GPT_RT Shaders FAQ

Ray tracing calculates light paths across your entire terrain every frame, which is GPU-intensive. Start by lowering ray tracing distance and shadow quality in the shader settings, then gradually increase them until you find a balance between visuals and frame rate that works for your hardware.

Use the ambient light bounce settings to increase indirect lighting in shadowed areas—this simulates light reflecting off surfaces into dark corners. You can also adjust the cave brightness slider separately from overall lighting to preserve mood while improving visibility.

Yes, water reflections work everywhere, but their clarity depends on your reflection quality setting and the surrounding terrain. Reflections are most visible and striking in open areas with clear skies; they may appear softer in dense forests or underground due to reduced light sources.

Soft shadows are pre-calculated and adjust based on sun/moon position, creating natural penumbra (blurred edges). Ray-traced shadows calculate exact light paths in real time, allowing shadows to respond to multiple light sources and block geometry for more accurate results, but at higher performance cost.

Avoid using other shader packs or lighting mods simultaneously, as they conflict with ray tracing calculations. However, GPT_RT works with most content mods (biome, block, and mob mods) as long as they don't override the lighting system.

Glossiness is determined by the vanilla block texture properties—materials like water, ice, and polished stone naturally reflect light more than rough blocks like dirt or wood. The shader enhances these existing material differences rather than changing which blocks are reflective.

Use the time-of-day settings to control how the shader interprets sun angle and color temperature at different times. You can separately adjust shadow softness, ambient brightness, and reflection intensity for dawn, day, dusk, and night to match your preferred aesthetic.

Ray tracing works everywhere, but indoor lighting depends on light sources (torches, lanterns, glowstone) and openings to the sky. Enclosed rooms may appear dark unless you place light sources, which the shader will then bounce realistically around the space.

Performance depends on your ray tracing distance and quality settings rather than a specific GPU model. Start with medium settings and monitor your frame rate; most modern mid-range GPUs can maintain playable performance with balanced shader configuration.

Reflections can appear distorted near water edges, transparent blocks, or when the camera is very close to reflective surfaces—this is a limitation of real-time ray tracing. Increasing reflection quality or adjusting the reflection distance setting may improve clarity, though some minor artifacts are normal.