What Gopher has done here is create the perfect video to fall asleep to. A smooth, low-voiced Englishman for 7 minutes, and then 13 minutes of flowing water and nature ambiance. Beautiful.
Skyrim with mods looks beyond recognition, in the very best of ways of course. I can only imagine what will happen to Fallout 4 or The Elder Scrolls VI
What I learned from that video: 1. Gopher works REALLY hard. 8 different comparisons! 2. ENB's work! 3. There was a reason that Gopher liked Pure Waters. Though Realistic Water Two beats it.
Gopher's the most thorough mod reviewer out there. What most provide a cursory 3 minute overview of, Gopher truly digs into the nitty-gritty. And not only does he talk about the mod itself, but also similar mods and gives an unbiased comparison. Hats off to you Gopher. Your videos have given me much needed guidance on not only Skyrim but also Fallout 3 and Fallout: NV. I'd also like to take a moment to thank the modding community for extending the replayability and quality of my PC games.
Gotta prefer Pure Waters. My problem is that all waters will look unrealistic in some areas, but Pure Waters tones down the flowing in such a way that it's harder to notice. Also having nice, calm water all the time just looks great and goes along with the calm weather from Pure Weathers. I'm also not fond of water being noisier.
Thank you for posting this vid, as I have been recommending RW2 to other players since installing it myself. And the comparison shots are a wonderful way for folks to select which idea of water in Skyrim fits their imagination.
Aaaw and here I looked forward to listening to Gopher for 20 minutes! Anyway, thanks for the video, it must have taken a long time to collect all video samples!
I've been using Realistic Water Two for a long while. It looks AMAZING with Parallax. I'm surprised he didn't showcase it's parallax textures, which makes it easily the best looking water mod I've ever seen.
I've tried everything with adjusting the ini files in the enbseries to make RW2 (using RealVision ENB v251) look like the water is actually bobbing, including having Parallax set to True and still have flat water textures, I'm also using the NMM to install my mods any suggestions as to where i could be going wrong? cheers
That looked like a lot of work! Thanks Gopher for the excellent comparison. Overall it looks like Pure Water is the best (by a very small margin) for shallow water, particularly still shallow water. WATER and Realistic Water 2 are virtually identical, both doing fast-flowing water especially well. Realistic Water 2 wins out by a hair if there are a lot of splashes, but some of the sound effects are a bit unrealistically loud.. except for the waterfalls. A holiday in Norway a few years ago and another to Scotland over a decade ago taught me waterfalls are really loud and can be heard for miles! I installed all three for my most recent playthrough, and may end up switching back and forth as the mood strikes me. All are excellent... now if only it were possible to get all rolled into one Ultimate Water Mod it'd be grand :)
Gopher, you simply cannot apologize to us for making a video with a bad voice. We can only thank you for making the effort to commentate with a husky voice! So yeah, cheers :)
Thanks ! This video is a very good comparision, I used pure waters but now I realised Realistic Water 2 is so much better I'm gonna switch to it, great work !
Every time I see another mod I HAVE to have ittt gah. So thankful my new computer can handle all the mods I've installed. Realistic Water 2 looks really good.
I never realized how much you could improve water sound until I heard Realistic Water 2...I'll definitely be keeping it in my load order if only for that. (and it looks very nice too)
Gopher, i would like to see you cover the mod "Guild Starter" Haven't tried it out myself yet but it seems pretty promising and would like your take on it. Oh, and i think i like pure waters more
Thank you for showing all those comparison shots! I currently have a VERY low end computer, and after the main part of the video, I was worried that I'd want Realistic Water 2 but not be able to run it (I had problems with W.A.T.E.R). After seeing the comparison shots, I ended up with 10 votes for Pure Waters and 10 for Realistic Water 2 (and a meager 2 for W.A.T.E.R), with some overlaps, so it looks like I'll probably stick with Pure Waters, which I know I can run. One thing I noticed was that with the ice, the fact that it didn't bob with Pure Waters wasn't a problem, since the water itself was so still. I also tended to prefer the colors in Pure Waters most of the time. It wasn't too blue. So, yes, thanks again!
Just to avoid confusion, some sounds like waterfalls, streams/rapids are from AOS and are actually unintentionally played louder than intended due to having amplitude values overridden by RW2 which are based on vanilla sounds (there is a compatibility patch to solve that).
Gopher ought to get into narrating audio books or something, I could listen to him for hours. He makes modding my Skyrim seem a more noble waste of time. Bless him.
downloading now. what sold me on this is actually how it changes the behavior of water behind dams. it always bothered me how water in this game just seems to ignore barriers.
Hey Gopher i wanted to ask if you could make a new video on Read Books out loud. The mod is a little confusing with all the "support files" and "audio files" and i think a lot of people would like to have your voice over their books.
I have used all 3 at different times, and I love Realistic Water Two. The other two are great water mods as well, but in my opinion, RWT takes the cake. (and eats it too haha)
by far realistic water 2 because it changes the flow of water based on condition. e.g. water in riften is totally still and flat but when you go to the water "gate" its flowing on the other side. and it has the best sounds IMHO.
Thanks so much for this! I've been holding off on adding a water mod because I'm too lazy to test them myself. After watching this, I downloaded WATER. RW2 was a close second, so maybe I'll give that a shot some time as well.
For me the audio in Realistic Water Two is a major improvement, one that's made me consider switching. Rushing water and falling water are loud. Loud enough to be heard halfway across a hold as a soft shushing sound. You should be able to hear a river or a falls before ever laying eyes on it.
I give skyrim until the start of 2015 to be A: The best LOOKING game B: The most REALISTIC game. Most things have already been modded, this, iNeed, Frostfall and more makes this game stand out, thats why I love it so much.
The thoughts I had while watching the very enlightening comparison clips (that was a lot of work, many thanks for that!): Without ENB Pure Waters is the most appealing, but with ENB Realistic Water 2 wins.
Great comparison video, I cant use ENB myself, except from vanilla all textures look amazing, but I cannot tell which one is the "best". Some textures blend better than others in some particular areas, but what I could see is that, for an overall appearance, the water in caves look very similar to the textures from "realistic water", the other get so blueish, it could happen but only if the chemicals in the rocks were there.. but I think it is rare, so the really transparent view caught my attention the most. Also the "waves" in some places, although very cool idea, for me, are not quite as good. Overall, I could not tell which one was the best, it looked like the "same water" just in different tidal effects... so you cannot go wrong with those.
I used to use WATER, but then I tried Pure Waters, though that didn't work for some reason, was getting the black water bug. So moved over to Realistic Water Two and probably won't go back after I added in some parralax stuff for it. Makes the water look amazing.
Why do I suddenly want to go fishing? I don't even like to fish... :) But seriously it so easy to forget just beautiful Skyrim really is. Sometimes you just have to stop questing for a while, make camp and spend the day hunting. Thanks Gopher for this wonderful showcase of three great mods. I have been using W.A.T.E.R. for a long while but I will be switching over to try Realistic Water Two now. Not as fond of Pure Waters myself find it too unrealistic, but to each his own.
Yami Purojekuto Having played a bit with all three, I rather agree. Pure Waters just feels better in actual play to me. Tegan Somers I honestly don't like any of them with ENBs. There's just that wee twinge of subliminal clash going on for me with the water differences and the various ENB differences.
0SRaptor I was speaking of the aesthetic clash between everything else the ENBs change and the water changes from any of the water mods. It's not even noticeable in screenshots, but in video or while actually playing it distracts. Leaving ENB water changes on just makes it that much worse.
I would really like a combination of these mods. Something with the flow and the textures of Pure Waters but with the added extras (splashes and fog and such) of Realistic Water 2. That would be perfect.
photobomber elk at 19:49 Hard to concentrate on the comparison with his techno moves in the background ;-) Other than that it always bugged me that it's only the landmasses and trees that are reflected. No amount of texture tweaking is going to repair 7:22 - I just cannot unsee the lack of bridge reflection. Would you fancy testing mod 49270 (Water Reflection System)? It's not a fully working solution but maybe a review would push the author to make a finalized version.
I stopped playing Skyrim over a year ago. I just found that I had done everything there was in the game. I never played any of the DLC though. However it is nice to know that in 5 years time when I come to play the game again that there is such a large amount of mods and modding videos. I was actually really good at modding skyrim. I had an ENB and replaced every single texture in the game except the spider eggs. The game looks great. I just wish that the next Elder Scrolls game (not the online game I don't consider that an Elder Scrolls game) has really good graphics and combat. The problems with the combat couldn't be solved with mods with the game. I just hope the combat is improved considerably in the next game.
I like Realistic Water 2 the best, it has lots of little details and best captures the look of water. The others including Vanilla look good in certain situations but generally fall flat of simulating the look and sound of water.
Great video as always. Another reminder of what a gorgeous game Skyrim is and what an amazing modding community we have. IMO - All three mods are a vast improvement over the vanilla waters but Realistic Water Two wins hands down for my taste. Pure water looks awful with the Seasons of Skyrim ENB but probably looks much better with other ENB settings (again - this is how I feel, I see other posters actually liked Pure Waters with the ENB so it's a matter of personal taste). Compatibility could be an issue though. Waiting for the S.T.E.P 3.0 guide to be released and see if they stick with W.A.T.E.R or choose a different mod. Amazing that Skyrim is a million times better nearly 3 years after release! All thanks to these amazing mods
I have come to the conclusion that the reason I went back to Pure Waters from RW2 was the Watercolor Mod, not RW2 itself. The Watercolor for ENB made the water unrealistically blue IMO. I'm thinking I want to go back to RW2, but remaking my merged patch so I can make RW2 compatible with the Audio Overhaul just takes so long. One of these days I'll do it, because as much as I love Pure Waters, RW2 just beats it.
I should say that pure waters (my favorite in almost every shot) looks even better with pure weathers! Both made by Laast. I am also going to try installing pure water and weather & realistic water 2. Placing the rw2 esp at the top and the pure w&w esp's underneath overwriting rw2, so I might still get the sounds, waves and bobbing! Also I wish you could (without having to manually copying records from esp to esp) pick and choose what kind of water mod you want in what kind of scenario! E.g. Rw2 in dungeons and caves, waterfalls and dams, but pure waters basically everywhere else!
I agree. Pure water textures blows the rest of them out of the water, but the flow, sounds an cel edits of RW2 are just awesome. I wished I was able to combine the two. But I can't, so I'll use RW2. I tried thema all out, and that was the one I was most satisfied with
I might be just seeing things but it looks like in Realistic Waters 2 when the body of water is still there are a lot more reflections in the water of the surrounding landscape. It is a very beautiful effect. I wonder if it might contribute to the mods performance drag though.
Wow! So hard to choose. I think I like W.A.T.E.R. the best with this one second runner up. Is that Season of Skyrim your favorite ENB? I just got a new black Titan Vid Card and am redoing my whole machine so I can finally get an ENB. I watch so many of your ENB comparison videos. I was just wondering what your current fav was now.
Thank for another amazing episode, it's good but I still prefer Pure Water just because its super calm, but like you said its just personal, there is no better or worse mod 13:45 wups Kharjo...
the vanilla water with seasons of skyrim ENB doesn't look that bad, however it is not something I would do, i prefer to use Pure Waters mod. This is because if you go up close to the shore where the water touches you will notice that the small ripples actually hide the fact that the water is "clipping" through the ground which is something I like with that mod
Based strictly on video observation and no in game bias, my thoughts are; I do agree with your assessment of the vanilla water, although I would not describe it as you did, which paints a gross picture. I would have said that water seems to have a slightly higher viscosity, akin to a light oil. Still can't get that picture out of my head. The comparison of the three mods and the vanilla (w/ and w/out ENB) don't give me an across the board consensus. I find that in still waters I prefer the Realistic Water 2 while in the faster moving areas I like the W.A.T.E.R., with the Pure Waters giving it a greenish hue, which I find less pleasing. Perhaps more accurate or not, as I don't live in a Nordic country, so I have no real world comparison. I liked the sequence with the many possible scenarios to give a side-by-side comparison as many of us don't have the patience, know-how or machine horsepower to do this, letting us make an informed choice, although I do realize that machines of varying abilities may limit ones choice. What would have been helpful, and I do realize much more work for you along with extending the length of the video would be a Non-ENB next to an ENB in the sequence (e.g. Vanilla, Vanilla-ENB, W.A.T.E.R.; W.A.T.E.R.-ENB, etc.) as I am still undecided in the ENB benefits and the resources consumed. Is it worth it or not? I apologize for the long posts, but I wanted to give detailed thoughts, I hope you find it helpful. Regardless, I well done and helpful video. Thanks
Good lord, that's a lot of comparison shots. Very thorough, thank you!
Your voice, stop apologising! It is godly, with cold, without, it carries with it the spark of the divine!
Completely agree, but dayum Stardusk, you always beat me to the punch, gg no re :)
corei Never forgets, never regrets.
*****
+1
I want gopher voice so badly :(
***** True
What Gopher has done here is create the perfect video to fall asleep to. A smooth, low-voiced Englishman for 7 minutes, and then 13 minutes of flowing water and nature ambiance. Beautiful.
Ok "a lot of comparison shots", but I wasn't expecting _over 10 minutes of them_.
Damnit Gopher pick that Nirnroot! So distracting trying to listen haha.
Thank you so much for this. It is so hard to see the difference without a direct comparison:)
Skyrim with mods looks beyond recognition, in the very best of ways of course. I can only imagine what will happen to Fallout 4 or The Elder Scrolls VI
Hopefully Bethesda adds shit they should this time. There was a bunch of stuff that should have already been in TES V that have been added by mods.
Isaiah M I think we might've spoiled them already
Alucard Heh, just started watching hellsing, I know this has nothing to do with anything, but I just found it funny.
I love how Kharjo randomly pops up!
What I learned from that video: 1. Gopher works REALLY hard. 8 different comparisons!
2. ENB's work!
3. There was a reason that Gopher liked Pure Waters. Though Realistic Water Two beats it.
Gopher's the most thorough mod reviewer out there. What most provide a cursory 3 minute overview of, Gopher truly digs into the nitty-gritty. And not only does he talk about the mod itself, but also similar mods and gives an unbiased comparison.
Hats off to you Gopher. Your videos have given me much needed guidance on not only Skyrim but also Fallout 3 and Fallout: NV.
I'd also like to take a moment to thank the modding community for extending the replayability and quality of my PC games.
Well, this was immensely peaceful.
I think I might come back and leave this video on in the background whenever I need to relax.
Hey there, Gopher! Get better soon! Your voice still sounds amazing, even with a sore throat.
Just watched through all of your Skyrim Mod Sanctuary videos. This came just as I finished the series
Gotta prefer Pure Waters. My problem is that all waters will look unrealistic in some areas, but Pure Waters tones down the flowing in such a way that it's harder to notice. Also having nice, calm water all the time just looks great and goes along with the calm weather from Pure Weathers.
I'm also not fond of water being noisier.
Sometimes modders sound like people on acid. "whoa dude, look at that water !" "I know right, it's so pretty"
Thank you for posting this vid, as I have been recommending RW2 to other players since installing it myself. And the comparison shots are a wonderful way for folks to select which idea of water in Skyrim fits their imagination.
Aaaw and here I looked forward to listening to Gopher for 20 minutes! Anyway, thanks for the video, it must have taken a long time to collect all video samples!
Glad you're getting over that cold, hope to see the next part of the Skyrim let's play soon.
Still love Pure Waters but the Realistic Water Two looks amazing in places!
I've been using Realistic Water Two for a long while. It looks AMAZING with Parallax.
I'm surprised he didn't showcase it's parallax textures, which makes it easily the best looking water mod I've ever seen.
I've tried everything with adjusting the ini files in the enbseries to make RW2 (using RealVision ENB v251) look like the water is actually bobbing, including having Parallax set to True and still have flat water textures, I'm also using the NMM to install my mods
any suggestions as to where i could be going wrong?
cheers
i'm really appreciating these indept mod reviews. good job man
Absolutely the best Skyrim mod comparison videos. Thanks so much for posting these!!
missed you Gopher.. glad you're sounding better.
kinda wish he hadn't mentioned the "tilt" effect of the floating ice sheets haha...I didn't notice it, but now I can't ignore it :(
Pure Waters and Realistic Water 2 are the best for me. They are both so immersive, and makes the game look even so good.
amazing, as usual with Gopher. Please never stop making videos.
That must have taken more than a little time to put together, just for the comparison shots, just so we could compare. Seriously impressed, thank you.
I know this is a video for water, but seriously, you just sold me on that ENB.
That looked like a lot of work! Thanks Gopher for the excellent comparison.
Overall it looks like Pure Water is the best (by a very small margin) for shallow water, particularly still shallow water.
WATER and Realistic Water 2 are virtually identical, both doing fast-flowing water especially well. Realistic Water 2 wins out by a hair if there are a lot of splashes, but some of the sound effects are a bit unrealistically loud.. except for the waterfalls. A holiday in Norway a few years ago and another to Scotland over a decade ago taught me waterfalls are really loud and can be heard for miles!
I installed all three for my most recent playthrough, and may end up switching back and forth as the mood strikes me. All are excellent... now if only it were possible to get all rolled into one Ultimate Water Mod it'd be grand :)
Gopher, you simply cannot apologize to us for making a video with a bad voice. We can only thank you for making the effort to commentate with a husky voice! So yeah, cheers :)
If anything this convinced me to get Seasons of Skyrim ENB :P
Thanks ! This video is a very good comparision, I used pure waters but now I realised Realistic Water 2 is so much better I'm gonna switch to it, great work !
Every time I see another mod I HAVE to have ittt gah. So thankful my new computer can handle all the mods I've installed. Realistic Water 2 looks really good.
Love the way you layed out this episode mate, really helped with deciding, now using realistic waters 2;)
I never realized how much you could improve water sound until I heard Realistic Water 2...I'll definitely be keeping it in my load order if only for that. (and it looks very nice too)
Oh, and thank you for doing this video! Must have been a hell oft editing, and you're sick. That's really nice! c:
Gopher, i would like to see you cover the mod "Guild Starter"
Haven't tried it out myself yet but it seems pretty promising and would like your take on it.
Oh, and i think i like pure waters more
Fell asleep during the second part of the video, so relaxing :D
Vanilla looks REALLY good at 9:12. That just shows you the power of ENBs.
who knew 12 minutes of videogame water could be so relaxing?
Thank you for showing all those comparison shots! I currently have a VERY low end computer, and after the main part of the video, I was worried that I'd want Realistic Water 2 but not be able to run it (I had problems with W.A.T.E.R). After seeing the comparison shots, I ended up with 10 votes for Pure Waters and 10 for Realistic Water 2 (and a meager 2 for W.A.T.E.R), with some overlaps, so it looks like I'll probably stick with Pure Waters, which I know I can run. One thing I noticed was that with the ice, the fact that it didn't bob with Pure Waters wasn't a problem, since the water itself was so still. I also tended to prefer the colors in Pure Waters most of the time. It wasn't too blue. So, yes, thanks again!
Thanks for using my screenshot for video image!
8:55 Gopher, you could have harvested that damn Nirnroot first! (They are really annoying imo)
Just to avoid confusion, some sounds like waterfalls, streams/rapids are from AOS and are actually unintentionally played louder than intended due to having amplitude values overridden by RW2 which are based on vanilla sounds (there is a compatibility patch to solve that).
With the ENB even the vanilla water looks quite nice in certain locations
Even the Vanilla waters look so much better when one returns to play some older games. Gotta luv gaming progress :)
The sounds of the new mod seems more immersive. It also look very pretty.
Gopher ought to get into narrating audio books or something, I could listen to him for hours. He makes modding my Skyrim seem a more noble waste of time. Bless him.
downloading now. what sold me on this is actually how it changes the behavior of water behind dams. it always bothered me how water in this game just seems to ignore barriers.
As mentioned before, the water in Vanilla looks gelatinous.
I have to admit, I like the vanilla water with ENB the most.
Also, I couldn't stop giggling about Kharjo. So cute! :D
I like Realistic Waters 2 the most now, but sadly W.A.T.E.R. has some cool features and has some cool compatibilities with other mods
Hey Gopher i wanted to ask if you could make a new video on Read Books out loud. The mod is a little confusing with all the "support files" and "audio files" and i think a lot of people would like to have your voice over their books.
That would be quite useful for me because I have no idea how to get it working properly, good suggestion. :)
I have used all 3 at different times, and I love Realistic Water Two. The other two are great water mods as well, but in my opinion, RWT takes the cake. (and eats it too haha)
by far realistic water 2 because it changes the flow of water based on condition.
e.g. water in riften is totally still and flat but when you go to the water "gate" its flowing on the other side.
and it has the best sounds IMHO.
Thanks so much for this! I've been holding off on adding a water mod because I'm too lazy to test them myself. After watching this, I downloaded WATER. RW2 was a close second, so maybe I'll give that a shot some time as well.
For me the audio in Realistic Water Two is a major improvement, one that's made me consider switching. Rushing water and falling water are loud. Loud enough to be heard halfway across a hold as a soft shushing sound. You should be able to hear a river or a falls before ever laying eyes on it.
For a second, I thought you were taking video of actual streams in the beginning. Wow!
pure waters is still the best, lightweight and understated like most good mods tend to be
When i look at your video i can't stop thinking to all the time you spend to do all this shoot. Thank man that's very interesting.
I give skyrim until the start of 2015 to be
A: The best LOOKING game
B: The most REALISTIC game.
Most things have already been modded, this, iNeed, Frostfall and more makes this game stand out, thats why I love it so much.
dude that was totally awesome...I love watching your Vids for skyrim...Beautiful to watch
It's amazing the level of detail modders do to increase a games lifespan and quality of life.
The thoughts I had while watching the very enlightening comparison clips (that was a lot of work, many thanks for that!): Without ENB Pure Waters is the most appealing, but with ENB Realistic Water 2 wins.
Great comparison video, I cant use ENB myself, except from vanilla all textures look amazing, but I cannot tell which one is the "best". Some textures blend better than others in some particular areas, but what I could see is that, for an overall appearance, the water in caves look very similar to the textures from "realistic water", the other get so blueish, it could happen but only if the chemicals in the rocks were there.. but I think it is rare, so the really transparent view caught my attention the most. Also the "waves" in some places, although very cool idea, for me, are not quite as good. Overall, I could not tell which one was the best, it looked like the "same water" just in different tidal effects... so you cannot go wrong with those.
I used to use WATER, but then I tried Pure Waters, though that didn't work for some reason, was getting the black water bug. So moved over to Realistic Water Two and probably won't go back after I added in some parralax stuff for it. Makes the water look amazing.
Why do I suddenly want to go fishing? I don't even like to fish... :) But seriously it so easy to forget just beautiful Skyrim really is. Sometimes you just have to stop questing for a while, make camp and spend the day hunting.
Thanks Gopher for this wonderful showcase of three great mods. I have been using W.A.T.E.R. for a long while but I will be switching over to try Realistic Water Two now. Not as fond of Pure Waters myself find it too unrealistic, but to each his own.
I still like Pure waters ^.^
Me too, it's the only water mod I ever used and I loved it since the 1st install.
I was thinking that as I watched the comparisons. I ACTUALLY don't like ti with the ENB as much, though.
Yami Purojekuto Having played a bit with all three, I rather agree. Pure Waters just feels better in actual play to me.
Tegan Somers I honestly don't like any of them with ENBs. There's just that wee twinge of subliminal clash going on for me with the water differences and the various ENB differences.
Pure waters is just so.... Pure!
0SRaptor
I was speaking of the aesthetic clash between everything else the ENBs change and the water changes from any of the water mods. It's not even noticeable in screenshots, but in video or while actually playing it distracts. Leaving ENB water changes on just makes it that much worse.
I love that karjo keeps photobombing your video
I would really like a combination of these mods. Something with the flow and the textures of Pure Waters but with the added extras (splashes and fog and such) of Realistic Water 2. That would be perfect.
Used an earlier version of this mod, absolutely endorsed!
I prefer RWD with enb, but without ENB I prefer Pure Waters in most places. Great video gopher, very usefull!
Thank you for your showcase! I'v been using W.A.T.E.R for the longest time, and I think I'm going to give Realistic Water 2 a try!
You still sound freakin' awesome, slightly sinister at times though.
photobomber elk at 19:49
Hard to concentrate on the comparison with his techno moves in the background ;-)
Other than that it always bugged me that it's only the landmasses and trees that are reflected.
No amount of texture tweaking is going to repair 7:22 - I just cannot unsee the lack of bridge reflection. Would you fancy testing mod 49270 (Water Reflection System)? It's not a fully working solution but maybe a review would push the author to make a finalized version.
I stopped playing Skyrim over a year ago. I just found that I had done everything there was in the game. I never played any of the DLC though. However it is nice to know that in 5 years time when I come to play the game again that there is such a large amount of mods and modding videos. I was actually really good at modding skyrim. I had an ENB and replaced every single texture in the game except the spider eggs. The game looks great. I just wish that the next Elder Scrolls game (not the online game I don't consider that an Elder Scrolls game) has really good graphics and combat. The problems with the combat couldn't be solved with mods with the game. I just hope the combat is improved considerably in the next game.
im going to download that realistic water mod right now, man it looks so damn good
I like Realistic Water 2 the best, it has lots of little details and best captures the look of water. The others including Vanilla look good in certain situations but generally fall flat of simulating the look and sound of water.
Great video as always.
Another reminder of what a gorgeous game Skyrim is and what an amazing modding community we have. IMO - All three mods are a vast improvement over the vanilla waters but Realistic Water Two wins hands down for my taste. Pure water looks awful with the Seasons of Skyrim ENB but probably looks much better with other ENB settings (again - this is how I feel, I see other posters actually liked Pure Waters with the ENB so it's a matter of personal taste). Compatibility could be an issue though. Waiting for the S.T.E.P 3.0 guide to be released and see if they stick with W.A.T.E.R or choose a different mod. Amazing that Skyrim is a million times better nearly 3 years after release! All thanks to these amazing mods
3:00 lol kharjo.
I have come to the conclusion that the reason I went back to Pure Waters from RW2 was the Watercolor Mod, not RW2 itself. The Watercolor for ENB made the water unrealistically blue IMO. I'm thinking I want to go back to RW2, but remaking my merged patch so I can make RW2 compatible with the Audio Overhaul just takes so long. One of these days I'll do it, because as much as I love Pure Waters, RW2 just beats it.
I should say that pure waters (my favorite in almost every shot) looks even better with pure weathers! Both made by Laast. I am also going to try installing pure water and weather & realistic water 2. Placing the rw2 esp at the top and the pure w&w esp's underneath overwriting rw2, so I might still get the sounds, waves and bobbing! Also I wish you could (without having to manually copying records from esp to esp) pick and choose what kind of water mod you want in what kind of scenario! E.g. Rw2 in dungeons and caves, waterfalls and dams, but pure waters basically everywhere else!
I agree. Pure water textures blows the rest of them out of the water, but the flow, sounds an cel edits of RW2 are just awesome. I wished I was able to combine the two. But I can't, so I'll use RW2. I tried thema all out, and that was the one I was most satisfied with
I use Pure Waters because they use clear and still waters so i like it more.
As Gopher says it's a matter of personal taste.
Gotta love the creepy Kharjo stares from 13:53 to 14:02
I noticed that too xD
I might be just seeing things but it looks like in Realistic Waters 2 when the body of water is still there are a lot more reflections in the water of the surrounding landscape. It is a very beautiful effect. I wonder if it might contribute to the mods performance drag though.
gotta say, seasons of skyrim enb is the one thing i miss from oldrim
Wow. This Water Mod really looks immersive to me :3
More realistic and more - fluid XD
You shouldn't have pointed that out at 5:40. I never noticed until you mentioned it.
+1 for Karjo video bombing all the time :D
+2 for Gopher, that must have taken ages to record & compile, nice one mate.
I use Realistic Waters 2 with Sloths ENB it looks amazing and the sounds a flawless
"Like saliva from a dog". This is why Gopher is the best!
that moose in the background cracks me up! 20:00
Wow! So hard to choose. I think I like W.A.T.E.R. the best with this one second runner up. Is that Season of Skyrim your favorite ENB? I just got a new black Titan Vid Card and am redoing my whole machine so I can finally get an ENB. I watch so many of your ENB comparison videos. I was just wondering what your current fav was now.
Ice bobbing look soo good.
Thank for another amazing episode, it's good but I still prefer Pure Water just because its super calm, but like you said its just personal, there is no better or worse mod
13:45 wups Kharjo...
the vanilla water with seasons of skyrim ENB doesn't look that bad, however it is not something I would do, i prefer to use Pure Waters mod. This is because if you go up close to the shore where the water touches you will notice that the small ripples actually hide the fact that the water is "clipping" through the ground which is something I like with that mod
Based strictly on video observation and no in game bias, my thoughts are; I do agree with your assessment of the vanilla water, although I would not describe it as you did, which paints a gross picture. I would have said that water seems to have a slightly higher viscosity, akin to a light oil. Still can't get that picture out of my head.
The comparison of the three mods and the vanilla (w/ and w/out ENB) don't give me an across the board consensus. I find that in still waters I prefer the Realistic Water 2 while in the faster moving areas I like the W.A.T.E.R., with the Pure Waters giving it a greenish hue, which I find less pleasing. Perhaps more accurate or not, as I don't live in a Nordic country, so I have no real world comparison.
I liked the sequence with the many possible scenarios to give a side-by-side comparison as many of us don't have the patience, know-how or machine horsepower to do this, letting us make an informed choice, although I do realize that machines of varying abilities may limit ones choice.
What would have been helpful, and I do realize much more work for you along with extending the length of the video would be a Non-ENB next to an ENB in the sequence (e.g. Vanilla, Vanilla-ENB, W.A.T.E.R.; W.A.T.E.R.-ENB, etc.) as I am still undecided in the ENB benefits and the resources consumed. Is it worth it or not? I apologize for the long posts, but I wanted to give detailed thoughts, I hope you find it helpful. Regardless, I well done and helpful video.
Thanks
Well. You've had a good run W.A.T.E.R, but it's high time that I finally make a change, and that change is going to be to Realistic Water 2 :)
That ENB sure brings out the worst in the vanilla water, doesn't it?
Thanks for the comparisons, Gopher. That made it pretty easy to make up my mind.
i wish i could have a meet and greet with Gopher :D