The best Minecraft shaders for 1.21.11

What are the best Minecraft shaders? With shaders, you can instantly level up the look of your Minecraft world, even without an expensive graphics card. But with so many downloadable mods for the sandbox game, if you're unsure, let's start with what Minecraft shaders are.

One of the best PC games of all time and the ongoing king of sandbox games, Minecraft has incredible replayability, keeping fans and newbies coming to the game time after time. While Minecraft still receives regular updates, Minecraft mods, texture packs, resource packs, and shaders can completely reinvent the game, affecting its overall look. Shader packs give you the same game with fancier graphics and effects.

While these shader packs won't be optimized for 1.21.11 yet, you can still use them in the latest version; you may just find that some features don't work as intended.

Here are the best Minecraft shaders right now:

Vanilla Plus

Described as giving Minecraft "a modern and streamlined visual overhaul while staying faithful to the original visuals," Vanilla Plus is, unsurprisingly, another shader pack that just adds small, subtle tweaks to the base game's style.

The reason we love Vanilla Plus is because of its beautiful muted tones. While colors remain bright, they almost have a slight pastel tint to them, making Minecraft that much more easy on the eye. You can see this demonstrated in the image above, which compares Vanilla (center) with Chocopic (right) and SEUS (left).

Cursed Fog

If you love to celebrate spooky season all year round, then why not give LoLip_p's Cursed Fog shader a try? Unlike the other horror-inspired shaders we have in this list, Cursed Fog applies a CRT mask to give Minecraft a spooky '80s-nostalgia feel, almost as if you were playing the game through a VHS player. Cursed Fog offers a great way of changing up the feel of Minecraft without bogging down your system with heavy effects.

Beyond Belief

Like the raindrops in Astralex, perhaps the most appealing feature of the Beyond Belief shader is its wet effect, which shows a subtle surface change on surfaces when it rains. That's not all, though, as there are also stunning volumetric clouds, a motion blur, and slower, more natural animations for flora. Plus, almost everything is toggleable to your preferences - what's not to love?

Body Camera Shader

Experience Minecraft in an entirely new way with the Body Camera Shader from LoLip_p that simulates the effects of a traditional body camera. The fisheye effect and auto exposure functionality add a realistic element to the game, providing you with a fresh perspective for your next Minecraft adventure.

Bliss Shaders

If you like Chocopic's Shaders but still want something more, then Bliss Shaders could be what you're after, as the creator had the same thought themselves, and that's how this fantasy shader pack was created. With a mystical fog surrounding the whole world, green smog filling swamps, and a whirling storm above your head in The End, playing Minecraft with Bliss Shaders installed is almost like playing an entirely new game.

Rethinking Voxels

If you're a fan of Complimentary Shaders, then you're going to love Rethinking Voxels. Based on the popular shader pack, Rethinking Voxels even further improves the light and color in vanilla Minecraft, closely replicating what we might have seen if the official RTX version of our favorite game ever came to fruition.

MakeUp

Arguably the best performance-focused shader pack of the lot, MakeUp doesn't skimp on the details while ensuring your PC doesn't cosplay an aggravated Creeper. While there are prettier options out there, MakeUp is perfect if you want to give your vanilla game an upgrade without sacrificing precious frames.

Photon Shaders

Photon Shaders change a lot about how your base game looks, just like the other shaders on this list, but the newly popular Photon really sticks out for its sky details. Starry night skies, auroras, and the most beautiful sunsets you could hope to see in a Minecraft game. The water, shadows, lighting, and other changes are just a bonus, and everything can be toggled on and off.

Kappa Shader

Kappa Shader is a realistic shader pack with cute, fluffy clouds and leaves, as well as realistic blocks, water, and more. Some of the best aspects of this shader pack are its lens effects (which can be turned off), including lens flares and customizable depth of field.

Spooklementary

Sometimes, there's nothing better than a good scare, and Minecraft horror maps and experiences are among the best. For those times, or if you're already a fan of the Insanity Shader, then give Spooklementary a try.

Based on Emin's Complementary Shaders, also featured below, Spooklementary features many of the best-loved things about Complementary: its fluffy clouds, realistic water, and glowing lava, but with a thick layer of grime on top, resulting in what you can see above. And it looks bloody brilliant.

Complementary Shaders Unbound

Complementary Shaders are among the most popular Minecraft shaders of all, offering many of the same features the best also carry, such as realistic flowing water and puffy clouds. However, Complimentary often stands heads and shoulders above the rest thanks to the customization options granted, including those based on your PC abilities and two different shader variants.

Unbound is one of the two Complementary variants, and our favorite. However, you might prefer the Reimagined style which maintains some elements of vanilla Minecraft, like the surface of water and blocky clouds, while still maintaining that gloss of a good shader pack.

Super Duper Vanilla

The Super Duper Graphics update was supposed to be an official Minecraft update, adding stunning lighting effects to the game without the need for an RTX graphics card. Generally speaking, many Minecraft shaders are looking to fill the gap left when the update was cancelled, but perhaps none get quite as close as Super Duper Vanilla. This stunning shader pack overhauls the lighting and shadows in every Minecraft realm - we particularly adore the sky in The End - and it even runs well on fairly low-end PCs.

Astralex Shaders

Astralex Shaders is an incredibly stunning texture pack based on BSL and Continuum, made with the permission of the creators of those packs. Focused mainly on lighting, water, and effects, this pack literally glows, giving the illusion of ray tracing without it. Other packs offer the same, as well as realistic water, so what we really love in Astralex is the raindrops that appear on the screen in the rain. We also can't get enough of the toggleable film grain overlays and brilliantly starry night sky, complete with constellations and shooting stars.

Minecraft PSX Shader

Minecraft might be over a decade old, but what if it were even older? If you've ever wondered what Minecraft would have looked like had it come out in the mid-nineties, we've got the answer thanks to modder Christian Kosman, otherwise known as ckosmic.

The Minecraft PSX shader pack looks incredibly nostalgic, and such great attention to detail has been paid to the feel of the game. We've not done it justice with a simple image above, but we'd rather leave the initial feeling for when you load into your world, as even moving has the same shaky feel of '90s PlayStation games.

PixelCraft

Similar to the PSX Shader, PixelCraft shaders from SpacEagle17 also transforms Minecraft into a pixel-style retro game, this time using Complementary shaders as a base to create a truly unique effect. PixelCraft works particularly well when taking beautiful screenshots, but you might find it difficult to play with this on, as it can feel like your eyesight has suddenly gone bad.

Continuum Shaders

Continuum was once the Sistine Chapel of Minecraft shaders but is now the default for realistic graphics mods. Upon installing this shader, you'll be greeted with photo-realistic lighting effects: color gradients across the skybox, true-to-life clouds, and shadows that adjust in shape and angle with the sun's position. Everything here is top-notch.

They're also working on a brand-new, ultra-realistic texture pack to go with their shaders. If you ever wanted to see what Minecraft would look like in real life, you can support the development and purchase early access packs now.

Sildurs Vibrant Shaders

Sildurs Vibrant Shaders is another classic, offering plenty for the budding graphics enthusiast. At the high end, you can grab the Vibrant shaders pack for extreme rigs, which overhauls the Minecraft lighting tech to add the holiest volumetric lighting imaginable, some gorgeous reflections, and bloom effects. Alternatively, there's the Enhanced pack which has some neat effects and can be tuned in case your rig resembles a potato with some jump leads attached to it.

Werrus

While most will rightly point out the impressive shadow work in the Werrus Shader Pack, the water effects merit its inclusion in this list of the best Minecraft shaders. The color, the gentle waves, and the genuine sense of depth are difficult to beat, and it runs on pretty much any PC, too. The lighting and shadows are at their best at night and make encountering a skeleton archer in pitch-black terrifying.

BSL Shaders

BSL Shaders deliver some of the best visuals you can get in Minecraft without breaking your rig. The lighting is warm and welcoming, the water is realistic without contrasting too much with the blocky environment, and there's a tangible atmosphere wherever you look. While BSL and SEUS are both fantastic all-rounders, if you're after a slightly more realistic shader, then BSL is the one to go for.

Solas Shaders

Solas Shaders were created as an offshoot of BSL Shaders, the successor to the Prismarine shaders. Boasting volumetric clouds and light, and a mechanic that prevents clouds "leaking into closed spaces," Solas Shaders is already a high-performing shader pack, with minimal impact on your system and the ability to run on low-end PCs.

What makes Solas stand out from the crowd is its fancy sky effects, including the aurora borealis, the Milky Way, and the Ender Nebula. If you aren't too afraid to venture out into the overworld after dark, there are some splendid sights to behold with these shaders installed.

Pastel Shaders

The Minecraft Pastel shaders feature a subtle color change to the world around you. With various color profiles to choose from, you can give your world a pink, blue, or yellow hue. From there, you can choose whether to add other shaders and texture packs to further alter your world or stick to the slightly more pastel-tinged vanilla environment.

Insanity Shader

Perfect for the horror fans, Elocin's Insanity Shader Pack adds a spooky look to any Minecraft game but is a particularly great addition to a horror mod pack. This shader pack really needs to be seen to be believed, but just imagine what it might look like if you had a horror filter over Minecraft, and you're partway there.

A nice, blue sky becomes grey and gloomy, rain becomes a deep, dense fog, and every scene, night or day, just has that lick of eerie paint over it. If you're not scared of creepers and skeletons already, you will be with this shader pack installed.

DrDesten's MCShaders

DrDesten's MCShaders are a slightly more subtle shader in most aspects, most predominantly changing water to a more realistic surface with more movement, and even underwater is entirely different, too. However, you won't find fluffy clouds or soft leaves in Dr. Desten's yet, so if you want something that perfectly treads the line between vanilla Minecraft and some of the more complex shaders above, then give DrDesten's MCShaders a try.

Potato Shaders

As the name might suggest, Potato Shaders can be run on almost any PC. As such, it's a lightweight shader pack that won't slow down your performance. Potato Shader still makes Minecraft look beautiful, thanks to depth of field changes, bloom, and custom water. Great news if you're still saving the pennies to upgrade your rig.

Ebin Resurrected

Ebin Resurrected shaders were inspired by SEUS, although out of the box, they look very different. The most noticeable change is that the clouds and foliage are impressively realistic, but there are some slight visual improvements everywhere you look. Admittedly, it's a little intense on your hardware, but can you put a price on modifying Minecraft?

Nostalgia Shader

The Nostalgia Minecraft shader has a retro vibe and plenty of upgrades for performance and new features. If you miss the 'Super Duper Graphics Pack', this shader accidentally has "some similarities," according to the mod's page. We particularly like how it looks at dawn and during sunsets. Like a few other teams and packs on this list, the Nostalgia creators are also working on an RTX-like shader pack, NostalgiaVX.

Unreal Shaders

Okay, we're cheating with this one, as Unreal Shaders is a combination of shaders and textures that you can mix and match to perfect your Minecraft world to your liking. Including three different shaders and texture packs, as well as new biomes, immersive sounds, and more, Unreal is a simple way to change the look of Minecraft with just one download - you don't even need Optifine.

Chocopic13's Shaders

Clear, crisp graphics with beautiful water effects and glowing lighting - Chocopic13's Minecraft shaders are undoubtedly handsome. However, one of the main reasons to check out this shader is that it comes in a range of versions based on what rig you have, from extremely demanding down to toaster tier. The bottom end isn't nearly as fetching, but it's difficult to beat for almost no performance impact.

Sora Shaders

This edit of the projectLUMA shader is simply breathtaking. The Sora Minecraft shader has all the fantastic skyboxes and lighting effects you'd expect, just like the shaders it's based on, but it combines it with enhanced shadows and reflections. It stands out because the water effects are on par with the Oceano shaders. We think it looks even better in motion, and the updates to other biomes also look fantastic!

Oceano

The reason Oceano is so renowned for its water effects is because of its respect for the original, vanilla look of Minecraft. More than some of the other realistic shaders on this list, the landscape surrounding its realistic waters maintains a more vanilla look. That said, you'll notice some other nice changes, like full grass blocks and textured trees.

SEUS

Named SEUS for short, Sonic Ether's Unbelievable Shaders improves the realism of your Minecraft, much like well-known BSL shaders. Soft natural lighting, rain that adds a glossy sheen to every surface it touches, procedurally generated clouds, and much more await you in SEUS.

While Sonic Ether does continue to work on modding projects, their shaders haven't been updated for modern Minecraft. Fortunately, someone has converted the shaders to work with the latest versions of the game over at ResourcePack. Forget Minecraft RTX, this is true beauty.

How to install Minecraft shaders

Getting Minecraft shaders up and running is a simple enough process. Before you start installing a shader pack, though, you'll want to download and install either Forge or Optifine. Remember that these aren't always updated, so your options are limited if you want to run shaders on the latest version of Minecraft Java. Likewise, you must ensure the shader you're downloading is for the same version of Minecraft Java you're running.

Follow these steps to install Minecraft shaders in Java edition:

Download additional software like Optifine if needed - the requirements will be specified on the shader download page.

• Download the shader pack.
• Place the shader pack zip file in the Minecraft > .shaderpacks folder.
• .shaderpacks should be located in your AppData folder. If you can't find it, type %appdata% in your search bar and locate the .minecraft folder within it.
• From the Minecraft Launcher, select the Optifine or Minecraft game version you need to run the shader and hit 'Play'.
• Load your world or create a new world, and go to Options - Video Options - Shaders, then ensure the shader you want is selected, as seen in the image above.

And there you go, the best Minecraft shaders to upgrade your graphics outlook and improve the already stunning Cherry Grove, Pale Garden, and your other favorite Minecraft biomes. These are great if you want to add a unique atmosphere to your favorite Minecraft maps or your cool Minecraft house ideas. Combine the best Minecraft shaders with different texture packs and resource packs to create some incredible Minecraft builds, like a mushroom-themed cottagecore dream base or a brightly colored, well-lit modern house.