Depth-mapped shadows can do small-scale if you work with the shadow cams. There's no reason to use AO just because you have DM shadows. I wrote about this years ago - the No Nostril Glow thread.

If you like the speed and control and quality of soft DM shadows over RT shadows - use them.

By the way, AO is just as grainy as blurred RT shadows if you set the samples to the same level as is used for RT shadows - it uses the same mechanism. But RT shadows don't let us adjust number of samples, whereas with AO you can, and that's how you get rid of AO grain - more samples.

And I don't think blurred RT shadows are that bad. Have you experimented with shading rate? The shading rate of the surface receiving the shadow will influence the number of samples used to generate the directional shadow.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)