Tool
Path traced Minecraft shaders for a powerful PC
Every shader pack carries a performance tier its own author set, and a style. Pick what your card can handle and what you want it to look like. We are not judging which is prettiest; we are reporting what the authors said.
A strong modern card. Everything on, and the frame rate is your problem. Simulates light properly rather than approximating it. The most expensive thing here by far.
Shrimple1.1k followers · up to 1.21.4A simple Minecraft Java shader that attempts to maintain the vanilla aesthetic while adding optional shadows, colored lighting, and ray-tracing.PowerfulMid-rangeModestIrisOptiFinereflections · shadows · bloom · volumetric light
Noble Shaders727 followers · up to 26.2Using clever lighting techniques and powerful customization to create clean, immersive, and enjoyable visuals.PowerfulMid-rangeModestAnythingIrisOptiFinereflections · shadows · bloom · volumetric light
Alpha Piscium203 followers · up to 26.2High-quality realistic Minecraft shaderpack.PowerfulIrisreflections · shadows · bloom · volumetric light
Phoxel PT158 followers · up to 26.1.2[WIP] A Minecraft shader that strives to capture some of the beauty of real life, mixed with the unique ambience and blocky beauty of the Minecraft we've all come to lovePowerfulIrisreflections · shadows · PBR textures · coloured lighting
Dirt RT156 followers · up to 26.2A path tracing shaderpack for vulkanite mod, better than demo packPowerfulFabricIrisreflections · shadows · bloom · volumetric light
Lyrae Shaders88 followers · up to 1.21.11Physically-Based Real-Time Path Traced Graphics.PowerfulIrisreflections · PBR textures · coloured lighting
Spring Shaders (Chun)87 followers · up to 26.2A fresh and clear shader pack themed around spring.PowerfulOptiFineIrisreflections · shadows · volumetric light · PBR textures
DERCODE37 followers · up to 26.2Realistic & Fantasy Shader based on Derivative shaderPowerfulIrisOptiFinevolumetric light · PBR textures · waving foliage · built for screenshots
Zephyr Starlight36 followers · up to 1.21.11Experimental real-time path traced shaderpack for MinecraftPowerfulIrisreflections · shadows · PBR textures · coloured lighting
Better Voxels20 followers · up to 26.2Rethinking Voxels Fork | Every legendary feature you ever wanted in a shader. Combined. Optimized. Perfected.PowerfulIrisreflections · shadows · PBR textures · coloured lighting
Unbound Visual +14 followers · up to 26.2Unbound Visual+ is a modified version of Complementary Unbound, featuring various added effects and visual enhancements.PowerfulMid-rangeIrisreflections · volumetric light · PBR textures
IterationVX4 followers · up to 26.2Ray-traced colored block lighting for Iris: every torch, lamp and glowing block emits its own colored light and casts crisp ray-traced shadows and reflections. An IterationT (Chocapic13) edit inspired by Rethinking Voxels.PowerfulIrisreflections · shadows · coloured lighting
Light-Shadow4 followers · up to 26.2Light and Shadow enhances Minecraft with improved block and sky lighting, shadow-map based shadows, GI occlusion, LabPBR material support, and atmospheric visual effects.PowerfulIrisreflections · shadows · PBR textures · coloured lighting
Frequently asked
Which Minecraft shader runs best on a weak PC?
232 of the shader packs we track are tagged by their own authors as running on very weak hardware, including integrated graphics. That tag is the author's own claim about their pack, not a benchmark we ran, which is why it is worth more than a top ten list somebody wrote once.
Do I need Iris or OptiFine?
One of the two, and Iris is the usual answer now: it is faster, it works alongside Sodium, and it loads packs written in the OptiFine format. OptiFine still has features nothing else replicates, so a pack built specifically for it may behave differently under Iris.
Will shaders lower my frame rate?
Yes, considerably. Shaders rewrite how the game draws light and shadow, which is expensive whatever your hardware. Running Sodium alongside Iris buys some of that cost back, which is why the two are usually installed together.
How is this list ordered?
By followers, not downloads. A shader bundled inside a popular modpack inherits that pack's download count, so downloads say more about the modpack than the shader. Nobody follows a shader pack by accident.
Installing them is a separate question: setting up Sodium and Iris covers what to install and in what order. Or browse every shader pack by Minecraft version.
Is this information wrong or missing something? .