Sodium Mod FAQ

Open Video Settings from the pause menu or the main menu, and Sodium's settings are integrated directly into that screen. You'll see Sodium's own pages for General, Quality, Performance, and Advanced instead of the vanilla video options.

Yes, Sodium is a widely used, open-source rendering mod that only changes how the game draws graphics and doesn't touch your account or files. It's one of the most trusted performance mods in the community.

Sodium by itself doesn't load shaders, but it works alongside shader mods like Iris that are built to run on top of it. Install the shader mod that supports Sodium, then pick your shader pack from its menu.

Sodium and Vulkan Mod both replace Minecraft's rendering system, so they conflict and generally can't run together. Pick one rendering backend rather than trying to use both.

The most common cause is a missing or mismatched Fabric API, or another rendering mod conflicting with Sodium. Check that your mod loader, Fabric API, and Sodium all match your Minecraft version, and remove other graphics mods to test.

Lower the render distance and simulation distance first, since those have the biggest impact, then tune Sodium's Quality settings like clouds, fog, and entity distance. Sodium already handles chunk rendering efficiently, so the biggest gains come from reducing how much the game has to draw.

No, Sodium is designed to keep the vanilla look while rendering it faster, so blocks, lighting, and textures appear the same. Any visual differences you notice usually come from other mods or resource packs, not Sodium itself.

Sodium is a Java Edition mod and does not work on Bedrock or Pocket Edition. Bedrock has its own separate performance options and add-ons, so Sodium can't be installed there.

You need a Fabric profile in your launcher, then place Sodium and Fabric API in that profile's mods folder. Once the Fabric profile launches, Sodium loads automatically and its settings appear in Video Settings.

Crashes usually come from a conflicting mod, an outdated Fabric API, or a graphics driver issue rather than Sodium alone. Update your drivers, make sure Fabric API matches your version, and test with only Sodium enabled to isolate the problem.