Best Optifine Shader Settings
Ronald
Want to try out the very best Minecraft shaders? Minecraft has always had a charming look, but those deceptively simple 8x8 pixel textures truly pop when combined with the dynamic real-time lighting, ray-traced shadows, and volumetric fog of a top-tier shader pack. Minecraft shaders have been around for many years now, and each one offers something slightly different in their quest to turn your worlds into drop-dead gorgeous works of art.
There are more shader packs to choose from than ever been before, and downloading and installing them has also never been more straightforward. The issue comes with deciding on just one shader pack to use - because unlike Minecraft texture packs, you can't layer shader packs on top of one another to combine their effects. Some shaders focus more on lighting, others on the sea, others still on weather effects. Some are lightweight, while others are behemoths that require top-tier PCs to run on max settings.
To help sort you out and get you started, we've compiled a definitive list of the very best shaders you can currently use with the latest version of Minecraft, version 1.20.4. Below you can peruse screenshots and writeups on over two dozen different Minecraft shader packs, and pick which lighting makeover is the best fit for you and your newest survival world!
If you want to spend some time comparing the different Minecraft shaders in this list and figuring out which shader pack is best for you, we can help with that. Below is a gallery of screenshots, all of the same Minecraft river scene, but each with different shaders active. Have a flick through the gallery and see which shader pack you like most!
AstraLex Shaders is a fairly recent shader pack, and an offshoot of the widely-used BSL Shaders. What struck me from the beginning was AstraLex Shaders' impressive and comprehensive set of customisation options, which allow to you tweak just about everything you can imagine, from specific lighting tones to various post-processing effects. One of my favourite features is a neat black bar effect which comes into play when you're crouching. It may seem like a small gimmick, but it quickly became one of the main selling points of this shader pack in my mind.
Out of the box, AstraLex Shaders look utterly beautiful (they are based on BSL, after all). Everything is crisp and vibrant, and the skyboxes are lovely - particularly at night. Some users might be turned off by the stylised star constellations, but I personally love them.
Beyond Belief Shaders doesn't set itself apart from the other Minecraft shaders on this list in any particular way (although the water is particularly lovely). Instead this pack provides players with a simple, pleasant balance between performance, customisation, and good looks.
Beyond Belief is built upon SEUS v11, a precursor to the SEUS Renewed shaders lower down on this list, and both shaders share several traits. However, Beyond Belief adds a few additional settings atop its foundational shader pack, including a desaturation effect at nighttime (which incidentally makes these shaders perfect for a midnight Minecraft fireworks display), and an admittedly basic celshading effect.
Good lord, BSL Shaders are beautiful. Like, really beautiful. When all's said and done, this is the shader pack that I tend to go back to for my own survival worlds, as well as any Minecraft servers I frequent. BSL Shaders are among the most popular shaders in the world, and it's easy to see why. Everything included here, from the amazing depth of field effects to the warm, crisp lighting, the beautiful water reflections, and the fluffy far-off clouds, is utterly sublime.
Thanks to the expansive array of customisation options available, BSL Shaders can also run on a wide variety of machines. This pack actually tends to run a little better for me on my (high-end) rig than many other "go-to" shaders on this list. But in this day and age, competition is fiercer than ever for the title of best Minecraft shader pack, and BSL may no longer be the undisputed king, but rather one of several strong contenders.
Here's a classic shader pack whose name might be familiar even if you've never used Minecraft shaders in your life. The venerable Chocapic13's Shaders pack still stands up today as one of the better options available, thanks to its vibrant but pared-back style and ability to run on a great deal of different hardware setups without too much trouble.
For those looking to really test their machines with the eyecandiest of eyecandy, well, this probably won't knock your socks off like you're hoping. But Chocapic13's shaders somehow create a more relaxing Minecraft than nearly any other shader pack I've tried (and I've tried a lot). There's something so serene about this particular combination of swaying leaves, gently shimmering waves, and soft, subtle lighting.
Complementary Shaders is an offshoot of BSL Shaders and designed to give users "the most issueless experience possible". This mod-friendly pack boasts excellent performance, and with just as much opportunity for customisation as BSL, whether you choose BSL or Complementary comes purely down to preference. A great choice for showing off your latest Minecraft house build!
The shader pack can also be optionally paired with a Complementary Resource Pack, though you can of course use this shader pack alongside any resource pack you desire. Personally I think it looks great just with the vanilla textures - and yet again, this pack is particularly stunning at night.
Continuum Shaders used to be far and away the most visually impressive Minecraft shader pack out there, with jaw-droppingly good lighting, water, and weather effects. Unfortunately, all that screenshot exquisiteness came at the cost of supremely low performance.
Nowadays, Continuum runs just fine. It's still perhaps on the more demanding end of all the packs listed here, but there's enough room for customisation that you can run it decently on a wide array of gaming rigs. And while it still looks beautiful, it's no longer far and away the leader when it comes to lighting effects.
That being said, two things still stand out with Continuum Shaders. The first is the cool crispness of the lighting. If you're a bit tired of Minecraft shaders bathing the landscape in hot orange light, then you might love Continuum's more realistic approach to lighting. And secondly, the rain is exquisite. When it rains or storms in your world, turn on Continuum Shaders. You won't be sorry.
DrDesten's MCShaders are very new compared to most other shader packs on this list, but this pack is well worth checking out for players who want more lightweight options to liven up their Minecraft worlds.
The big drawback of DrDesten's Shaders is also one of its greatest selling points: no shadows. Not bothering with all the real-time rendering of shadows leaves this shader pack looking a little less eye-catching than its peers, but it also frees up a lot of frames, making DrDesten's Shaders a great choice for mid-to-low-end PC setups. So if you're hunting for a shader pack that offers a lighter touch, focused mainly on skybox and water effects rather than lighting and shadows, give DrDesten's a try.
Installing Exposa Shaders will give your sunrises and sunsets an immediate pop of colour. Thanks to this pack's lovely skybox, nice cloud textures, and some effective (but not overpowering) lens flare effects, the beginning and end of the Minecraft day quickly became my favourite times to be out and about.
As far as performance and customisation options go, Exposa Shaders are... okay. There are enough settings to give the overall look some preferential tweaks and eke out a few extra frames. I was also able to run the shaders on max settings with my 2060 Super, although not at quite the same frame rate as I could get from various other shader packs on this list. That said, if it works well with your machine and you enjoy a nice orange sunset, then Exposa Shaders are a great choice.
Well now, here's a shader pack that looks decidedly different from most, wouldn't you agree? Insanity Shaders, based on BSL, has been designed to turn your Minecraft survival adventure into an unsettling, brooding horror-esque experience. Those screenshots above? They were taken during the day. The nights are far darker - be sure to bring torches to light your way.
Given its very pointed aesthetic, you'll either love or hate using Insanity Shaders. It certainly conjures a very immersive and foreboding atmosphere, and the level of customisation is quite impressive, so if you're looking to tone down the vibrancy of Minecraft and give it more of a gloomy demeanour, Insanity Shaders are simply the best choice.
MakeUp Shaders are a lightweight but powerful choice which will give your Minecraft worlds a makeover (pun intended) without sacrificing too much in terms of performance. Unlike the similarly performance-focused DrDesten's Shaders, which earn extra frames by not bothering to render shadows, MakeUp Shaders will still do just about everything you'd expect from a Minecraft shader pack - just with a lighter touch than most.
The result is a shader pack that doesn't blow you away with incredible visuals, but instead strikes a nice balance between making your default Minecraft world look a lot crisper and nicer, and keeping the frame rate smooth enough to enjoy playing with it enabled.
Nostalgia Shaders give you an extremely lightweight and wonderfully subtle graphical overhaul for your Minecraft worlds. Designed to emulate the first few popular shader packs of the early 2010's, Nostalgia may be a little lacking in the customisation department compared with others on this list, but the flipside of this is that you don't need to do much tinkering to get a great-looking Minecraft experience that chugs along well on most PCs.
By far my favourite thing about Nostalgia is the cloud options. Do yourself a favour and turn on Story Mode style clouds - they look so, so very good. Why is this not what clouds look like in regular Minecraft? Can't you just imagine building up to the height limit with some terrific palacial Minecraft build using this shader pack?
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