Performance
This is a 200+ mod pack with Distant Horizons and real airship physics. It asks a lot of a computer. Most of the fixes are one setting, and the most common one is counter-intuitive.
RAM: 5–8 GB, and no more
More RAM is not better. It is the single most common crash here.
Over-allocating starves the graphics driver and Distant Horizons of memory outside the Java heap. The game dies during loading with no crash report — the log simply stops mid-line.
If your game vanishes while loading and leaves nothing behind, this is almost certainly why. Come back down to 8 GB.
| Allocation | Result |
|---|---|
| Under 5 GB | Runs out of memory, stutters badly |
| 5–8 GB | What you want |
| Over 10 GB | Native crashes, no crash report |
Having 32 GB in your machine does not mean giving 22 GB to Minecraft. The heap shares the box with everything the heap doesn’t cover.
Potato mode
There’s a Mode button in Aero Settings, reachable from the main menu.
Potato strips the pack back to what a weaker machine can actually run. Normal puts it back. You can flip between them whenever you like — it isn’t a one-way door, and it doesn’t touch your world or your keybinds.
If the pack is unplayable on your hardware, try this before you start
disabling mods by hand. Removing pack mods yourself will fight the updater,
which manages the mods folder and will put them back.
Shaders
Shaders are optional and they are the most expensive thing you can turn on.
Don't run the Ultra shader preset on 8 GB
Compiling a heavy shader pack needs a large block of memory outside the heap, at exactly the moment Distant Horizons wants the same. That combination is a native crash with no crash report — the same failure as over-allocating.
If you want shaders, start from a lower preset and work up.
Distant Horizons
DH is what lets you see terrain far past your render distance, which is most of the point of flying. It is also doing real work in the background.
If you’re struggling, lower your render distance before you turn DH off — vanilla chunks cost far more per chunk than DH’s simplified terrain does. Many people run a modest render distance with DH reaching much further and get both the view and the frame rate.
Getting your FPS back, in order
Work down this list. Stop when it’s good enough.
- Check your RAM allocation is 5–8 GB. Yes, again. It’s usually this
- Turn shaders off, or drop to a lower preset
- Lower render distance to 8–12 and let DH handle the horizon
- Switch to Potato mode in Aero Settings
- Close the other things. A browser with forty tabs is competing for the same memory that just crashed your game
Still bad? Ask in Discord with your specs and your allocation — that’s usually enough to spot it.
Related
- getting-started — setting the allocation in the first place
- faq — load times and other common questions
- vr — VR has its own requirements