things, and ive got dozens of games installed from steam, origin and stuff from gog.com etc

Tried the ambient occlusion and did not care for the result. I did modify the anisotropic filter to 16 and it seems sharper than the in-game setting of 16. Also set AA-tranparency to multisampling and turned on triple buffering in attempt to reduce shadow jaggies and smooth the game up. Have the in game shadows to medium and eveything else on ultra. Anything higher and I get micro stutter and/or CTD. Shadows in this game are FUBAR.