Best Water Mod?

[Endalrin]

W.A.T.E.R. | Pure Waters | Realistic Water Mod 2

Which ones do people like best and why?

[Ilja]

That 100% matter of opinion.

I personally favor W.A.T.E.R.
- Mod have extras that make lakes and seas much more alive, compared to other mods. This includes boats, vegetation at shores and waves - with Dragonborn support.
- Mod has support for Realistic Needs and Diseases that I still favor over other need mods.
- I really like the textures.

Other players have their own points of view. I have tested other mods. One of them allowed actually using wells with RND and that was a very nice feature. While my characters are mostly nomad, I still opted using Fountains of Skyrim and W.A.T.E.R. as my RND sources of water.

[Endalrin]

Yup. 100% opinion. I'm just looking to hear WHY people like this and that best so I can get some experienced opinions and see who likes what I like.
Nazenn said RW2 because of the waves.
which I am also itnerested in.
looking at a bit of gohper's stuff i think i'm favoring either WATER or RWM2

[messier11890]

I use Realistic Water Two + Watercolor for ENB patch. RW2 with the ENB patch is the best looking water IMO. Obviously you'll need an ENB for that though.

[Endalrin]

im new to modding so, ENB patch?

[messier11890]

Originally posted by 0perator 88:

im new to modding so, ENB patch?

You'll need an ENB. It's some sort of a graphics enhancer mod for Skyrim. And it will hit your performance depending on your system.

[Trehek]

WATER is the best looking overall. I did a Comparison Thread with screenshots a long time ago.

[Endalrin]

Hmmm, ya. I need to uh. Post my information. XD dont kow if I still have the boxes.
What exactly do I need to tell people?
thinking I should hold off on water mods for the moment. XD

[Trehek]

Originally posted by 0perator 88:

thinking I should hold off on water mods for the moment. XD

Nah, if you can't decide, just pick up Realistic Water 2 or W.A.T.E.R. Whichever you choose, you can't go wrong.

[Ilja]

Originally posted by Trehek:

Originally posted by 0perator 88:

thinking I should hold off on water mods for the moment. XD

Nah, if you can't decide, just pick up Realistic Water 2 or W.A.T.E.R. Whichever you choose, you can't go wrong.

Agreed. I think the difference between 2 main candidates comes down to this:
- Both mods have great textures. You could choose either one for that.
- If you want more life to your shores, pick W.A.T.E.R.
- If you want more variety to different water areas, pick Realistic Waters 2.

[Endalrin]

I think variety sounds good. Although i definetly like the ideas of waves. Im leaning towards RW2.

I meant hold off by, i dont know if my comp can take it. XD

I'm going to restart my save, finish tutorial, head to riften, THEN activate the textures so I can see the difference.

[Siah Topher]

I'm not going to give you an answer. There's 2 very popular ones I'd say to pick between, so just do a little youtube comparisson for yourself and make your own decision instead of listening to a bunch of opinions on a thread.

[Endalrin]

I like to hear what the community has to say, even if I have a general idea what I want.
I want to hear WHY someone thinks one is better then the other. Maybe I'll agree with them and decided that's what I want.

[EbonHawk]

I would rate them this way: W.A.T.E.R., Realistic Water Two, and Pure Waters. Just personal preference. I like W.A.T.E.R. because it looks as good as the other ones, to me, and has the bobbing boats and waves along the shores, and with "Rivers for W_A_T_E_R v2[www.nexusmods.com]", even rivers look great too! Love that combination.

Like Ilja said, W.A.T.E.R. has support for other needs mods, that was a huge plus for me since I'm going to be starting a "needs survival playthrough" soon, I hope. I thought RW2 looked just fine, and so did Pure Waters. W.A.T.E.R. just seemed to have that something extra I needed though, so I went with it over the others.

[Avatar1971]

Having used WATER and RW2, I prefer RW2. The way the water looks along the shore line is amazing to me, the animations look more realistic to me on waterfalls, the wave effects are more animated and look more natural with how they flow to me, and it also supports Dawngaurd plus has wave options for Dragonborn like WATER does. Like WATER it has an installer so you can tweak the options to suit your game. I have noticed more variety with how the water looks in dungeons and standing water pools, etc over WATER too.

You do not need an ENB with either mod for them to look great, there are plenty of ways to make Skyrim look great without ever using an ENB. I might even make a guide about that for lower end PC's that can not use ENB's. I have found some very good mods that barley impact performance at all and work great together to make Skyrim look like you have an ENB installed.

Granted it is just an opinion as to what one you think looks best, here is a good video that shows the water mods in action to help people decide what will look best for their game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tgIKSzhutc