Hey everyone, we are pleased to announce that two new mods are now available for beta testing for versions 1.16 and above: Sodium and Iris.

Sodium is a rendering engine replacement for the Minecraft client, which significantly improves frame rates and stuttering while fixing many graphical issues on modern versions of Minecraft. Our implementation contains additional mixins not found in the original Sodium mod to ensure full compatibility with Lunar Client. Sodium was created by the CaffeineMC development team. You can check them and their other amazing mods out on GitHub, Discord, and Modrinth. Additionally, you can further support the development of Sodium by donating to their Ko-fi.

Iris is a shaders mod for modern versions of Minecraft intended to be compatible with existing OptiFine shader packs. Iris was created by coderbot, a Lunar developer and one of the most respected software engineers in the Minecraft modding community. You can check Iris out on GitHub, Discord, and Modrinth. Additionally, you can further support the Iris team by donating to their Patreon.

If you encounter any issues with Sodium or Iris on Lunar Client please report it to our support team, not Sodium or Iris!

How to use

To play with these mods, simply select the Sodium module in your launch settings when launching versions 1.16 and above, and you’re good to go. Both Sodium and Iris are bundled under the Sodium module as well as the Fabric Mod Loader.

Once in game, navigate to your Minecraft Video Settings to start playing with Iris and Sodium's amazing features!

Benefits

Sodium and Iris together provide many amazing benefits to modern versions of Minecraft such as FPS enhancements, FPS stabilization, graphical improvements, performance-optimized shaders, and the ability to load OptiFine shaderpacks! I will be showcasing a few of these benefits below in more detail but there are many more for you to check out on your own.

Sodium

Sodium drastically increases performance, improves FPS stutters, and fixes many graphical issues. As you can see in the photo below, my FPS is nearly doubled on Sodium! You may also notice the water, grass, and shadows improve on Sodium.

Comparison of Before
Comparison of After

Sodium also comes with many performance enhancing settings that allow you to get the most FPS possible! It may be best to modify these settings for the best performance possible on your machine.

Iris

Iris loads your existing OptiFine shaderpacks at lightning fast speeds.

Iris has the ability to customize your shaderpack settings, the same way you are used to on OptiFine.