What is the Nostalgia Shader?
It is a shaderpack meant to loosely replicate the look and feel of "first-gen" shaderpacks (Seus v08, Chocapic v3 etc.) while also adding new features and visual effects like volumetric fog.
What are the features/effects that this shaderpack has?
- custom skybox and lighting colors
- dynamic shadows
- volumetric fog
- wind effects on foliage
- shader based vanilla styled clouds (including an option for story mode styled clouds)
- second layer of volumetric clouds (partially inspired by super duper pack, but better)
- nether and end support
- TAA and auto exposure
Where can I download it?
Either here or via my website (link below).
Any Requirements?
Optifine for 1.12 or newer
A nVidia or AMD graphics card supporting OpenGL 4.0
Windows or Linux
DUE TO REPEATED ISSUE-REPORTS: Intel HD 5000 Graphics and older are NOT supported!
External Links:
The Offical Website of this Project: Link
The Discord Server: Link
The Shaderlabs Discord: Link
Thoughts:
First of all I wanted to say that I actually really really like this pack. I think the way it stays true to vanilla aspects of Minecraft while also enhancing the visuals significantly is incredibly impressive. Kutos to RRe36 for such a brilliant pack.
Now I've tried a lot of different shader packs over the years and this is easily my new favorite. Like all packs however, it has pros and cons. These are all opinion/preference based so you don't have to agree or disagree; just my thoughts on the matter.
Pros:
- Feels very vanilla
- Feels easy on the eyes most of the time
- Soft edges on clouds and shadows
- Brightness is done well with days being mellow and calming and nights always being brightly lit by the moon reflecting off of clouds, water, and sky
- God rays look great shining through openings in items, leaves, and around corners
- The volumetric vog looks GREAT at a DISTANCE (far mountain peaks, horizon, distant forests, etc)
- Water looks amazing in all circumstances. Does a good job of looking clear in shallow rivers, manmade wells, and underwater springs while looking restless and deep in oceans
- The view underwater is also well done. Slightly distorted and foggy while still being clear enough to see well and not too dark
- The brightness auto adjusts like your eyes adjusting to a sudden change in light irl and the effect works really well most of the time
- Rain looks phenomenal
Cons:
- Sometimes the volumetric vog during the day can make things that are close really hazy/blurry which can be hard to look at (the auto brightness adjustment can actually fix this sometimes just depends on the situation so not a big problem)
- Some light sources can be too strong because they are really bright and really yellow (torches especially when held, glowstone and lamps) though I'm torn because the glow looks amazing even if it can be harder to look at in dimmer settings
- I've noticed significantly worse performance with this pack than with other comparable ones, but it could just be my system/settings. Up to 10-20 FPS lower than some other packs I've used in the past (Sildurs Extreme-VL, BSL, etc.)
Missing Features:
This pack actually has virtually everything I like with shaders which is why it's become my new main pack, but there were a few things I've seen in other packs that I missed slightly.
- SUES Renewed has a feature where when underwater in shallow areas especially, you will see the natural light from the sun or moon break through the waves and shine on the sea floor and I quite liked that but it's a pretty small thing
- Sildurs has a different underwater feature where your vision is ever so slightly wavey and that's also something I like as long as it's not overdone...no motion sickness like I'm going to the Nether lmao
- When it rains the ground doesn't get wet or slick, not reflections or anything. That's another SUES feature
- Also rain interacting with the water on the ground
- One last SUES feature was reflections off of blocks that would shine such as polished stones and metals.
I'll include pictures with examples of the features I referenced in my google drive link below.
Nostalgia Features Wishlist Examples
Verdict:
Definitely my new all-time favorite pack. Almost perfect and quite soft on the eyes. Easy to look at and keeps the artistic integrity of vanilla Minecraft in my opinion. A few features I would really like to see are missing but overall I can overlook that based on the great quality all the included features provide. Easily the best pack I've used for people wanted a great shader experience that will fit right into your world.
In reply to Trek_RL:
Glad you like it so far, still wanna adress a few of your cons and missing features though.
1. Emitters: Yeah thats kinda a known thing, gonna get better with 4.0 since the exposure works more properly there as well as the emission just being more advanced due to sspt being added (see Kappa Shader v4.1 to get an idea). Should be less blinding overall then.
2. Performance: Sildurs and BSL are very "simplistic" packs in terms of their code, so thats no surprise as Nostalgia Shader "fattened up" with version 3, although version 4.0 should lift performance up a notch again due to some new optifine features that allow for more optimised stuff behind the scenes.
3. Your first missing feature point refers to caustics, those kinda break at random on nvidia GPUs so it might just be that, since they are just virtually gone then for some stupid reason that requires an optifine or driver fix. If it wasnt for that they would be working consistently across GPUs.
4. That "wavy underwater vision" thing should be trivial to add, might include it in 4.0 (assuming i dont forget about it xD)
5. Rain puddles actually do exist, you'll have to enable resourcepack reflections for them to be reflective though. This is gonna be fixed in 4.0. That also applies to your point with shiny blocks, since those also fall under resourcepack reflections which are disabled by default. You can find them in the ingame settings screen under Terrain -> Reflections.
Also if you're interested in future updates and development updates keep an eye on my monthly development blogposts on my website https://rre36.com/
I covered some stuff of Nostalgia Shader v4 in the latest few ones which might interest you.
In reply to RRe36:
I really appreciate the response! Checked out the website and the future updates look super promising and I can't wait to experience them. Really nice to see a creator who cares so much about his projects and actively listens to fans. I'm strapped for cash at the moment but I definitely want to look at becoming a Patreon sub down the line.
Thanks again!
made an account specifically to request a sodium/irus compatible version ;_;
In reply to lucidorphan:
Thats solely to be dealt with by Iris, it is far from complete yet so all you can do is wait.
Can you or someone please make a version that works for sodium/iris. for 1.14+/1.15+/1.16+/1.17+ and please add an option to for eyes to glow like BSL shaders for both Optifine and sodium/iris.
In reply to draagonlizzard_:
Just wait for iris to be more mature, until then use optifine or another pack. There isnt really any alternative for now.
In reply to draagonlizzard_:
i second this, but bsl works and that's enough for me
In reply to TURD111:
i used bsl before but the way water looks is wierd so i swithced
Uhh does ATI Radeon HD 6750M mid 2011 work??since on the website of mac,the opengl version is 4.1 iMac (21-inch, Mid 2011)
Due to OpenGL now using the latest version instead of 2.1 on Mac, the shader is still not working.
In reply to 1point7point10:
Not as simple as that, and a version that *could* work on mac would still be limited otherwise as I am now making use of new optifine features that still dont seem to work on macOS. Ontop of that such a version would be incompatible with anything other than 1.17, which means a tremendous extra effort to maintain two versions which is not worth the gains.
tl;dr macOS just sucks a bit less now, but is still so bad compared to to other platforms that it'd mean extra effort to support it, and I'm not going to do that for a platform where 90% of the devices are too slow to run this pack anyways.
When i look through glass underwater, the water turns invisible how do i fix this?
Is it for bedrock
In reply to rarejulez:
no
In reply to rarejulez:
What the f???
Its not working in bedrock...
hEYo i am back ! i just started using a new shader mod, iris shaders and sodium. is there any way to make this nostalgia shader compatible with those? the performance is tons better with these newer mods and id love to be able to use this nostalgia shader with it :)
In reply to surphmespicy:
iris shaders support optifine's shaders, it should work witheout any problems.
In reply to lakeno_for_fabric:
Iris is nowhere near complete and does not work with many shaderpacks yet as it still lacks some important features.
In reply to RRe36:
they should add a mod that is compatible with optifine shaders