Vanilla water looks better. It fits the rest of the game world perfectly. This texture mod is... jarring.

The night sky (starfield) mod however is amazing.

The water looks lifeless.no ripples

Nope the vanilla water looks better and makes more sense. The mod water is acting like there's no wind or rapids what so ever. Skyrim is a windy place and has lots of rapids and waterfalls, So thats why there is small ripples in the water and foam.

Looks pretty much the same honestly, doesn't actually look 'better' as far as I'm concerned.

Seems to suit some areas (large open lakes) much better than the vanilla water, yet looks odd in small streams or fast flowing water ways.
Pretty much as Earath said.

To each his own.

The Pure Water looks identical to Oblivion water. I love Skyrim's water, it looks amazing and actually flows.

nvm

I prefer vanilla aswell

Everyone has a different opinion when it comes to water. If Vanilla Skyrim had those shaders there would still be 20 mods with "better" water.

Of course that water looks nice. BUT i tried it and it's pretty buggy, the reflections are constantly jumping back and forth if you are moving while looking at the water, they don't actually follow they way they should, instead they "skip" or "teleport" away with every single step you take.
So it's pretty immersion breaker and i had to uninstall it.

With the settings maxed, the water looks great to me. I like how it leaves a wake too.

Yeh agree with this fella, different currents, sun reflections etc looked good/worse for both either

Skyrim's default water is like ocean water. It just doesn't work for ponds and lakes. It's too turbulent. What Skyrim needs is different types of water turbulence.

Ocean = Heavy turbulence
Rivers = High turbulence
Lakes = Slight turbulence
Ponds =Almost completely still.

Thought you where going to be another Crytard who would post a Video we have all seen of how amazing the Water Physics are in Crysis. Thanks for not doing that, lol.

There needs to be more variance in the types of water. Too many ripple waves and foam in even the calm lakes.

For the record, though, this game has the best looking tiny river and waterfalls I've ever seen. Whoever did those needs a promotion to senior water designer.

I've another mod that is between this one and vanilla and it looks much better in my book. Is call, Realistic_Water_Textures_High_Resolution. The realistic water ripple mod looks great with it too.

personally, I like realistic water more. I like the waves simulated by wind and what not by realistic waters. But the one linked here would be better for bigger sources of water, since it would be a bit more realistic. The edges of the water in Pure Water looks a bit a more natural too. But I'll stick with realistic water personally.

But until the creation kit is out, I don't think there will be a "best" water mod. Because in some areas water should move fast and have foam, and other areas the water should be more calm. As it is, with realistic waters some areas it looks fine and others it doesn't look right. Pure Water some areas it looks fine, other areas it does not.

the original water in Skyrim looks better than the mod

Looks good for screens and stuff, but I still prefer the vanilla water.

I think it looks good, but so does the choppy vanilla look. I think the calm waters would be well suited to some areas where others (especially open ocean) the choppy look is better. I wonder if a mod can be set up regionally? I doubt it but would be cool. Or hell, but weather. Choppy when windy, storm, calm otherwise.

I think I prefer it all ripply and sun dappled. Maybe that's not the most realistic, but aesthetically I like it more in the vanilla version.

That mod just makes the water calm, always even in rapids or near waterfalls.

Ahh well, different tastes for different people.

Massive improvement.

But then again.. skyrim has hideous water . Minecraft did it better

Well a new version is out that adds new variations for those that didn't like the calm waters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d07mhCYZyW0

Should be one for most peoples tastes now.

Very nice work on the new Storm and Breeze waters, the Breeze especially was beautiful. You may want to tone down the smaller ripples on storm though because it looks almost like a sheet of plastic was getting pulled along the top of the water when viewed closely in the first scene.