Possibly one of the most popular games of all time, Minecraft has provided a platform to make all sorts of weird and wonderful constructions. However, in comparison to some games power users play today, it seriously lacks graphical fidelity. Vanilla Minecraft, even with the most high of high-resolution texture packs, is hardly comparable to any modern graphical wonder. Until now. You’ve probably seen shader and light packs in Skyrim, Witcher, even GTA, but have you seen them in Minecraft? It’s a game that can benefit the most from an increase in graphical fidelity. After all, when your entire game consists of square blocks, the opportunity for shadows and other lighting to affect this voxel-based universe is astronomical. It can change your experience entirely.
If you’re looking to really max out your system, there’s no better way than throwing shaders into Minecraft. Our test system for Minecraft shenanigans consists of a lowly Core i5-4670K, running alongside 16GB of RAM, and a GTX 980. We still only managed to pull 20fps at 1440p with some of the best shader packs out there.
1 GET A FRESH COPY OF MINECRAFT
You’re going to want to get yourself a legitimate copy of Minecraft. Unless you already have an account, head over to https://minecraft.net and purchase a copy of the game. Once you have done this, download the .exe. If you already have an install, it’s advisable to remove the entirety of the .minecraft folder by typing “%appdata%” in the file explorer and deleting the .minecraft folder. (Remember, this will delete your local saves, too, but you can back these up by copying the save folder found in the .minecraft folder to your desktop, then returning it after the clean install.)
2 RUN THE .EXE AND SET UP VERSION
Next you want to run the Minecraft.exe. To make life easier on yourself, move the executable somewhere you won’t lose it—My Documents is a good start. Once you’ve run the .exe and logged in, click “Edit profile” at the bottom-left of the window. This should open a new window with a whole range of options. Twothirds of the way down the page, you should see a drop-down menu called “Use version.” You need to change this to 1.7.10. This is currently by far the most up-to-date and easiest version to set up shaders on. After you’ve changed the version to 1.7.10, hit “Save profile” and load up the game.
3 SHADER TIME!
Once you’re at the main menu, close the game. Now you want the core shader mod. You’re going to have to traverse your way through shark-infested waters, filled with advertising and AdFlys. Head to http://bit.ly/MCShader1710 to go to the Minecraft Shaders website. Then you want to scroll down to the bottom and select the “Download” tab. Next, simply hit “Link 1 Shaders Mod v2.3.29 Non-Forge Edition.” This takes you to an AdFly page—simply wait five seconds and hit “Skip ad” in the top right-hand corner, then the ShadersMod file downloads.
4 FALLING IN LOVE WITH JAVA
You need to open these files with the Java applet. If you don’t have this on your system, get yourself over to http://ninite.com, select “Java 8” from the “Runtimes” tab and click “Get Installer.” Run the installer and let Ninite install the latest version of the Java applet for you. Ensure Minecraft (both game and launcher) is closed, then rightclick on the Shaders Mod file you downloaded earlier, and select “Open with Java.” It asks you whether you want to install it into your Minecraft directory—click “Yes.” Hit “OK” at the license screen, and then “OK” one more time as it informs you what profiles it has added. And you’re done.
5 DOWNLOAD THE RIGHT SHADER PACK
Now you have the mod installed, you need to grab yourself some shader packs. The easiest way to do this is to head back to http://bit.ly/MCShader1710 and click the “Shaderspack” tab in the top-right. Continuum Shaders are incredibly taxing on your system (remember our 20fps earlier?). Sonic Ether’s Unbelievable Shaders are the standard go-to shaders—they’re quite the system drain but nowhere near as severe as Continuum, and they still look stunning. Sildur’s shaders are a little less system draining, yet still make the game much more enjoyable, and so on. Head over to each of the forum links and take a look to see which ones appeal to you the most. Then download as many as you like, as you can actively swap between them in-game.
6 INSTALL SHADER PACKS
After traversing through myriad AdFly browsers and other garbage to retrieve your downloads, head back over to your %appdata% minecraft folder. Create a folder inside the .minecraft directory called “shaderpacks,” then inside this folder place the zipped downloaded shader packs (but do not unzip them).
7 HEADING BACK IN-GAME
Open up the Minecraft launcher. This time, hit the dropdown menu next to “Profile,” select “1.7.10-ShadersMod,” and launch the game. Load up a new world, or one of your previous ones, and hit Escape. Select “Options” and you should have a new tab below “Video Settings” called “Shaders.” Click that, then choose which shader pack you wish to try out from the list on the left, and you’re good to go!
8 AVOID GRAPHICAL ERRORS
If you encounter any graphical errors when playing Minecraft, it may be that the shader pack just doesn’t support the graphics drivers you’re using. If this is the case, you’re going to have to swap them out for a different set. In our testing, using a GTX 980, we found that Continuum and Sildur’s shaders worked best, while Sonic Ether’s were a little hit and miss, depending on which version we used. Additionally, we did try to get it to work with OptiFine but found more bugs than answers.
RESOURCE PACKS
What better way to top off all of this lovely creativity, than with a nice highresolution texture pack? These are all down to personal taste, of course, but you can find a wide selection over at www.curse.com, and there is no annoying advertising that needs to be circumnavigated either. However, if you’re looking for the pack we used in the screenshots for this tutorial, head on over to http://atherys.com/pack.
A quick word of warning though — due to the nature of all these mods being mostly community supported, programs such as OptiFine MCPatcher and other such mods can conflict with both ShaderMods and other HD texture packs. You may ultimately have to decide between one and the other, at least until OptiFine releases a variant of its add-on with the shaders mod included.