Mods like Distant Horizons has allowed us to push the render distance far past the vanilla maximum. Playing the game at extremely high render distances will make biomes and structures easier to locate, while also contributing to the visual aesthetics. Voxy is one such mod that allows you to push your in-game render distance to extreme values.

Voxy converts distant chunks into LODs that will be visible to the player, but does not impact performance much. A LOD basically stands for Level Of Detail, and it is an optimization technique where 3D objects farther away from the player are loaded at much lower resolutions. The Distant Horizons mod makes use of the same technique.

Extreme Render Distances

View more than what the vanilla game can offer!

With the mod installed, players have to set two different render distances. The first one is the vanilla render distance, which should be set to your preferred value. The second render distance comes under the mod settings of the Voxy mod, which can be accessed in-game using Mod Menu. This render distance can be set to much higher values.

Entire Biomes in a Frame

Scouting landscapes has never been more convenient!

Chunks that fall within the vanilla render distance will be loaded in full quality as usual. Chunks beyond this limit, up to the Voxy render distance, will be loaded at a lower quality. Because these lower quality chunks are farther away, the difference in quality is barely noticeable.

The mod also supports a good collection of shader packs. But you have to careful as only some versions of shader packs are compatible with Voxy. You can use popular shader packs like Bliss, BSL, Continuum, etc. and the extended world generation will work just fine. The image above was captured using the Photon shader pack.

Beauty Without Limits

Mesmerizing visuals now cross the horizon

When discussing about shader compatibility between Voxy and shader packs, a certain shader stands unique - Photon. This is because shader effects introduced by Photon reacts to Voxy's LoD chunks the same way it does with real chunks. This means, the visual beauty of Photon can now span hundreds of chunks across with minimal impact on performance from Voxy's side.

Highly Configurable

Configure LOD distance, quality and more!

Along with the mod render distance, there are several other values within the mod settings that can be tweaked by the player. Based on your system specifications and preference, these settings can be tweaked for fine tuning performance and visuals.

Shaderpack Compatibility

Only a collection of few shaders, like Photon, Solas, Noble, BSL are compatible with Voxy. The latest versions of Solas, Noble and BSL support Voxy.

Photon doesn't have official support of the mod yet, but you can download the compatible version from GitHub: https://github.com/sixthsurge/photon/tree/voxy-support

Understanding Voxy Settings

If you have Mod Menu installed, you will be able to access the mod settings of Voxy without exiting the game. The mod settings have three tabs in total, each of which allows you to tweak various features of the mod. Let us take a look at the main settings in detail.

General Settings

Enable Voxy: This is the master toggle that allows you to entirely enable/disable Voxy.
Chunk Ingest: This is the process of capturing world data to create LoD models. It is set to default and it is recommended to not tweak this settings.
LoD Quality: This is the visual quality of the LoDs generated by Voxy. Higher value makes distant features appear sharper and more closer in appearance to the actual look. However, this requires more VRAM.
Geometry Buffer Quads: The amount of memory allocated on your GPU to store the shapes (quads) of the distant terrain. Lower values might result in LoD chunks flickering. Choose a value based on your Voxy render distance.
Max Sections: The maximum number of chunks Voxy is allowed to render at once.
Render Distance: The amount of LoD chunks to load.
Use Nvidia Mesh Shaders: A specialized rendering technique available on newer Nvidia GPUs (RTX 20-series and newer). Recommended if you have a newer Nvidia GPU.

Thread Settings

Ingest: This setting controls how many CPU threads are dedicated to capturing world data as you move.
Saving: This manages the background threads that write information to your disk.
Render: These threads handles the workload to decide which LoD chunks need to be visible on your screen at any given moment.

It is recommended to not tweak the Thread setting values unless you actually understand what each one of these settings do. If your processor has a lower number of cores, the following settings are recommended

Ingest - 2
Saving - 3
Render -4

Common Queries and Troubleshooting

Why is only a small area rendering?

Vanilla Minecraft only generates chunks when a player manually loads them in. Voxy does not generate any chunks by itself, and therefore if the player has not generated a chunk, it will be unable to load a LoD for that chunk. Players can opt to use a mod like Chunky to pre-generate chunks, and Voxy will generate LoDs for the same. Additionally, make sure that the Voxy render distance in the mod settings is set to your preferred value.

Voxy vs. Distant Horizons: which is better?

From our testing, and based on reviews from various different reliable sources, Voxy outperforms Distant Horizons in several aspects. Voxy offers better quality LoDs at a lower resource usage, while DH supports more stable game versions.

Why are there holes in my distant terrain?

LoDs are only generated from chunks that have already been generated by the player. Voxy does not auto-generate chunks outside your render distance. You must visit the chunks or use a mod like Chunky to pre-generate chunks. The /voxy import world <world_name> command can be used to import already existing worlds.

How to use Voxy with Chunky?

Chunky is a popular mod that allows you to pre-generate chunks. Basically, the game performs complicated calculations that require heavy resource usage to load new chunks. By using a mod like Chunky, you can use mod commands to generate chunks without visiting them manually. As a result, chunks will load faster when the player visits them during actual gameplay.

Here's a short guide on how to generate areas using Chunky commands:

Set a center location using : /chunky center [<x> <z>]
Set a shape using : /chunky shape <shape>
Set a radius using : /chunky radius <radius>
Begin the generation using : /chunky start

Chunky should now begin generating chunks within the region you set.

Once Chunky is done generating the chunks, run the /voxy import world command.

Best settings for Voxy + Chunky?

It is recommended to disable Voxy while Chunky is pre-generating, then use /voxy import world once finished. This will help avoid resource exhaustion. Once done, Chunky can safely be uninstalled if you do not wish to use it anymore.

Voxy not working on Mac/MacOS?

Voxy requires OpenGL version 4.6. Since Apple only supports OpenGL up to version 4.1, the mod is currently incompatible with macOS without experimental third-party drivers. However, proper functionality cannot be guaranteed.

Is there a Voxy version for Forge/NeoForge?

Voxy is made for Fabric and therefore is incompatible with other mod loaders. If you use a mod loader other than Fabric, and wish to play around with higher render distanced by generating LoDs like Voxy does, the Distant Horizons mod is a great alternative.

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Mods for Minecraft 1.21.11

Voxy