Aurora Optimizations
Aurora is an optimization mod that automatically adjusts render distance and visual quality based on the device's actual frame rate. With Mod Menu installed, all features can be configured in-game without manually editing the configuration file.
Core Features
- Real-time adaptive quality: Automatically adjusts render distance, entity render distance, and particle effects based on the current FPS.
- Incremental render distance: When lowering the distance, sections outside the range are culled from the draw list; when raising the distance, already-compiled sections are restored from the retained baseline without triggering a full renderer reload.
- Server chunk retention: The integrated server keeps the baseline chunk radius by default, so chunks remain available when the render distance is increased.
- Video Settings synchronization: Opening Video Settings shows the current actual render distance and does not restore the old value.
- Configuration protection: Temporary adaptive values are not written to `options.txt`.
- All features configurable: Thresholds, sampling, cooldown, warmup, tiers, chunks per tier, minimum distance, auto-apply, notifications, logging, Sodium compatibility, and more can all be adjusted.
In-Game Configuration
General: Master switch, auto-apply, action bar notifications, logging, debug, adapt when unfocused, restore on exit, configuration file protection.
Adaptive: Target FPS, sample seconds, cooldown, warmup, lower/raise thresholds, emergency FPS, emergency tier jump, max tier, chunks per tier, minimum render distance.
Rendering: Adaptive render distance, entity distance, particle effects, incremental chunk culling, keep server chunks loaded, Sodium compatibility.
You can edit `.minecraft/config/aurora.json`; changes take effect after restarting the game.
Adaptive Strategy
- There is a warmup period after entering a world or returning from a menu.
- Decisions are made after averaging multiple one-second FPS samples.
- When below the lower threshold, load is reduced tier by tier; at extremely low frame rates, multiple tiers may be skipped at once.
- When above the raise threshold, the distance is restored tier by tier.
- There is a cooldown after each adjustment to avoid oscillation.
- Original settings are restored when leaving the world or quitting the game (configurable).
Render Distance Mechanism
Vanilla rebuilds `ViewArea`, `SectionUpdateTracker`, and chunk geometry when the render distance changes, which can easily cause noticeable stuttering. During managed changes, Aurora:
1. Retains the complete baseline ViewArea;
2. Suppresses this full reload;
3. Rebuilds only the visible section list;
4. Culls sections outside the range when lowering the distance;
5. Restores compiled sections from the baseline cache when raising the distance;
6. Keeps the integrated server retaining chunks within the baseline range.
Aurora Optimizations Team
