Minecraft is the best-selling game of all time and it doesn't look to be slowing down any time soon. Mojang's unique sandbox gem took the world by storm when it first launched over a decade ago, with many of us fans having since grown up with its blocky hills and eerie caves. Throughout the years, Minecraft greatly evolved thanks to a steady flow of new features including everything from fresh biomes to explore to some more RPG-oriented mechanics such as its bosses. As the base game has changed over time, so has the availability and sheer number of mods online to download for Minecraft.
From gameplay mods to quality-of-life mods, shaders to texture packs, and more, there are countless Minecraft mods to choose from via host platforms like CurseForge now. If you're running the best Minecraft version for mods and are a Java edition player, you have an even wider library of mods to browse and select from. One of the most renowned of these Minecraft mods is none other than Distant Horizons, a truly game-changing download that allows for far longer draw distances than the default view distance allows for, all with stellar performance to boot.
If you struggle loading chunks in Minecraft or simply wish that you could up your render distance tenfold, look no further than Distant Horizons. You'll finally be able to oversee your world properly, whether that be from the top of a tower you've built or from the sky as you glide freely with your elytra. You may not yet know how to download Distant Horizons, however, or what the mod truly does. You also might be wondering whether it works alongside your favorite shaders. We've got you covered here with everything we know in our in-depth Minecraft Distant Horizons guide.
Minecraft Distant Horizons Guide
Distant Horizons is a ground-breaking Minecraft mod that implements a simplified terrain to surpass the game's default view distance and improve overall performance. With this mod downloaded, you can see much farther out into your world than you can in just the base game. It's not a minor difference either, pushing the terrain your Minecraft world can process to a whopping 512 chunks out from you.
For reference, if you choose the maximum option in your game's standard render distance settings, it'll only load up to 32 chunks and this often ends up tanking your FPS. Distant Horizons bypasses this limit completely and doesn't end up harming your game's performance or the overall FPS you get in Minecraft in the process. Once you experience your world with the mod active, you'll see just how much of a difference it makes.
How to Add Distant Horizons to Minecraft
If you don't know how to install Distant Horizons for Minecraft, it's thankfully very simple. You add the mod to your game as you would any other Fabric or Forge mod. Whether you have Fabric or Forge installed, head over to the CurseForge page for Distant Horizons here and click the "download" button in the top right-hand corner. From there, a pop-up menu will appear where you'll need to select the version of Minecraft you're playing and whether you use the Fabric or Forge mod loader.
Your download should then instantly commence. Once you have the file ready, navigate to your Minecraft mods folder. To do so, press your Windows key and your R key at the same time to bring up the "Run" box on your desktop. Type %appdata% into this box and click into the folder titled "Roaming." Once in the Roaming folder, you should see another folder dubbed ".minecraft" which you'll need to click into. This is where you'll find the relevant "mods" folder which you'll place the downloaded Distant Horizons file within.
How to Use Shaders With Distant Horizons in Minecraft
Many Minecraft players value shaders above all other add-ons as they play since they severely impact the way that the sandbox game looks. Shaders can be the difference between the game's usual bland blue cartoonish water and crystal-clear realistic ripples. If you're wondering whether or not you can download shaders and use them alongside Distant Horizons, you thankfully indeed can. You'll first need to install either Iris or Oculus (the former if you're a Fabric user and the latter if you're using the Forge mod loader). These mods allow you to use shaders with Minecraft.
Once you install either the Iris or Oculus shader mod, you can choose between six different shader packs that are compatible with Distant Horizons. We've listed the six available shader packs below, starting with the popular Bliss pack from creator X0nk. It's important to note that while these are deemed officially compatible by the modder behind Distant Horizons, they don't necessarily function without fault. You may encounter sky rendering breaks, which you can try and resolve by either changing the Distant Horizons "Transparency" setting to "Complete" or the "Render Quality" setting to "Medium."
- Bliss by X0nk
- BSL by Capt. Tatsu
- CTMPOMFIX by timetravelbeard
- Noble by Belmu
- Photon by sixthsurge
- Shrimple by Null
After you've selected a shader from those listed above, locate your shader pack folder. To do so, press your Windows key and your R key at the same time to bring up the "Run" box on your desktop just as you did earlier. Type %appdata% into this box and click into the folder titled "Roaming." Once in the Roaming folder, you should see another folder dubbed ".minecraft" which you'll need to click into. You don't need to go into the "mods" folder like before, but rather the "shaderpacks" folder instead. This is where you place the shader file you downloaded. Finally, head to your video settings in Minecraft and apply the shader.
