Shaders info:

Shaders are a great way to enhance your Minecraft experience, and there are many different shader packs available and they each improve your visual experience and affect your game performance in different ways. Depending on your video card, you may even be able to live with shaders on all the time. However, this requires a very powerful card so it is likely not a viable option for many people.

First, to get shaders, you will need the Shaders Mod. It is not absolutely required, but it is strongly recommended you get OptiFine as well, because OptiFine dramatically improves performance and will offset much of the extra load of running shaders.

OptiFine can be gotten HERE.

Shaders Mod, maintained by Karyonix, can be gotten HERE. Make sure you install OptiFine first.

Shader Packs:

Now, for the packs. The Shaders Mod doesn't do anything by itself. You need to add shader packs for you to do anything. Below are a list of packs that I have tested to work well and not cause problems. If I don't list a pack, it doesn't mean it's not good. It just means I either haven't tried it yet or didn't find it noteworthy (too similar to others). Try it and you may like it. I will publish a warning if I encounter any extremely bad packs, though.

Packs that I've tested and recommend:

BSL+: BSL+ is a newer shader pack, and what makes it stand out is how configurable it is. Whereas most shader packs break things by deviating too far from stock Minecraft, resulting in overly dim or yellow interiors or water that is invisible when used in fountains, BSL+ is HIGHLY configurable. For water, I recommend an RGB value of 152 / 212 / 255 and Alpha and Intensity values of 0.75 and 0.65, respectively. For Blocklight color, set it to 255 / 192 / 148 with an Intensity of .9. For Post Process, turn Bloom Strength down to .25. Do this, and you will get something that looks very close to stock Minecraft under all conditions, but definitely looks better overall. It doesn't have the water reflectivity of some of the others, but the results are still quite impressive. This is the BEST choice by far for fountains or shallow bodies of water, as, with the above settings, it does not make the water go invisible.

SEUS: SEUS features fully reflective water, waving plants, and other very nice aspects. It tends to be very bright, and is great for areas like Minas Tirith where you want those white walls to shine. I can no longer recommend this pack for interior shots, though, as current versions tend to be darker and have a heavily yellow tinted torchlight that cannot be adjusted. For that, I recommend BSL+.

MineCloud: MineCloud features waving plants, refractive water (does not reflect exact shapes) and a much warmer, more yellow lighting than SEUS. It works well for natural areas like The Shire and Rohan, but not so well at Minas Tirith.

ChocaPic13: ChocaPic's shaders are a good intermediate between MineCloud and SEUS. They're more yellow than SEUS but less so than MineCloud. This pack will work well pretty much anywhere. Overall, I think this pack produces the best night shots. It is also highly configurable in the newer versions, although not quite to the same extent as BSL+. You can at least adjust it for brighter interior lighting and less yellow torchlight.

RudoPlays: RudoPlays is lighter than the others listed above but may cause some odd lighting issues as you move around, as it does not update as often to improve performance. It's still a decent pack

Packs to avoid:

Sasuked's pack: avoid at ALL costs. This will most likely lock up your game, even on an extremely beefy computer. I got 1-2 FPS just standing still, and barely managed to turn it off.

Screenshot tips:

First, I need to state that most shaders should not be used in certain areas of MCME, as they destroy the ambiance that people worked so hard to create. The two notable ones I have found so far are Glistening Caves and Lothlorien. The problem is that their yellow lighting bloom simply destroy the cold blue lighting that was intended for these areas. You may be able to get away with BSL+ if it has been properly tuned, though.

Screenshots should be taken to take best effect of dramatic lighting. In order to achieve the best affect, you can change the time for yourself by typing "/playertime night", "/playertime day", or "/playertime 12:00" (where 12:00 would be the desired time). There are a few odd bugs when specifying exact times, so just do your best to find what works.

Beyond that, have fun, and enjoy the enhanced beauty that shaders bring.

Happy building!
WardenWolf

DSESGH said:

Sildur's Vibrant Shaders are also good for areas with a light mood, like the Shire.

Click to expand...

Sildur's has one annoying problem: a non-smooth transition from when you pan from the sun or moon. Everything immediately becomes darker, which is also exactly opposite to how your vision would work in real life. Because of this I'm going to classify it as a mildly flawed pack: okay for taking screenshots with, but you can't live with it on constantly.

Updated to add MineCloud on the list of recommended shaders.

You'll have to ask him. It's entirely possible, though I don't see any such reference anywhere on his site. Either way, he makes a good pack. Generally not good for interior shots without a lot of illumination, but excellent for outdoor use, both day and night.

I didn't find Cuda shaders to be appreciably different than ChocaPic's during the day. During the night, though, they're overly blue and dark. A little blue is a good thing, and SEUS nails it perfectly. This was a bit too much, though. Most shader packs, I've noticed, don't work well inside because they nerf light diffusion, making things seem darker than they should be. Light sources such as fireplaces and candles don't go as far as they do in stock Minecraft, which means these packs "break" interior lighting schemes. That said, they also don't bloom the light as much, making them better than SEUS for exterior night shots. If I were to pick a best all-around pack to run constantly, it would be SEUS, because you can live with it both inside and out. But for screenshots, I change up my packs based on the setting.

I'm mostly looking for packs that are unique and provide a real noticeable benefit in a given environment. I also place a real value on good all-around packs. I'm open for suggestions. Recommend a pack, and I'll try it. If I think it does something particularly well, I'll link it in the main post.

Iru already pinned it, so all is good. And it's more on-topic here really.

I'l check some of these other packs when I get an opportunity.

natanyagrad said:

Heyo guys,
Ima on Mac (MacBook Pro) like @bender400
I have forge/optifine/shader mod GSLE (i think thats what it is called) installed.
I have MrMeeps, SUES, Sildurs, RudoPlays, MineCloud and CocaPics Shaders in my shaderpacks file.
Only RudoPlays works, and gives me pretty bad lag!
1. Can someone clarify?
2. If they should all work on Mac, is there any reason why it should not work for me?
3. Could someone link the 1.7.2 packs?
4. What does MineShot do (totally random, but wanna know)?
5. How can i reduce lag?

Thx
-Nat

Click to expand...

The problem is that most Macs, until you get into the extremely high-end ones, only come with basic Intel graphics that are on par with a $700 or less PC laptop. Most of these shader packs are not compatible with Intel graphics. Unfortunately, that's just what you get when you buy Apple: less for more. Their build quality is great, but the actual guts of the system are grossly substandard for the price.

I need to try Mineshot. I'll maybe mess with it tonight if I feel like it.

You may be able to get away with basic shaders designed to work with Intel graphics. Try MrMeep's. Some of the packs have multiple versions available for different hardware. Make sure you get the lowest-end one. Sorry, but that's how it goes. I'd suggest you get a PC next time. Apple will screw you every chance they get.

Regarding MrMeep, it's too yellow. Really, really yellow. It makes Minecloud look normal. Its uses would be very, very limited.

I tried MineShot. I'm not impressed. I thought it might allow for a longer view range, but instead it only produces unnecessarily huge screenshots. I can already get screenshots at 1920x1080 that look just as good as those do just with the stock F2 screenshots. If I really want antialiasing, I can enable it in my video driver for the application.

I've noticed some "light" shaders actually don't seem to do anything. Might try a higher-end pack. Also note that Forge for 1.7.10 is still experimental, and 1.7.10 itself has a lot of problems. I'd revert to Optifine and ShaderMod 1.7.5.