Install Rockstar Shaders

About five minutes on an Apple Silicon Mac. You need Minecraft Java Edition 26.3 and the jar from Patreon.

1. Install Fabric

Any launcher works. The official launcher, MultiMC and Prism are all fine.

  1. Install Fabric Loader 0.19.5 or newer for Minecraft 26.3. In MultiMC or Prism that is Edit Instance, Install Loader, Fabric.
  2. Put the Fabric API jar for 26.3 into the mods folder of that instance.

2. Add the jar

  1. Download Rockstar Shaders 1.0.0.zip from the Patreon post and unzip it.
  2. Put rockstarshaders-1.0.0.jar in the same mods folder, next to the Fabric API jar.

3. Switch the game to Vulkan

A fresh profile runs on OpenGL, and there the mod only writes a log line. Start the game once. At the title screen Rockstar Shaders asks to switch the graphics API to Vulkan and quit. Say yes, then start the game again.

By hand, if you prefer: Options, Video Settings, Graphics API, Vulkan, then restart. In options.txt the line is preferredGraphicsBackend:"vulkan", with the quotes.

4. Open a world

K
The Rockstar Shaders settings. Options, Video Settings, Rockstar Shaders is the same screen. The master switch at the top says whether the pack is active. High is the shipped look; Low trades the water, clouds and caustics for frame time.
C
Hold to zoom.
F3
The usual debug overlay. Include it in bug report screenshots.

Good to know

  • Rockstar Shaders replaces the same parts of the renderer as Sodium, Iris, Embeddium, Nvidium, Distant Horizons and Voxy. Remove those first; if one is installed, it steps aside and says why.
  • In singleplayer, Generate horizon (on by default) fills in missing far terrain in the background and saves it into your world, about 24 KB per chunk. Turn it off on the Performance page before opening a world you want to keep untouched.
  • The first launch picks a quality level for your chip. On an M1 or M2, Medium or High is the place to start.

If the world looks like plain Minecraft

Open the settings screen. If the master switch is off, turn it on. If it is on and the picture is still vanilla, the game is almost certainly on OpenGL: check the Graphics API setting. The log at logs/latest.log says why the pack did not start; search it for Rockstar Shaders.

Reporting a bug

Send logs/latest.log and a screenshot with the F3 overlay to the issue tracker, or post in the Patreon thread. For a performance report, turn on Show pass timings in the settings and screenshot that overlay. Say which Mac and which profile.