Minecraft never looked this good. || Distant Horizons 2.0 + Iris Shaders 

Thanks for inviting me, it was a blast! - James

Now we just need a mod that fixes worldgen speed once and for all... it's gonna take ages to wait for all those chunks to generate normally!

As a shader developer I will add some more information as to what happened behind the scenes: Distant Horizons only had initial comparability with optifine and shaderpacks as iris as you mentioned pursues the approach of rather not rendering something than rendering something which might be very broken. After many requests by users IMS added initial distant horizons support where lod chunks would now also render with iris and shaders enabled. Now matching optifine's behavior. This implementation is already released in the current public full release of iris. The only problem remaining now was a visual problem. On both optifine and iris the lod chunks looked like normal Minecraft vanilla shaded chunks while the actual render distance had the shader effects applied. By default there was even no transition between the normal chunks with the shader effects from the shaderpack and the lod chunks with no effects. There would be just a cutoff and an ugly border. Shaderpack devs had to change how their shaders work in order to support this. They would near the edge of the normal chunks fade out to vanilla shading making the transition smooth. Effects like border fog and do on would also be disabled. This was at a time where we still only had basic support and we on the shader side could not detect when a user is using distant horizons. This means that we had to tie those changes in rendering to a shader option the user has to manually change which isn't ideal. Because if a user wasn't using distant horizons it would look bad if the shader would fade to vanilla looking terrain at the edge of the render distance. That's why it had to be a toggle. At that time we had two big issues: 1) Lod chunks look like vanilla chunks and not like shader chunks. The shaderpack also had no idea that lod chunks actually existed. This was all done on iris. Iris only rendered the lod chunks and shaderpacks to make it look good had to fade out their effects. 2) We had to rely on users in changing a shader option to make their game look good with distant horizons or make a shaderpack designed for distant horizons but it will look bad without the mod. Now we advance time a bit and we come to the current state: Iris has even further improved distant horizons support. It now is much better than what we had before when it was on par with optifine. Iris has fixed the problems I listed above. Through the dev versions of iris and Distant Horizons (and in the next update of both mods) shaderpacks with iris can now detect if a user is using distant horizons or not with the #ifdef DISTANT_HORIZONS preprocessor define which gets automatically defined when iris detects Distant Horizons and then us on the shader side won't have to rely on users changing shader option to make things work but we can now implement it in a way so it happens automatically. Furthermore, what is even more impressive, shaderpacks are now able to render onto the lod chunks. Just like they are able to with vanilla chunks. It is more limited than normal Minecraft chunks but that doesn't matter as they are lod chunks. Lod chunks no longer have to look like vanilla and can look like the shaderpack looks in normal chunks. We have normal data, lighting data, even mini IDs which give us a basic understanding which blocks are which: so we can distinguish leaves from dirt or from lava to apply different effects on them. Shadows are now also possible. IMS worked really closely with shader developers to ask for feedback and suggestions of what features we would need to make it work. To summarize: iris will from now on offer a better distant horizons and shaderpack compatibility than optifine and previous iris versions as shaderpacks are now able to interact with distant horizons chunks.

Minecraft 2.0 is being made and Mojang is not giving a shlt

Distant Horizons, Nvidium, Irıs and Sodium teams should work together for the ultimate performance mod.

Dude to me the coolest use for distant horizons is seeing the hermitcraft maps in there entirety Like being able to see all bases from all places

Y’all this will be the ultimate combo if nvidium adds shader support, I don’t use shaders because I sacrifice LOD chunks and faster chunk loading

now, we wait for nvidium compatibility

I just happened to search "distant horizons" again on a whim when this video was 6 hours old.

WAIT THEYRE MAKING IRIS SHADERS COMPATIBLE WITH IT NOW YES YES YES FINALLY Optifabric has been broken for me for so long so I couldn’t use shaders + DH but now I FINALLY CAN HOLY SHIT

Been following you for a while now, and bro I BET this video will absolutely blow your channel up, mark my words! 😊

Love love loooooooove this partnership of these two amazing mods! Both teams have done amazing things for Minecraft with this

I remember the nay sayers before these lod mods were a thing. People have wanted lod for minecraft for a very long time but a lot of people seemed to be very convinced that it wasn't possible in minecraft for some reason.

This looks absolutely amazing. It felt to me for a long time that that since Minecraft changed It's terrain generation from beta the world never looked that good. Because it became more realistic and flat requiring high render distance to fully appreciate how it looks. Lower render distance isn't that big of a deal when you have a terrain with a lot of verticality

I can’t tell if you sound like fundy or not

This just insanity. Thank you for this video

This is probably my favorite mod. I didn't even know what I was missing without it. MC needs naitive support for this.

this makes me feel like the original devs of minecraft are incompetent...

Finally! Distant Horizons have shader support! I've tried using it before and most shaders just couldn't support it unfortunately. I'm glad that there's finally a compatibility with Iris Shaders!

Mojang really needs to just implement LODs already. It would make the game so much more fun to play. I thought they would've already added them 10 years ago, I've been waiting since. At least mod developers are passionate enough to work harder than the dev team, apparently.

Absolutely amazing, can't wait to try this combo!!

9:38 "I disabled comments on curseforge" yeah that should honestly be any mod dev's step 1a lol

They should team up with the person who does Dregora(?) the land generation mod. This would be a team combination like no other. Can you imagine the worlds they would create?

disabling the curse forge comments is so necessary. 😂 You can literally have the information in bolded 50pt red font at the very beginning of the page, and you will still get people who will scroll past it to leave comments about it anyways. That and people demanding updates and backports.

Imo Distant Horizons is the best Minecraft mod ever created. Thank you so much for this awesome mod. It is completely game changing.

Easily one of my favorite mods of all time. Ive been playing it with iris jank included, so seeing actual compatibility so close is exciting

Honestly just blows my mind that Minecraft doesn't have LOD chunks as a base game thing. Tiered rendering with quad trees is so common.

Hello CygnusMC! it is absolutely crazy how fast you've grown since that mineplex video! I haven't been keeping up with Minecraft lately (unfortunately). but I came across your channel just today and I'm really surprised and super happy with how much you've grown from 600 subscribers to 10k! congrats, man!!

Does anyone know when it will be available for 1.20.4 ?

Now if only it would work with the Physics mod...

Recently switched from Distant Horizion to boby. Distant Horizion can only really shine in Sigelplays as you need a high normal render distance for the transition to not be obvios. And it generates just insane amounts of data. I generated a 300GB servercasch in a month. and on a server where you first have to casch it more than like 64 chunks (and this is without nvidium with it it is even better), which boby can easly do a mid end pc. But worst of all is it dosn't update chunks properly. Recently dug a perimtier and DIstant horizion made it completly Impossible to play in. I am not a fan of shaders thogh so never really used them. This is still really cool thogh.

I've been slowly distancing😏 myself away from shaders recently because I find distant horizon really makes the game felt less lonely and more open. So when the new update with shader support is out then that would be the best of both worlds!

This is amazing. Not only I was astonished by the visual it provides, I was deeply impressed by how much project quality increases by just making highly maintainable code.

This makes me want to go on a adventure so someone fetch me my walking stick and the packet of biscuits

What is the world generation at 7:48? Is this a mod or a new pattern for the world of vanilla Minecraft?

If Complimentary Reimagined(or Unbound), Lets just say Complimentary, works with this, By all gods will this be fucking amazing to mess with when I upgrade my pc. Issue, If complimentary shaders will work with it or not.

I was looking forward to this for months, had a gitbhub conversation boomarked and everything (I dont have an acc lol) so happy to see this in my recommended :D

i love this mod, used it for a couple years and its great!

I have picked mod development recently. It is INSANE how modders will get these projects done WHILE HAVING A JOB. Thank for you everyone who has ever put out a mod out there

Insane collab, mad respect to the Iris and DH devs for reconciling these two very different core engine modifications!

I’m playing on realms with friends and I’m so sad my mod pack can’t get Distant Horizons because of 1.20.4. My mod pack is made to make Minecraft look really beautiful without too many over the top changes. But the lack of Distant Horizons is like losing 50% of the pack. I have grown to really appreciate DH and can’t play without it. Hope the dev gets all the help he needs to get updates pushed faster.

As someone who plays TF2, ULTRAKILL, and Minecraft, I did NOT see TF2 coming

Wait, this is one day old?? I've been waiting so long for this, time to get back to Minecraft after a couple years break!

pebble

You sound like fundy ngl

thank u nerdy white lads for making these worlds more immersive!

It would be spectacular if we could get this combination working with the Terra 1:1 (life size Earth) mod!

Oh man, I’ve been waiting for this update for a long time. Now they just have to make it work better with MacOS.

Seriously, what is Mojang even doing? Unpaid modders are making these incredible mods which absolutely transform the game for the better, while Mojang is just sitting on their rich asses making useless mobs.

You sound like fundy

Pebble :)

I want this texture for bedrock edition.

This is huge! Subbed and turned on notifications cuz I really want to see how thus combo progresses

When can I use this? This is awesome!

Two of my must have Mods Finally working together! 🤩

Hey! I just wanted to say, I've been carrying the task of managing server hosting by myself for a large community for 5 years and your channel is really helping me stay informed and entertaining. Thank you so much! Keep up the good work

i have big hopes and good feelings about all this

Whow long will it take till this cool thing gets relaisd

Bro I’m so confused why mine doesn’t look like that, it has all the block generated and I have photon shaders which is compatible but it just does not look cinematic like that, most of the world is awkwardly bright with no dark shadows across biomes, yes I have shadow clouds on

Distant horizons is so overrated, just use 64 chunks render distance

pebble :)

It bothers me so much that Mojang's updates are all over the place creating some narrative instead of focusing on making minecraft the ultimate sandbox it should be and just improving quality of life, given there are so many areas where it can done

I'm very happy that I was part of this project. It did burn me out quite a bit. but still, happy to see where it ended.

i cant even imagine how cool this would be with terralith

Hey CygnusMC. I love your modded videos. Especially the hisotry of modding loaders and especially news like this about Distant Horizons with shaders. Keep working bro you are going places! Much Love

Or alternatively Mojang should hire so it becomes a part of the base game

i may or may not have been here

I see you're liking some comments so i guess you're reading them, do we have any dates planned to see those updates? or is it WIP?

The mod is very quickly becoming good for casual play! I haven't been able to get myself to use it due to the issues outlined in this video but with shader support and the issue with black voids appearing as chunks unload being fixed I can see myself using this in casual play

why do you sound like fundy lol (also this was a really good video!)

Which generation mod is used? (With flying islands, Avatar mountains)

this plus fsr 3.0/fluid motion you're fit to fight?

Damn, this video casually mentions by top three games

So...who's gonna upload a walkthrough of Minecraft Middle-Earth server?

Now we need to combine nvidium and distant horizons for some epic performance and practically limitless render distance

"Absolutely mesmerizing! 😍 Distant Horizons 2.0 paired with Iris Shaders has taken Minecraft to a whole new level of beauty. The stunning visuals and atmospheric effects create an immersive experience like never before. It's incredible how mods and shaders can transform the game into a breathtaking masterpiece. Hats off to the creator for enhancing the Minecraft universe in such an extraordinary way! 🌌✨ #Minecraft #DistantHorizons #IrisShaders" ~ChatGPT

show this to a minecrafter in 2016 and their pc will catch fire

Mojang is REALLY behind on Minecraft development. We should have had shaders in MC and higher res textures as a default or built in option already. Along with rtx.

I believe Oculus is better than Optifine at the moment, as OF breaks with certain mod combinations... Oculus and Embiddium does'nt

If this mod was a new version of Minecraft, it would be a great new version. 1.21 could be this mod :'( (I play on bedrock for console so i cant use it)

60 FPS????? i must be missing some performance improvement or something, because i get at most 10 fps, and its at least a mid-high range computer, but idk

anybody want to recommend good shaders and optimization mods for someone running a 4090 with an intel i9 13900k, trying to get the best quality with 60 frames that i can and it's always just a little shy

There just ONE downside that is honestly a dealbreaker for me. And mind you it is not the mods fault absolutely. It's the fact that it exposes the flatness of a minecraft world. Sure they basically doubled world height recently but... let's be real, it's all underground, mountains are not only short, they are also surrounded by biomes thar generate higher terrain so the mountains in the middle look EVEN shorter. So i think not having a large render distance is just better for the visual of the game. I personally keep it at 32 chunks, one because my computer can handle that decently well and second because i found it's a sweetspot between the classic 16 (i feel like most people have that) and more exaggerated render distances.

I just can't wrap my mind arround why minecraft vanilla doesn't come with something like this.

As always, Minecraft BE left behind in optimization mods, I hate it when a part of the community is left aside by the game company...

It's always been surprising that minecraft never adopted adaptive lod. I mean, it wouldn't have to be the holy grail of lod that is the 1 polygon per pixel of unreals nanite, but anything would have worked.

Guys, I think the future of Minecraft lies in these mods in conjunction with cubic chunks with full functionality for other mods. This is how it will be possible to make the world much grander, and And reduce the load on your PC

I wish my game could run it with bliss shaders, I have a 1650 and it won’t stop lagging

Every time I try this mod it kills my performance and I still don't know why, my pc isn't even that bad

I seriously don't understand why the minecraft devs dont hire and buy this mod. Make this part of base game, give us terrain generation 3.0 based around this and make a exploration update, now you can actually see what is out there is the distance, which makes you want to go explore. Before you were just hoping for whatever, even if you had view distance up to max, which still wasnt very far and it ran like horse dooooookey

I wish Distant Horizons actually wokred well. Unfortunately it barely renders for me and its just a mess no matter the settings

Better rtx for Bedrock is by far the best looking for Minecraft but sadly distant horizons will never be used on Bedrock :)

i tried the mod. it wasn't very good, because the level of detail drop off is incredibly obvious. also, you can *always* see your real render distance, making it even more obvious.

I'm so GLAD. Optifine is SOOO DMAN HARD TO WORK WITH.

Why the fuck is this not just a feature for the game? Not only is this incredible to look at, but it also improves gameplay.

This needs to be a feature in Minecraft, in Minecraft. Im warching you FBI agent

Wow. Just the amount of dedication and time poured into this project. And we can just download it for free!

Does this work on mac?? If yes, then help me please cus it’s not working for me.

Kinda sad papermc server of my friend 's is only like 5 chunk. So distant horizon cant do a thing.

i was going to download it, it looks so cool, but on the server i'm playing on we have the 1.20.4 version, and the mod is only on .2 😢sad, gonna wait for it to release on the latest versions, hope it's coming