Recommended OptiFine alternatives on Fabric

optifine_alternatives_fabric.md

Why?

OptiFine was originally a great mod offering many quality of life improvements for player in the beginning. However, over the years, its benefits have dwindled and has caused many issues for modders. This is due to Minecraft's codebase improving over the years and OptiFine's aggressiveness towards replacing entire swaths of code while being closed source making it very difficult to figure out why OptiFine has broken another modder's mod. Also worth noting that OptiFine natively doesn't support Fabric and it's hard to maintain OptiFabric.

In the modern Minecraft era, with Fabric's community effort, modders have begun to create alternatives for most of OptiFine's features to allow players to maintain better performance, better mod compatibility, and better support.

OptiFabric: A note about the 1.16 crashes

Alternatives

• Connected Block Textures (CBT) - CTM (will not work with Sodium yet)
  • To fix glass panes bottom/top go here.
• Colormatic - Custom colors
• LambDynamicLights - Dynamic lighting
• LambdaBetterGrass - Better grass and better snow.
• Raised Clouds & Soaring Clouds - Configurable cloud height
• ItemNbtModels - Custom item models (has its own format but can load OptiFine format too)
• Varied Mob Textures - Random entity textures (uses own format, not currently compatible with OptiFine format)
• FabricSkyboxes - Custom skybox (not currently compatible with OF format)
• Fabrishot - Takes higher resolution screenshots.
• Dark Loading Screen - Change the resource loading screen to be darker by default but support custom colors like OptiFine does.
• Splash - Change the resource loading screen to be darker by default but support custom colors like OptiFine does.
• Transparent - Allows transparent textures useful for custom paintings and other stuff.

Performance

Client

• Sodium - performance improvements (even better than OptiFine) but no "fancy" options (if you want "fancy" options look for Canvas Renderer)
• Canvas Renderer - shaders and performance improvements
• Cull Particles - unneeded if Sodium is installed.
• Dynamic FPS - Reduces renders when unfocused to decrease CPU/GPU usage.

General

• Lithium - server optimizations (useful in singleplayer)
• Phosphor - lighting engine performance improvements

No Dynamic FOV

As of 1.16.2 and above, this is now a vanilla feature under the accessibility settings. If you are playing in 1.16.2 or above, the mods for this feature are irrelevant.

Those are client-only mod that prevents Minecraft from changing the FOV in all situations.

• motioNO - disables dynamic FOV.
• FovLock - adds dynamic FOV lock button.

Fog

• Sodium allows toggling overworld terrain fog. (not in current releases, only in dev versions)
• ClearView
• NoFog
• CustomFog

Zoom

• Ok Zoomer
• Logical Zoom
• WI Zoom

Extras

The mods listed below are not part of the OptiFine alternatives directly but those are still nice to have.

• Overworld Two provides an alternative optimized world generator for overworld and nether. Much faster than Vanilla but isn't identical to Vanilla.

Missing

• overlay textures
• custom entity models
• custom mojang logo
• Fishingline and Lead: Custom widths and textures.
• Lightmap: Custom lighting for the sun, torches, lighting and raining for the different dimensions.

Compability

Sodium and Canvas Renderer are incompatible. Sodium currently doesn't implement Fabric renderer API which makes some mods incompatible like CBT.

Need help?

If you need help installing any of these mods feel free to ask in the fabric discord server in the player-support channel.

If you need help about Sodium, Lithium, Phosphor (any of JellySquid's mod to be short), please check out her discord server.

If you need help related to LambDynamicLights or if you don't want to post in the comments a suggestion you can check out my own discord server

Other lists

• Useful Fabric server-side mods
• The future of Optifabric and Recommended alternatives
• Calloatti's list

Sodium and Canvas Renderer are incompatible. Sodium currently doesn't implement Fabric renderer API which makes some mods incompatible like CBT.

What does CBT stand for? (I don't like the usage of acronyms, it leads to "what does this stand for?" questions.)

It stands for Connected Block Textures (which is mentioned before) should precise its acronym.

Oh, ok. I was familiar with "CTM" but not "CBT".

Colormatic doesn't seem to be updated for 1.16...?

Um that's unfortunate, people told me to put it in the list so I put it in :/

CIT is missing, as is support for OF's emissive textures (unless canvas will support that format)
Better Snow missing too

It should probably be mentioned that Sodium does not currently work with any of the Alternatives for features nor any other Fabric mods (also note that this is an important and planned feature).

So Sodium crashes with any one of Connected Block Textures, Colormatic, or LambDynamicLights installed?

@dexman545 emissive textures will be in Canvas, but will not be under the same format as OF, still counts as an alternative. Better Snow is a CTM feature that can be easily implemented (via a simple resource pack) with CBT. If you want it to be included with the mod you can ask Nuclear.

@MulverineX it doesn't count as an alternative in this case if it does not support OF's format - what users want to know is if their texture pack will work or not.

@InfoTeddy what should™ happen is none of those mods will work if Sodium is installed (and Sodium will continue to work). This is because the API those mods rely on is disabled when Sodium is present (as it is incompatible). The path for compatibility is Sodium implementing the API, which it will.

@dexman545 it really isn't that difficult to port something like that. In fact, Canvas' system in all likelihood will be far superior to OptiFine's system. Which resource pack makers will be happy about (even though they do have to port). Also, expect compatibility with OF's format not to be a huge priority. A lot of people dislike OptiFine's formats so it's likely Canvas will not be the only mod that requires you to port. (This is assuming you're responding to the part about Emissive Textures)

So Sodium crashes with any one of Connected Block Textures, Colormatic, or LambDynamicLights installed?

@InfoTeddy It won't crash, but CBT and Colormatic will not work, LambDynamicLights is compatible tho. That compatibility should be resolved for Sodium 0.2 as it will implements the Fabric API. (And LambDynamicLights doesn't require Fabric rendering API at all, that's why it works)

For Sodium builds and info, go here: https://jellysquid.me/discord

To fix glass panes tops/bottoms in https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/connected-block-textures go here Nuclearfarts/connected-block-textures#1 and download the resource pack linked in one of the comments.

@LambdAurora Could you add motioNO to the list? It is a mod by comp500 that disables dynamic FOV (just like OptiFine's feature).

@TheMadHau5 Added to the list!

Colormatic doesn't seem to be updated for 1.16...?

now it's updated to 1.16 :D

Is there a mod that disabled fog like optifine for fabric?

@Gofkius, I'm not currently aware of a mod like that, if you find one feel free to tell me so I can add it to the list!

AddCIT (Custom Items) to list of missing features.

Added!

@Gofkius, I'm not currently aware of a mod like that, if you find one feel free to tell me so I can add it to the list!

Carpet Mod has a setting to turn off nether fog.

isn't carpet mod entirely server-side? (or in the case of client, only useful in singleplayer)

Tweakeroo also has a setting to turn off the Nether fog, and that's a client-side mod that works on servers.

TinyMod is an experimental mod that aims to replicate several Optifine features - https://github.com/Ficklampan/TinyMod

NoFog... removes the fog. https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/nofog/files/3004824

@Madis0 TinyMod could be added, but for now it's really too WIP and it does add things in the registry which makes them not fully vanilla-server-compatible.
If it improves it will be added but for now not.

@LambdAurora There's also "FovLock" by Chloe Dawn that disables the dynamic FoV feature:
https://github.com/ChloeDawn/FovLock

@Sturmlilie Thanks! Added to the list.

@LambdAurora could you add Thallium? It has performance improvements.
https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/thallium

@java987 No, I will never add that mod as it is a placebo, false-advertising.
An mod is not an optimization mod when it just skip renders and trick the game to think it's higher FPS when it's in fact not.

@LambdAurora It is not a placebo.

Despite the harassment in the fabric discord. It doesn't skip renders, if it did the screen would turn solid black (you can see this if you do skip renders).

My laptop can only get 15fps using vanilla but can achieve 70fps using thallim, and I can tell that it is definitely 70fps and not faked.

It doesn't skip renders, if it did the screen would turn solid black (you can see this if you do skip renders).

No, the screen would just be the same as before. It wouldn't be black if you skipped renders.

Regardless, the mod technically doesn't skip renders, it seems like it just copies the previous frame if less than 80 milliseconds have passed. So you're still wrong, even if you were right.

@java987 It is. But it kind of hides it.

When you "skip" a render it doesn't require the screen to turn solid black. The way Minecraft works is it renders to a framebuffer, which is basically a texture of where everything is rendered on. Each render writes to the framebuffer then at the end the framebuffer is rendered on the screen.
But what if you skip the framebuffer write? The last frame in the framebuffer is not erased until something is written on it.

So, what this mod does is, if the FPS goes too low, it will skip framebuffer renders but doesn't erase the framebuffer so it will display the same frame for a moment then re-render the framebuffer after a moment.

The FPS displayed by Minecraft is the number of time the framebuffer was displayed, not the number of times the framebuffer was written.
The placebo is it will make you think that it displayed more, but actually displayed the same frame multiple times.

If you really want more actual performances, please check out Sodium.

When you skip rendering, you are no longer measuring FPS, as it's not rendering every frame. Therefore, it makes FPS meaningless. Please use sodium if you want an actual FPS boost instead of a falsely advertised mod that claims to do something that it in reality doesn't do.

What Thallium does is introduce “lag frames” - copies of the previously rendered frame - if computing the next frame takes too long. If you’ve followed Super Mario Bros. speedrunning, you know what lag frames are. What Thallium does is stabilize FPS (screen draws) at the expense of sometimes not updating the frame.

This is fairly useless on modern machines, where the hardware already has this behavior by default.

@LambdAurora It is not a placebo.

Despite the harassment in the fabric discord. It doesn't skip renders, if it did the screen would turn solid black (you can see this if you do skip renders).

My laptop can only get 15fps using vanilla but can achieve 70fps using thallim, and I can tell that it is definitely 70fps and not faked.

Can you please provide proof or performance diagrams?

I'm not sure why this is controversial, the code is right here:

https://github.com/IsaiahPatton/fps-boost/blob/934dc8feb3ac4a120c79d4ee48370bc465651dd2/src/main/java/me/isaiah/mods/fps/mixins/MinecraftClientMixin.java#L151-L163

Every 60ms or 1 out of every 10 rendering passes (whichever happens first) has doUpdate==true, which allows the game to render. The rest of the time the frame isn't updated.

The rest of the code is empty and never gets called. There's only one mixin that does anything at all.

That's why it's controversial. "Frames per second" describes how many times the game is being rendered per second. His mod essentially cuts your FPS by 1/10.

Is there any mod that lets you toggle particle effects on a per-effect basis, like optifine does? "Low" particle density setting hides important particles like animal hearts when breeding, but medium renders all endermen particles which gives me frametime spikes in The End. Potion particles also are just in the way. I'd love to just turn off specific ones.

TinyMod is an experimental mod that aims to replicate several Optifine features - https://github.com/Ficklampan/TinyMod

Tried out this, works really well for me ty a lot!

i was thinking to swithching from optifine to sodium but, does anyone know if there are any mods for cit (custom item textures) and cem (custom entity models)?

i was thinking to switching from optifine to sodium but, does anyone know if there are any mods for cit (custom item textures) and cem (custom entity models)?

There's no known alternatives yet :/

This is a thing now: https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/varied-mob-textures

Already added to the list ;)

Is there any documentation about how to configure ItemNBTModel textures?

@Janooary Here's the documentation: https://github.com/Linguardium/ItemNbtModels/wiki

@Janooary Here's the documentation: https://github.com/Linguardium/ItemNbtModels/wiki

THANK YOU!

Some more features that don't seem to be listed anywhere (some are here, with alternatives, already).

Based off the FAQ of John Smith Legacy

Fishingline and Lead - Custom widths and textures.
Lightmap - Custom lighting for the sun, torches, lighting and raining for the three different worlds (Nether, The End and Overworld).

oh, thanks for pointing that out! I'll add new items to the missing features list then! ;)

Few more missing features:
overlay textures

Emissives (canvas has, incompatible format obviously)

Custom Mojang Studios logo

Well Emissives Textures do exists with canvas, even if they are incompatible I consider them as present. Might add a case for those in MCPatcherPatcher but not sure yet.

Colormatic provides the custom lightmap feature for sky and block light in all dimensions (including custom). No weather-based lightmaps yet tho.

Yes, considering them present is fine, just something to add to the list.

Going through the OF github:
Custom panoramas, with blur, overlay, and randomized textures
Custom render layer for any block (except those that were in the solid one)
Item, mob skin, skybox, and GUI animation
Biome specific textures, for blocks this seems to be an extension of CTM (Conquest makes heavy use of this)
GUI textures specific to container name/biome/type of container (ie different colored shulker boxes, or Christmas chest)
Addendum to custom lightmaps: nightvision, rain, and thunder, and torches (including flicker), along with the combinations thereof
HD Fonts with more customization (but no unicode) compared to vanilla's system
Custom loading screens per-dimension
Randomization of textures based on resourcepack (properties file to flip, rotate or combination thereof) the textures without manually making them/doing them in vanilla's json format
sky properties (I know there's a mod for custom skybox in progress, don't know how many of these it will implement)

EDIT: just saw verti's comment, so ignore the parts that overlap with colormatic :P

Item animation is.... uh... already available in Vanilla actually? for custom skyboxes someone is working on it.
If the CTM extension for biome specific textures is not supported by CBT it might be something to bring up to @Nuclearfarts then.

Randomization of textures based on resourcepack (properties file to flip, rotate or combination thereof) the textures without manually making them/doing them in vanilla's json format

That feels.... off in modern Minecraft days, this should not be supported anymore tbh.

Just listing them for completeness' sake. For the random textures, the vanilla format is fine. As for item animation, I know there's something for the state of the item (like bow draw), but unsure about an arbitrary item being animated.

but unsure about an arbitrary item being animated.

Well, can't you slap a .mcmeta file like for fire or sea lantern and boom animated? xd

Double checked and it does seem items can be animated in vanilla now.

"in vanilla now", it's been around for ages xD

Time moves too quickly for a Dex.

The biome specific textures are supported in CBT, as are the texture randomization ones (for legacy resource pack compatibility only).

Double checked, block overlays are also part of CTM. @Nuclearfarts, thoughts?

Support is planned, just haven't gotten around to it yet. There are also a few bugs I'd like to fix before moving on to new features.

Best of luck, I look forward to it.

https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/dark-loading-screen = Replacement for Custom Mojang loading screen. It's way better than the Optifine version!

I use that ^

This gist has grown so much and I really love seeing more development in the Fabric community. Thanks for developing such amazing mods guys!

https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/minecraftcapes-mod because people love capes apparently.

@Madis0 I'm against adding any capes mod in this list as OF capes are actually in a very gray area and people tend to consider it against EULAs.
Also I don't consider people will be that hurt to not have a cape or to search by themselves tbh

@LambdAurora Agreed. Personally, I also associate Optifine capes with people who just want to make themselves seem cooler than they really are, despite the fact that Optifine capes aren't as exclusive as actual capes are, and so they end up being less cool than they make themselves out to be.

How dare you not include my garbage fire of a FPS mod? /s

Really though, good list. Keep up the good work. 👍

This also looks pretty neat: https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/custom-fog

This mod also seems to optimize minecraft a little bit: https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/fabric-zero

Dynamic FPS reduces resource usage when minecraft is minimized, so theoretically it's a performance mod: https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/dynamic-fps

Overworld Two is a server-side optimization mod which optimizes world generation: https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/overworld-two

Overworld Two is a very specific case, it does not optimize the world gen but provides a new world gen close to Vanilla but is still not the same.

It's more of an optimized world gen alternative, might still include it in the list.

I would also include Tic-TACS if it wasn't that experimental.

I have some concern with Fabric Zero currently so I might not add it now, maybe later.

I still don't understand what Fabric Zero is lol

Fabric Zero is a mod that improves OptiFine/OptiFabric compatibility with other mods (except Sodium and Canvas Renderer) and it (claims to) optimize bytecode (read the last few lines on the CF page)

Regarding Fabric Zero, the specific ways it "optimizes" bytecode are suspect. I have yet to see any demonstration of measurable increases in performance, and most of the changes it makes are to very minor things like replacing divisions with multiplications by 0.5, replacing all constants of certain values for some reason (???), replacing Supplier<T> instances with static fields, and doing some sketchy inlining of math functions. If the author comes out with reproducible results that show improvement beyond the margin of error I'll accept there may be some merit to it, but right now my opinion is that it's designed by someone who isn't aware of JIT compilation and JVM intrinsics.

I found a resource pack that is compatible with canvas (credit to Motschen) https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/texture-packs/more-canvas-compat (emissive textures can be crossed off the list)
overlay textures can also be crossed out by motschen's better leaves and trees, that's a plus!

tweakeroo also does zoom, besides many other useful features

There is a mod for transparent textures too.
https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/transparent

There is also splash, which is an alternative to Dark Loading Screen: https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/splash

@MicrocontrollersDev Added.

Will Cull Particles and Dynamic FPS work with Canvas Renderer?

@bloxanne123 Cull Particles is outdated. Dynamic FPS works.

Are there any mods for or people with all these mods in mod pack that I can use because I currently have all the mods made by the person who made sodium. If not then I’ll spend a day or so making an optifine mod pack for fabric🙂.

@TheAverageGamer There's the modpack Fabulously Optimized which includes some mods of this list.