3ds Max 2011 - get smooth lighting with MR

[rockyourteeth]

I'm trying to do some realistic renders of a room. I'm using MR sky and MR sun, with MR sky portals in the 3 windows, and no other lights.

I don't have as good of an understanding as I'd like of how MR works intricately. As you can see in the below images, I'm getting all of these weird circles. I don't think I have Global Illumination turned on, and I've got Final Gather set to "low", with 2 max bounces.

I use similar settings on other scenes with free and direct lights all the time, and they look fine. I'm sure I could just boost the FG dial, but that just seems like a cheap solution, and i'd rather learn more about the "why" than just covering it up.

How can I smooth this out?

(thanks!)

[rocneasta]

getting this value up always helped me get rid of the weird shadow effect that occurs, plus check mr Sky portal shadow samples, default is 16