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Iris Shaders

Iris Shaders - shaders without OptiFine

A modern shader loader that runs OptiFine shader packs, built to work together with Sodium. Beautiful graphics without killing your FPS.

Shaders Optimization Fabric / NeoForge MC 1.16.5 - 26.3

What is Iris?

Iris is a shader loader: a mod that lets you load shader packs into Minecraft without installing OptiFine. For years, shaders were tied to OptiFine, which was slow to update for new game versions and clashed with other mods. Iris solved both problems: it reads the same .zip packs as OptiFine, but runs on the modern Fabric/NeoForge stack.

The project was started by coderbot and is now developed by The Iris Project team. Iris is deliberately built to work together with Sodium and requires it as a dependency. That's why the game keeps a reasonable frame rate even with a heavy shader, a setup OptiFine was never able to match. With over 185 million downloads on Modrinth (as of October 2026), Iris is one of the most popular mods in the platform's history.

Which shaders work with Iris

Practically every popular pack, because Iris aims for full compatibility with the OptiFine format. Proven classics:

  • Complementary Shaders: the safest first pick, good-looking, fast and trouble-free.
  • BSL Shaders: warm, cinematic lighting; one of the most popular packs for years.
  • SEUS Renewed: a legend of the genre, with realistic shadows and water.
  • Photon: a modern pack with a great balance of quality and performance.
  • Chocapic13: the base for dozens of other shaders, with variants from "toaster" to "extreme".

You'll find the full list with descriptions in our overview of Minecraft shaders.

If you only want individual effects without a full shader pack, take a look at Shine (auroras, rainbows, effects in the End). Fancy World Animations, on the other hand, works with Iris shaders and smoothly animates doors, trapdoors and lanterns.

Iris vs OptiFine

The same shader pack running on Iris + Sodium usually gives you noticeably more FPS than on OptiFine, often by several dozen percent. Then there's the update speed: Iris supports new Minecraft releases (including the 26.x versions) long before OptiFine, which can fall behind for months. As of October 2026, Minecraft 26.3 has Iris 1.11.5+26.3 for Fabric (September 15, 2026) and 1.11.7+26.3 for Fabric and NeoForge (September 30, 2026), while OptiFine has no version for 26.3 yet.

The second advantage is compatibility. Because of the way it's built, OptiFine conflicted with a huge number of mods. Iris and Sodium are written to work with the rest of the ecosystem, so they run in big modpacks without any workarounds. If shaders were the only thing keeping you on OptiFine, switching to Iris is painless: your shader packs carry over 1:1. We compare the two approaches in more detail on the OptiFine page and in our article on OptiFabric.

How to install Iris

You have two options. The easiest is the official installer from irisshaders.dev: a single file that creates a ready-to-play profile with Iris and Sodium. The other is a manual install:

  1. Install Fabric (see our Fabric installation guide) or NeoForge.
  2. Download Iris and Sodium (required) in the versions for your MC version and loader.
  3. Put both .jar files in .minecraft/mods/.
  4. Put the shader packs you downloaded (.zip files, don't unzip them) in the .minecraft/shaderpacks/ folder.
  5. In the game, go to Options > Video Settings > Shader Packs, pick a pack and apply it.
Tip: We cover the whole installation step by step, with screenshots, in our guide on how to install shaders. If your FPS drops too much, start with a lighter pack (Complementary in performance mode) instead of fiddling with sliders right away.

FAQ

Do OptiFine shaders work with Iris?

Yes, compatibility with shader packs written for OptiFine is the main goal of the project. BSL, Complementary, SEUS, Photon and Chocapic13 work on Iris without any changes. A few packs that use unusual features may need a newer version of Iris.

Does Iris require Sodium?

Yes. Current versions of Iris require Sodium as a dependency, and that combination is exactly where the performance advantage over OptiFine comes from. Download both mods from Modrinth or use the official installer from irisshaders.dev, which sets up both mods at once.

Does Iris work on NeoForge?

Yes. Besides Fabric, Iris releases official NeoForge versions, so you can also run shaders in modpacks with mods like Create.

Why do I get lower FPS with shaders?

Shaders always come at a cost: your graphics card has to calculate the extra lighting, shadows and reflections. Iris keeps that cost as low as possible thanks to Sodium, but it can't work miracles: on weaker hardware, choose lightweight packs and lower your render distance.