You can makeMinecraftlook incredible with Nvidia RTX cards and ray-tracing resource packs,injecting real-time reflections and hyperrealistic lighting into the gamewith ease. But it’s little more than a fancier version of shaders, something we’ve been toying around with for years already. Distant Horizons, an early access render distance mod, ups the ante in a new way.
“Simply put, it adds simplified terrain past Minecraft’s default view distance to improve performance and allow for longer draw distances,“the mod page’s description reads. “Now you can finally enjoy that lookout tower you built on top of a mountain!”
While we’ve had extenders in the past that allow for up to 64x render distance, this mod lets you see significantly further.
In a side-by-side comparison filmed by YouTuber AsianHalfSquat (pictured below), we see just how open Minecraft can get; giant icy mountains in the distance become clearly visible with the mod whereas, even with 64x, they fade into obscurity. Without the mod, you wouldn’t see them, let alone anything you’ve built, unless you ventured much closer.
Even more impressive is the fact that it doesn’t hamper performance as much as render distance increasers likeOptiFine’s. In the video showing off the mod (which you may watch below), things run smoothly despite the render distance opening up the world more than ever.
It’s worth noting that AsianHalfSquat is using an RTX 4090 graphics card, but they’re also playing in 4k resolution, so you’ll likely see similar results on lower-end cards if you’re using a lower resolution to match. At any rate, performance is steadier with the mod than it is with other render distance extenders despite going much further.
If you want to see similar results to AsianHalfSquat’s footage, you’ll need to pick up a second mod -Tectonic. It overhauls world generation such as mountains, rivers, cliffs, deserts, oceans, and plains.
It works especially well with Distant Horizons as it blends vast, open spaces with its enormous environments, allowing plenty of space to build and explore while making the larger-than-life sights prettier than ever. And since the overhauls aren’t too detailed, they still look gorgeous from a distance.
