I have strange "squares" of lighter color over the surface of water in many places, usually indoors. The screenshot below shows magelight over the water, but it isn't necessary for magelight to be present for it to occur, the magelight is just exagerating the issue to make sure someone viewing the image will clearly see it. The "squares" are there already without the additional light source, but more "subtle"... I guess, it's pretty annoying either way. The squares shift around according to the angle of the camera. This happens in vanilla, or with mods, with or without enb enabled. Is there anything that can be done to fix this?

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-5XlDaWfNKpM/Up1sEYFpW8I/AAAAAAAAABY/YqBjc9ExBbk/w1251-h704-no/enb+2013_12_03+00_01_43_61.bmp

This happened to a vanilla skyrim without mod's and a new save file ????

It could be a GPU graphical glitch.

Have you altered any skyrim or skyrimprefs.ini files ?????

What Graphic card do you have ???

Which drivers you are using ???

Well, I did add mods, including WATER, but I used Wrye Bash installer and then uninstalled back to where the only mods I have are official DLCs and the Unofficial Patches... everything else stripped out and restored to an original copy of the .ini files, and this problem persists. I guess I could try entirely reinstalling from scratch, but I don't want to run into this problem again...

I am using a GeForce GTX 580 with 314.22 drivers... I'm hesitant to upgrade the drivers as the last two times I did it totally destroyed my system to where I ended up reinstalling Windows... I had the same setup last time I played/modded Skyrim several months ago and I don't remember this problem. Actually, I do remember bright lights like Magelight looking like crap and having these solid edges sometimes, and I'd like to solve it altogether, but I don't remember it happening randomly over the surface of water without a Magelight present.

I guess if you or anyone else doesn't have a better idea for me I'll try clean installing and see if it is still there, but I thought Bash install/uninstall was pretty good...

Edit: Whoops, I missed part of your post above, the part about a new save fie... so I guess what happens is that Magelight is the culprit. I was trying to make a "darker" setup with mods and enb, so I was using magelight to test, so I think what happened was I used magelight, and then it got "stuck" like that discoloration forever on that save file. It is replicatable though. On a fresh save, with no mods I went to the same spot (and a few others) over water, and put a mage light, then set another mage light elsewhere... the discolored "square" remains. Just as bad or worse is that the magelight creates these geometric patters instead of falling off in a spherical manner when over water even on the first placement... looks terrible. Is this normal?

Does it happen with a new character?

Yeah, the tl;dr of my post above and its edit is that it doesn't happen on its own, but it does happen on a no mods, new character file after using a magelight. The magelight creates geometric patterns on the surface of the water, looking like crap then and there, and then leaves a faint impression of the brightest ones there permanently.

I should try that with the magelight as i have a GTX 660. So a nvidia too.

And i haven't any mod's too..

The problem is i must find a surface of water. !!!!!

It could be a wrong adjustment in your Nvidia " Manage 3D Settings panel ", or even a wrong adjustment on your skyrim -> options menu.

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As for the drivers....

How you install new drivers ????

Actually those new "generation" drivers having a method to uninstall all your drivers and installing the new ones without hassle!!!!

Start install of nVidia drivers then select custom install / clean install option.

I found another thread from a long time ago, someone else seems to have had the same problem. Yeah, I did some more checking around and it seems to be not magelight at all... it's these weird grids all over the place over some kinds of water objects...

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/550056-weird-grid-pattern-on-fogsmoke/

The thread didn't help much, the link to the mod suggested is dead. I've tried everything I can think of in the ini and my nvidia settings... does no one else have this issue or a way to solve it? This can't be normal, this is hideous.

I give you my GPU settings and the data menu settings if i go home, as i don't have those nasty squares !!!!

I would suggest you to download the newest drivers as they are working fine. (Yours are a bit too old. !!!!)

http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/70184

I tried installing the latest drivers, it seems they are more stable than the last time I upgraded it... no change, still the grids on water. I noticed that gradients are also looking kind of banded too, maybe it's releated? I would appreciate setting advice. The grids were there with default settings on a new Windows install and driver install. I tried messing around with Skyrim settings, tried messing around with GPU settings, and tried messing around with "hidden" GPU settings with nvidia inspector... nothing changes for the worse or better, the grids are persistent.

To consideration: i play on vanilla skyrim with HD texture pack and without mods. (all latest unofficial patches installed)

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Delete your skyrim.ini and skyrimPrefs.ini

Those are my Nvidia setting: http://imageshack.us/f/189/08nm.jpg/

Those are the skyrim data settings: http://imageshack.us/f/189/m3u7.jpg/ (Actually i play with AF: 4 samples but leave it off for now.)

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The nVIDIA Inspector Tool is basically an nVIDIA only GPU-Z utility but with a decent Over Clocking feature and you can set your clocks and fan speeds.

I wouldn't make any changes to those clocks anyway...(Your GPU isvery fast as it is.)