Paper Chan's Little Guide to Minecraft Client Optimization!

Introduction / Background

The Vanilla Minecraft client has always been pretty barebone and not very performant to begin with, it is often a struggle to run the modern Minecraft version on slightly older hardware especially after the Cave and Cliffs update. The purpose of this guide is to introduce more people to the Fabric modding toolchain and provide a listed of performance mods that I personally use plus a curated list of quality of life enhancements for the Minecraft client.

Last updated: January 22nd, 2023.

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Table of Contents

Getting Started
Install Optimization Mods
Curated Modpack
Clear Glass
Gameplay Enhancement
Shaders
Resource Packs
Special Thanks
Closing Notes

Getting Started🔗

Install JAVA

click here to download Amazon Corretto 17 directly and follow through the installations without changing any default option.

If you would like to learn more Check out PaperMC's JAVA installation guide. Generally speaking, you should use the native version of JAVA Mojang uses for their server; however, the latest LTS also works just fine.

Install Prism Launcher

Prism Launcher is an open-source launcher for Minecraft that provides convenient versions, modpacks, and profile controls, it is a lot easier to use among with mods especially for beginners. The offical version can be downloaded from Prism Launcher Download Page.

Please note that following screenshots may shown an older version of Minecraft as the pictures are taken during that release, I advice use the latest stable version

Install Optimization Mods🔗

Fabric mods can be obtained from many different sources such as Modrinth, CurseForge, Github, Jenkins, or directly from the Prism launcher itself. As always, only download mods from the trusted official sources and reputable developers.

Look for fabric mod and matches the Minecraft version respectfully when selecting mods to download.

If you would like a quick and easy one click installation without picking your own optimization mods, click here to jump to modpack suggestions; otherwise, below is the list of mods that I recommend using.

Fabric API

Fabric API is required in order for most mods to function.

Sodium

Modern rendering engine and client-side optimization mod for Minecraft.

Sodium Extra

Additional addons to Sodium.

Iris Shaders

A shader mod that works with existing ShadersMod/Optifine shaders.

Starlight

A complete rewrite of light engine aims to fix performance issues related to lighting in Minecrafy by our rat king SpottedLeaf.

Lithium

More game logic & server optimizations.

LazyDFU

Makes the initialization of DataFixerUpper "lazy," making the game start more quickly.

Krypton

A mod to optimize the Minecraft networking stack.

Dynamic FPS

Improve performance when Minecraft is in the background.

Indium

Sodium addon providing support for the Fabric Rendering API, based on Indigo.

Enhanced Block Entities

Reduce FPS lag with block entities.

EntityCulling

Optimize tiles & entities rendering.

Cull Leaves

Optimize leafs.

FerriteCore

Memory usage optimizations.

More Culling

More culling.

kennytvs epic force close loading screen mod for fabric

Instantly closes the loading terrain screen on world changing.

Alternative method - Curated Modpack🔗

If you are someone who just want a quick and easy way to get an optimize client, Additive is a good choice as the installation can be easily done via the Prism Launcher itself. If you do wish to pick and choose which mod you wish to install, you can skip to the next step where I provide a curated list of mod that I persoanlly use and also suggestions from the Minecraft community.

Important Notice

Fabulously Optimized and Simply Optimized are no longer recommended despite them being popular. The maintainers of both modpacks had fallen to misinformation and the conspiracy rabbit hole in which motivated them to inculde NoChatReport within the modpack that provides zero performance imporvement. I strongly believe that an optimization modpack should only contains mods that focus on performance; the two above mentioned packs have lost their focus and should be avoided.

We are working on bringing up a completely unbiased and performnace focused pack as we speak. Stay tuned!

This is the end of client optimization mods.
Everything below is gameplay enhancements and is optional.

Special Section for Clear Glass Lovers🔗

To achieve the above effect of clear glass, the follow mod and resource pack is needed.

Fabric Mod: Continuity

Resource Pack: Clear Glass with Connected Textures! [16x]

Install the Fabric Mod as well as select the resource pack within the in-game menu.

Quality of Life & Gameplay Enhancement Mods🔗

Modding in Minecraft has always been its strong selling point and players are able to install modifications to their client to enhance their gameplay experience. However, certain server would consider this an unfair advantage so please read and understand server rule before joining with a modded client.

Cloth Config API

This is a dependency for the mods below.
(Dependency means that this mod is required for the other mod to function)

Architectury API

This is a dependency for the mods below.

MaLiLib

This is a dependency for the mods below.

Inventory Profiles Next

An inventory management mod. No more messy inventory. A must have!

Mod Menu

Rearrange menu for additional mod configs. A must have!

Xaero's Minimap

Add mini map to Minecraft.

Xaero's world map

Add world map to Minecraft.

ClickThrough

Click through signs and item frames to chests.

LambDynamicLights

A dynamic lights mod.

LambdaBetterGrass

Add better grass.

Continuity

A mod that allows for efficient connected textures.
(Skip if you already downloaded it on the clear glass section above)

ExtraSounds

Adding UI sounds and more.

Presence Footsteps

More sounds!

Drip Sounds

Add sounds for drip particles landing.

Charmonium

Add more ambient sounds and music.

MiniHUD

Customizable HUD.

Farsight

Client side chunk caching mod to allow futher views.

Axolotl Bucket Fix

Display Axolotl variants while inside bucket.

Falling Leaves

Add particle effect to leaf blocks.

AppleSkin

Food and hunger related HUD improvements.

Armor Visibility

Togglable Armor rendering.

ShulkerBoxTooltip

Enhanced shulkerbox UI.

Fabrishot

Take LARGE screenshots.

Durability Viewer

Armor and tool durability HUD.

Better Mount HUD

Improve mount HUD.

AdvancementInfo

Show more info about advancement requirements.

Enchantment Descriptions

Add tooltips to enchantments.

Beenfo

Advanced beehive info.

Ok Zoomer

Add a zoom key.

Screenshot to Clipboard

Copy screenshot directly to clipboard.

Adaptive Tooltips

Improve tooltip rendering.

CraftPresence

Discord rich presence intergration.

The Fabric mods below are to fully replace Optifine for those who made the switch.

Animatica

A mod implementing the OptiFine/MCPatcher animated texture format.

Colormatic

Enables resource packs to add and change block and biome colors.

OptiGUI

A client side drop-in replacement for OptiFine custom GUIs.

CIT Resewn

Re-implements MCPatcher's CIT (custom item textures from optifine resource packs).

Entity Texture Feaetures

Emissive, Random & Custom texture support for entities in resourcepacks just like Optifine but for Fabric.

Puzzle

Adds resourcepack features and a GUI to more conveniently configure OptiFine alternatives.

Custom Entity Models

Custom Entity Models suport on Fabric.

FabricSkyboxes

Allows resource packs to define custom skyboxes.

FabricSkyBoxes Interop

FabricSkyBoxes Interoperability for MCPatcher/OptiFine Skies.

The Fabric mods below are for special use case, it may not be a neccesarity for you.

Spark

Client performance profiler.

Fabric Hider

A simple mod to hide client brending.
(If you only intend to use this mod to bypass server side anti-Fabric plugin, ensure to edit the config option to hide from server only)

Litematica

A schematic mods with powerful tool for buildings.
(For advanced user)

Roughly Enough Resources

World resource viewing mod.

Roughly English Items

A redesign of inventory menu.
(If you prefer Vanilla menu, skip this mod)

Shaders🔗

Here are some popular shaders and my personal favorites.

Sildurs Shaders

Complementary Reimagined

BSL Shaders

Additionally, Modrinth now also host shader resoruces and I strongly recommend you to check it out while supporting open source projects!

Resource Packs🔗

Faithful 32x 64x

mullak99's Faithful 32x

Special Thanks🔗

Special Thanks to the following people for their contribution in the making of this guide.

EEstar For the epic suggestions!!
broccolai
Puremin0rez
_11
Camar
Uni#5258 on Discord.

Closing Notes🔗

This guide is aim to be as simple to follow as possible, please reach out to EterNity if you have any suggestions on possible improvements or more mod suggestions. Thank you very much!

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