Minecraft Graphics & Shaders
Shader packs change lighting, shadows and water; rendering mods change how fast the game draws. Both run on the player's computer, not on the server.
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Pages in Graphics & Shaders
Minecraft Shader Packs
Shader packs that add realistic lighting, shadows and water, and what each one needs to run.
2 resources
Rendering Performance Mods
Sodium and Iris: mods that raise frame rates and add shader support on Fabric, NeoForge and Quilt.
2 resources
About Graphics & Shaders
Graphics resources live entirely on the player's machine, so a server cannot install them for players and does not need to. They are still part of how players experience your server, which is why server owners are often asked about them.
Two things are often confused. A rendering mod, such as Sodium, replaces parts of the game's renderer to raise frame rates. A shader loader, such as Iris, lets the game run shader packs, which are the packs that add realistic lighting and shadows. A shader pack on its own does nothing: it needs a loader that supports it.
Shaders cost frame rate, and the cost varies a lot between packs and settings. The listings state what each one needs and which Minecraft versions it supports. Test on the hardware your players are likely to have.
Frequently asked questions
Do shaders work on any server? Yes, because they run on the player's computer. A server cannot require or block them, although some servers have rules about modded clients.
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