Running Shaders with Iris or OptiFine

You can pair extended horizons with custom lighting and shadows, provided you use a compatible shader loader and test how your chosen pack handles simplified terrain.

Selecting a Compatible Shader Pack

Distant Horizons works with some shaders when you also have Iris or OptiFine installed. Place your shader pack files into your game's shaderpacks folder, then open Options, select Video Settings, and enter the shader selection menu. Enable a shader pack and look out past your normal vanilla chunk border. Because only some shaders support the mod's simplified chunks, check that the far terrain connects cleanly to nearby blocks. If the distant landscape looks blank, detached, or visually glitched, switch to another shader pack until both nearby blocks and distant fake chunks render properly together.

Balancing Visuals and Performance

Combining real-time shaders with extreme render distances demands extra work from your computer. If you notice lag after activating a shader pack, open the Distant Horizons config GUI and lower the mod's render distance closer to its 64-chunk default before stepping it back up gradually. You can also toggle distant fog on or off in the config GUI if the mod's built-in fog clashes with your shader's skybox or atmospheric haze.