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Resources / Shaders / DrDestens Minecraft Shaders

DrDestens Minecraft Shaders

A High Performance Shaderpack with great shadowless Visuals and PBR support

ShadersFree1.8 – 1.21
by DrDesten · listed from Modrinth
Download ›

Direct download from Modrinth · 498,019 downloads

DrDestens Minecraft Shaders screenshot 1DrDestens Minecraft Shaders screenshot 2DrDestens Minecraft Shaders screenshot 3

What it does

DrDestens Minecraft Shaders is a shader pack made by DrDesten. A High Performance Shaderpack with great shadowless Visuals and PBR support.

It supports Minecraft 1.8 – 1.21. It has been downloaded 498,019 times on Modrinth. The last update came out on Feb 10, 2026.

Supported versions

1.211.201.191.181.171.161.131.121.8

Release history

DrDestens Minecraft Shaders has had 7 releases on Modrinth since Jan 19, 2025. 2 of them came out in the past year. The newest is 2.1.5, released on Feb 9, 2026. It is made for Minecraft 1.10 – 1.20.3. It runs on Iris and Optifine. The download is 155 KB.

VersionReleasedMinecraftType
2.1.5Feb 9, 20261.10 – 1.20.3Release
2.1.4Dec 14, 20251.10 – 1.20.3Release
2.1.3Apr 14, 20251.10 – 1.20.3Release
2.1.2Apr 10, 20251.10 – 1.20.3Release
2.1.1Apr 8, 20251.10 – 1.20.3Release

Latest release on GitHub

DrDestens Minecraft Shaders is open source. Its newest release on GitHub is DrDestens MinecraftShaders v2.1.5 Hotfix, published on Feb 9, 2026.

Fixed compile errors on newest Iris version

Before that: DrDestens MinecraftShaders v2.1.4 Hotfix (Dec 14, 2025), DrDestens MinecraftShaders v2.1.3 Hotfix (Apr 14, 2025).

Description from the author on Modrinth

DrDestens MinecraftShaders

DrDestens MinecraftShaders is a shaderpack for Minecraft: Java Edition. It features water effects with reflections, ambient occlusion, bloom, realistic depth of field, motion blur, TAA and many other things. The shaderpack supports the LabPBR and OldPBR/SeusPBR standard, and you can use it with PBR texturepacks for added detail.

Feature Overview

  • Screen Space Reflections
  • Depth of Field
  • Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO)
  • Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA)
  • Physically Based Rendering
  • Various Water Effects
  • Godrays
  • Bloom
  • Motion Blur
  • Realistic DoF Chromatic Aberration
  • Custom sky gradient
  • Improved Fog with Sunsets
  • Improved Dynamic Lighting
  • Directional Lightmaps
  • Outline
  • Custom Block Selection Outline

Full Feature List

Lighting

  • PBR

 Enables Physically Based Rendering
 Make sure you enable Normal and Specular mapsm in the OptiFine shader options

  • PBR Format - LabPBR 1.3, SeusPBR / OldPBR
  • Physically Based Rendering
  • Height as AO

 Uses the Height information for Ambient occlusion

  • Normal Mapping Fix

 With newer OptiFine versions this might not be necessary
 Enable this if normal maps do not show on entities or handheld objects

  • Use Hardcoded Metals

 If disabled, the shader will use the color for the reflectance data
 LabPBR only

  • Subsurface Scattering
  • Parallax Occlusion Mapping

 Adds additional detail to blocks using the height map
 Low performance impact
 Can create artifacts at screen borders

  • POM Depth

 Specifies how deep the POM goes
 Higher values will create artifacts

  • POM Distortion

 Exaggerates the height map
 Helps create more depth with small POM Depth values
 Creates artifacts when used with high POM Depth values

  • Smooth POM

 Smooths out the height map
 Significantly reduces artifacts

  • Skylight AO

 Specifies the amount of ambient occlusion on skylight

  • Blocklight AO

 Specifies the amount of ambient occlusion on blocklight

  • Skylight Gamma

 Higher = Darker
 Lower = Brighter

  • Blocklight Gamma

 Higher = Darker
 Lower = Brighter

  • Minimum Light

 Restricts blocklight to never go below this value
 Prevents caves from being pitch black (unless you set it to zero that is)

  • Lightmap Colors
  • Nether Ambient Brightness
  • End Ambient Brightness
  • End Ambient Saturation
  • Skylight Day (RGB Color Picker)
  • Skylight Night (RGB Color Picker)
  • Blocklight (RGB Color Picker)

 Select blocklight color (torches, glowstone, etc.)
 If "Complex Blocklight" is enabled, this color will NOT be used

  • Complex Blocklight

 Allows you to select two colors for blocklight
 One for dark parts, one for bright parts

  • Blend Curve

 Higher: Emphasize "Bright" color
 Lower: Emphasize "Dark" color
 50 = linear transition

  • Complex Blocklight Dark (RGB Color Picker)
  • Complex Blocklight Bright (RGB Color Picker)

Depth Of Field

  • Depth of Field

 Blurs non-focused objects, like a real camera

  • Bokeh Samples

 Quality of the blur
 Higher is better
 Significantly affects performance

  • DoF Intensity

 Intensity of the Depth of Field effect
 Low performance impact

  • Maximum Blur - High, Unlimited

 Limits the strength of the DoF blur
 Helps reduce artifacts when using lower sample counts and is better for gameplay

  • DoF Downsampling Amount

 Amount of Downsampling that takes place for the Depth of Field effect
 Reduces DoF artifacts, increases pixelation artifacts
 No/Low performance impact

  • Far Blur Only

 Only blurs far away things

  • Sample Rejection

 Improved DoF Quality by (mostly) removing color bleeding
 Can have a significant performance impact

  • Focus Delay

 Sets how long the focus takes to adjust

Reflections

  • Reflection Mode - OFF, Sky, Flipped Image, Raytraced
  • Raytracing Quality

 Number of raytracing iterations
 Lower is faster

  • Thickness Estimation Modifier - Infinite

 Increase this if the reflection blind spots annoy you
 Influences assumption about how thick a pixel is
 No performance impact

  • Fade Edges
  • Reflection Threshold

 PBR only
 Sets the minimum required reflectiveness in order for SSR to enable
 Higher values may introduce reflection cutoffs

  • Screen Space Refraction

 Distorts things seen through water

  • Refraction Strength
  • Glass Reflections

 Adds reflections to tinted glass blocks

Water

  • Waving Water

 "Physical" Waves
 Moves the water surface

  • Wave Height
  • Wave Normals - OFF, Noise, Sine
  • Normals Strength

 Fake Waves, pretending to be real ones
 Added detail

  • Normals Scale
  • Water Absorption Density
  • Water Absorption Bias

 Adds a constant to the water fog distance
 Can help in making water more visible

  • Water Texture

 Enables the vanilla water texture

  • Water Color Options
  • Water Absorption (RGB Color Picker)
  • Absorption Color Multiplier

Camera and Tonemapping

  • Exposure
  • Tonemapping - Custom Reinhard, Unreal
  • Contrast
  • Vibrance
  • Saturation
  • Brightness
  • Vignette - OFF, Round, Square

 Darkens screen borders

  • Vignette Strength

Post Processing

  • TAA

 Temporal Anti-Aliasing
 Smooths edges at the cost of a slightly blurrier image
 Might cause problems with OptiFine's high-res screenshot feature

  • TAA Options
  • TAA Blending Constant

 Controls the opacity of the current frame
 Set this value lower for smoother TAA

  • TAA Sharpening

 Changes the strength of the sharpening effect

  • Bloom

 Creates a glow around bright objects
 Looks nice ;)

  • Bloom Strength
  • Motion Blur
  • Motion Blur Intensity
  • SSAO

 Screen Space Ambient Occlusion
 Makes cavities dark
 High performance impact

  • SSAO Quality - Low, Medium, High
  • SSAO Strength

Atmospherics

  • Fog - OFF, Normal, Border
  • Fog Amount
  • Morning Fog

 Increases fog amount during sunsets
 Only works with fog in "Normal" mode
 Requires fog and sunsets to be enabled

  • Morning Fog Strength
  • Cave Fog
  • Cave Fog Brightness
  • Godrays
  • Godray Colors
  • Godray Sun (RGB Color Picker)
  • Godray Moon (RGB Color Picker)
  • Godray Strength
  • Godray Radius
  • Godray Samples
  • Sky Colors
  • Sky Noon (RGB Color Picker)
  • Sky Sunset (RGB Color Picker)
  • Sky Midnight (RGB Color Picker)
  • End Sky Upper (RGB Color Picker)
  • End Sky Lower (RGB Color Picker)
  • Sun Angle

Weather

  • Rain Detection - Temperature, Color
  • Rain Opacity
  • Rain Refraction
  • Rain Refraction Strength

Other Stuff

  • Outline - OFF, White, Black, Rainbow
  • Outline Distance
  • Block Selection Outline - Black, White, Rainbow

 Only works with newer OptiFine versions (G7 or higher)

  • Block Selection Outline Opacity
  • Wavy Blocks
  • Wavy Leaves
  • World Curvature
  • World Radius
  • Hand Invisibility Effect

 Distorts handheld objects when invisible

  • White World
  • Directional Lightmaps

 Applies normal mapping to dynamic lights
 Requires a ressource pack with PBR support

  • Directional Lightmap Strength
  • Dynamic Light Brightness

 Changes the brightness of light from emissive blocks

Optimisation

  • Flat Vertices

 Disable when using custom models with smooth surfaces

Agreement

You are allowed to

  • Use my shaderpack in your videos / screenshots

You are not allowed to

  • Redistribute my shaderpack: If you want to provide a download link you must link to my Modrinth / Curseforge page
  • Use monetized URL shorteners linking to downloads of my shaderpack
  • Publish edits of my shaderpack without my permission

Written by DrDesten. Read it with pictures on Modrinth.

How to install DrDestens Minecraft Shaders

  1. Install Iris (with Sodium) or OptiFine for your Minecraft version: shaders need one of them.

  2. Download the .zip file from Modrinth. Do not unzip it.

  3. In Minecraft, open Options, then Video Settings, then Shader Packs, and click Open Shader Pack Folder.

  4. Drop the .zip file into that folder, pick DrDestens Minecraft Shaders in the list and click Done.

  5. Shaders are heavy on the graphics card. If the game gets slow, pick a lower profile in the shader settings.

Full guide: How to install Minecraft shaders

Compatibility

Minecraft versions
1.21, 1.20, 1.19, 1.18, 1.17, 1.16, 1.13, 1.12, 1.8
Edition
Java
Needs
Nothing else
License
Free to use
Price
Free
Upkeep
Actively updated (Nov 12, 2026)

DrDestens Minecraft Shaders compared with similar ones Compare all alternatives

ResourceDownloadsVersionsLast updatePrice
DrDestens Minecraft Shadersthe one you looked at498K1.8 – 1.21Feb 10, 2026Free
Melloskotah325K1.20 – 26.x6 days agoFree
Butter ShadersTypon101K1.8 – 1.21Feb 16, 2026Free
Insanity ShaderElocinDev8M1.8 – 1.21Jun 13, 2024Free

Questions

Does DrDestens Minecraft Shaders work on Minecraft 26.x?

Not yet. The newest version it supports is Minecraft 1.21.

Is DrDestens Minecraft Shaders free?

Yes. DrDestens Minecraft Shaders is free to download from Modrinth.

Is DrDestens Minecraft Shaders still updated?

Yes. The last update came out in the past day.

What are the best alternatives to DrDestens Minecraft Shaders?

The closest ones are Mello, Butter Shaders and Insanity Shader. Compare all alternatives

Alternatives to DrDestens Minecraft Shaders

Butter ShadersShaders · 1.8 – 1.21

Enjoy beautiful lighting, soft shadows, and realistic water in Minecraft with great performance — perfect for both low-end and high-end devices.

Free100,819 downloads
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