Turn On Trial Shaders and Confirm It's Working

Trial Shaders is a shader pack, so it only runs through a shader loader such as Iris or OptiFine. Make sure you launched Minecraft with one of them before you start.

Enable the pack

1. From the title screen or the pause menu, open Options > Video Settings.

2. Open the shader menu. It is called Shader Packs on Iris and Shaders on OptiFine.

3. Find Trial Shaders in the list and click it.

4. Click Apply or Done. The screen may freeze briefly while the shaders compile.

If Trial Shaders is missing from the list, use the button in that menu that opens the shader pack folder. Make sure the pack file is in the shaderpacks folder, not the resourcepacks folder. Then reopen the menu.

Quick visual check

Walk around for a moment and look for these changes:

• Blocks in sunlight should have soft shading, and the sun should cast clear shadows.
• At night, the moon should cast shadows too.
• Water should show subtle wave movement and clear reflections.
• The sky and clouds should have refreshed colours that shift through the day and night cycle.
• Torches and lanterns indoors should give off warm light.

If the world still looks like vanilla, go back to the shader menu. Confirm that Trial Shaders is highlighted as the active pack and that shaders aren't switched off.