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Looking for best Minecraft shaders to enhance the visuals of your worlds?Minecraft can be customized in many ways, with shaders being a prominent option. Shaders are mods that enhance the game's graphics, adding realistic lighting, shadows, water, reflections, and more.
They can make your world look like a completely different game, and there are many to choose from. In this article, we will list the top 15 best Minecraft shaders based on popularity, performance, and features.
Best Minecraft shaders
15) Rethinking Voxels
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Although it’s technically an edited version of the Complementary Reimagined shaders, Rethinking Voxels has received enough success and support to take on its own distinct identity. This set of shaders aims to mitigate the performance impact from ray tracing while still delivering the highest-detail shadows from blocks as possible.
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While Rethinking Voxels does technically work with mods like Optifine, players may want to utilize it with the Iris Shaders mod to get the best performance from it and avoid any unintended visual glitches.
14) Complementary Reimagined
On the subject of Complementary Reimagined, this set of shaders is spectacular for revitalizing Minecraft’s visuals. While the original Complementary Shaders are well-known for quality, the reimagined pack goes to even greater lengths to bring an entirely new visual experience to the world’s most beloved sandbox game.
According to the developers, Complementary Reimagined is always chasing perfection. While this pack can certainly create gorgeous visuals, players will want to spend a little time adjusting it upon installation to avoid the harsher performance impacts.
13) MakeUp
There’s no two ways about it: Although Minecraft is a game that can run on a wide range of hardware, there are some machines and devices that perform better than others. Still, an older machine shouldn’t preclude players from installing shaders and having a good time with negligible performance impact.
Fortunately, MakeUp provides shaders that are comparable to many of the most popular packs in the community while retaining a very high degree of performance balance. This set of shaders should be perfect for players who don’t have the best hardware but who want to envision their Minecraft world in a different light.
12) Kappa Shaders
Blending realistic visuals with a unique style not seen in plenty of other Minecraft shaders, Kappa Shaders are focused on recreating the same lighting effects that players might see in nature. To that end, the pack implements features like dynamic soft shadows, screen-space path tracing, and volumetric fog.
Kappa Shaders, while stylistic and gorgeous, will have some performance impacts accompanied by them. This isn’t a problem for some devices and machines, but it’s best to tweak the settings to find the sweet spot for a player’s specific platform.
11) Arc
A beta pack for both Iris and Optifine, Arc’s shader pack aims for the most realistic effects possible with the most minimal performance impact. It includes plenty of excellent features including volumetric fog, HDR, automatic exposure adjustment, and much, much more.
Even though it’s still in it’s early development cycle, Arc is showing signs of being one of the most popular shaders for a long time in the Minecraft community.
10) Vanilla Plus
Sometimes, Minecraft players want a shader set that makes the game look better, but not uncharacteristically so. While plenty of shaders aim for realism or large amounts of post-processing and effects, Vanilla Plus takes an alternate route. This pack is all about improving the lighting of the game without making it feel too far removed from the vanilla game.
With Vanilla Plus, Minecraft still looks more or less the same, but the softer lighting and shadows and the volumetric clouds (among other changes) give the game a more pleasant overall atmosphere.
9) VECTOR
Arguably one of the most unique and otherworldly shader packs in Minecraft’s community, VECTOR is a pack that converts the game’s visuals into the style of old computers such as IBM or Apple II PCs. In lieu of heavy lighting effects or post-processing, VECTOR converts the game into a series of line art, monochrome coloration, and distortions mimicking a CRT monitor screen.
It certainly won’t be every player’s cup of tea, but this shader pack undoubtedly has some appeal to fans who love retro gaming.
8) Forget-me-not
Although this set of shaders is specifically designed for use with the Canvas Renderer Minecraft mod, it nonetheless looks absolutely stellar. By utilizing a pre-constructed pipeline, Forget-Me-Not shaders can rely on traditional in-game rendering methods while creating very impressive lighting and effects.
The upside to this pack in particular is that since it’s dependent on the Canvas Renderer and doesn’t attempt to break the mold with unorthodox rendering tricks, performance reduction isn’t quite as problematic.
7) Epoch
Another great shader pack for Minecraft fans who love classic gaming, Epoch introduces effects reminiscent of old school monitors and systems. This includes creating scanlines, film grain, depth of field, and also several different color and film modes to apply various filters to the game.
Much like VECTOR, these shaders won’t be every player’s favorite, but fans who don’t mind a little technological nostalgia may want to give them a look.
6) Insanity Shaders
Insanity Shaders take a hard turn away from most conventional shader packs, creating a bleak and eerie aesthetic that would be absolutely perfect for horror mods. This spin-off of BSL Shaders implements contrast, lighting, and weather effects to envision a more dismal and disturbing Minecraft world.
It may not fit everyday gameplay all that often, but some fans are sure to get a kick out of this set of shaders nonetheless. Particularly if they enjoy a Grimdark feeling or are fans of horror art.
5) Unreal Shaders
Unreal Shaders aims to make Minecraft look like a modern AAA game. It has a bright and colorful look, with vivid lighting, shadows, and reflections. It also boasts realistic water with waves and splashes, as well as improved particles and animations.
Unreal Shaders requires Optifine to run and supports versions from 1.14 to 1.20. Overall, it's a great option for those who want to give their experience a more modern and visually stunning feel. With its advanced graphics and compatibility with multiple game versions, it's sure to impress even the most discerning gamers.
4) Continuum Shaders
Continuum Shader uses ray tracing to create realistic lighting and reflections in Minecraft. It has a more subtle and natural look than SEUS PTGI, with softer colors and smoother transitions. It also boasts realistic water with refractions and foam, as well as improved fog and weather effects.
Continuum Shaders requires Optifine and supports versions from 1.12 to 1.20. In addition, Continuum Shaders also enhances the game's lighting system, making shadows and light sources more realistic and dynamic.
3) SEUS PTGI HRR
SEUS PTGI uses ray tracing to create realistic lighting and reflections in Minecraft. Ray tracing is a technique that simulates how light behaves in the real world, creating soft shadows, accurate reflections, and global illumination. SEUS PTGI also has realistic water with caustics and ripples, as well as improved textures and materials.
SEUS PTGI requires Optifine and supports versions from 1.12 to 1.20. With its advanced rendering capabilities, this shader pack can transform the blocky world of Minecraft into a realistic and immersive environment.
2) Solas Shaders
Solas Shaders is a relatively new option that aims to provide a realistic and cinematic experience for Minecraft. It has stunning lighting effects, such as volumetric clouds, god rays, lens flares, and dynamic shadows. It also contains realistic water with reflections and waves, as well as improved foliage and terrain.
Solas Shaders requires Optifine to run and supports versions from 1.16 to 1.20. In addition, it has customizable settings to adjust the level of graphics and performance to user preference.
1) BSL Shaders
BSL Shaders is one of the most popular and versatile Minecraft shaders known for its realistic textures and lighting. It has a warm and vibrant look, with realistic water, clouds, sun rays, and ambient occlusion. It also boasts numerous options to customize the graphics to your liking, such as color grading, bloom, motion blur, depth of field, and more.
BSL Shaders works well with both Optifine and Iris (a mod that improves performance and compatibility with Sodium) and supports versions from 1.7 to 1.20.
These are the top 15 best Minecraft shaders of 2024. Each pack has its own style and features, so you can choose the one that suits your preferences and device performance.
You will need Optifine (or Iris for BSL Shaders) to install these shader packs and follow the instructions on their respective websites or download pages.
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