Entity LOD: CrowdScale

CrowdScale is a client-side performance mod for scenes with many visible entities, such as multiplayer hubs, mob farms, trading halls, and crowded bases.

The mod reduces distant entity rendering work through configurable detail tiers, lower update rates, cached render states, and—on supported versions—an Entity 2D representation. Nearby entities remain on their normal renderer.

CrowdScale does not change entity AI, spawning, server ticks, networking, world data, or gameplay rules. It does not need to be installed on the server.

Features available on all supported versions

Distance-based Full, Reduced, Far, and Very Far tiers
Configurable update rates for distant entities
Cached render states with per-frame position interpolation
Fixed and adaptive LOD modes
Quality, Balanced, Performance, and Custom presets
Protection for players and gameplay-relevant entities
Villager profession and equipment-layer preservation
Sheep-wool preservation
Conservative fallback for unknown or modded renderers
In-game configuration and diagnostic tools
Built-in average FPS and 1% low comparison

Players always remain at full detail. CrowdScale does not cache, throttle, or convert local or remote players, so their movement, armor, held items, and feature layers remain on the normal rendering path.

Entity 2D on Minecraft 26.x

Minecraft 26.1.2 and 26.2 builds include CrowdScale's complete Entity 2D pipeline for Vanilla living entities:

Camera-facing flattened models
Multi-angle model capture
Bounded dynamic texture atlas
Four-vertex quad impostors where supported
Smooth transition before the quad boundary
Per-group and per-entity start distances
Configurable view-angle and low-rate animation-frame counts
Automatic fallback when atlas capture is unavailable

Entity 2D remains upright and rotates horizontally toward the camera position. The entity's body direction, head direction, and pitch are handled separately from the player's camera orientation.

Passive, hostile, ambient, aquatic, villager, golem, boss, and other Vanilla living-entity categories are eligible. Special or unsupported render states fall back to the flattened-model path instead of disappearing.

Projectiles, vehicles, dropped items, and decorative non-living entities are outside the Entity 2D mob pipeline.

Important Visual Layers

The following entities are treated as having important visual layers:

Villagers and wandering traders
Mobs wearing armor or a head item
Mobs holding an item
Equipped armor stands

When Preserve profession and equipment layers is enabled, these entities keep their profession, armor, head-item, and held-item layers before and during Entity 2D. They bypass the base-model-only quad impostor and use the layered flattened fallback.

Ordinary mobs without important layers remain eligible for quad impostors. This option is enabled by default and is not changed by presets.

Minecraft 1.21.11

The 0.3.1 release line uses CrowdScale's earlier Reduced and Far rendering architecture. It does not contain the newer Entity 2D, texture-atlas, or quad impostor systems.

Important Visual Layers were backported to this version, so villager professions, armor, head items, and held items remain visible while an entity uses its Reduced or Far tier.

Presets

Preset	Behavior
Quality	Keeps full 3D models visible at longer distances
Balanced	General-purpose settings for normal gameplay
Performance	Uses shorter 3D distances; on 26.x, eligible Entity 2D can begin at 5 blocks
Custom	Keeps distance settings under manual control

LOD distances are stored independently. CrowdScale does not rewrite manually entered distances into a forced order; overlapping ranges are resolved safely at runtime.

On Minecraft 26.x, Entity 2D and per-group start distances can be configured from 1 to 2048 blocks.

Configuration

Fabric users can open the settings through:

Mod Menu → Entity LOD: CrowdScale

On Minecraft 26.1.2 and 26.2, Fabric users with Sodium installed also get the settings directly inside the game's own video settings, drawn with Sodium's toggles and sliders:

Options → Video Settings → Entity LOD: CrowdScale

That covers General, LOD Distances, Entity 2D, Entity Groups, and Performance, needs no other mod, and works with Reese's Sodium Options. With Cloth Config installed, an extra Advanced & Presets entry opens the full screen for the distance presets, per-entity overrides, and diagnostics.

Forge and NeoForge users can open the settings from the loader's mod list.

Depending on the Minecraft version, the configuration screen contains:

General
LOD Distances
Entity 2D
Entity Groups
Performance
Compatibility
Diagnostics
Presets

Most settings can be changed without restarting Minecraft.

Keybinds

Key	Action
`F7`	Enable or disable CrowdScale
`F8`	Show or hide the diagnostics HUD
`F9`	Reset benchmark samples

The diagnostics HUD reports active LOD tiers, cache activity, frame time, average FPS, and 1% low FPS. Minecraft 26.x builds also report Entity 2D, quad, capture, and atlas activity.

Compatibility approach

CrowdScale avoids hard dependencies on private APIs from optional rendering mods. Unknown renderers use a conservative fallback unless a dedicated CrowdScale adapter explicitly opts them into a stronger LOD path.

Mod or system	Current approach
Sodium	Main optimized-rendering baseline; on Fabric 26.x it also hosts the CrowdScale settings pages inside Video Settings through Sodium's public config API
Iris / shader packs	Detects shader and shadow passes; quad impostors are disabled by default while a shader pack is active
Voxy	Terrain LOD remains separate from entity LOD
Distant Horizons	Terrain LOD remains separate from entity LOD
Nvidium	Kept outside CrowdScale's entity-rendering hooks
Entity Culling	Can cull hidden entities before CrowdScale's distant rendering work
More Culling	Uses separate block and model culling responsibilities
ImmediatelyFast	Uses separate batching and GUI optimization responsibilities

These are compatibility targets, not a guarantee for every combination. Behavior can vary with the Minecraft version, loader, GPU, shader pack, resource pack, server resource pack, and other installed mods.

Shader-pack support uses a safe fallback by default. Quad impostors with shaders remain experimental and opt-in. Depth, transparency, lighting, and shadows should be checked with the exact shader pack before enabling them.

Custom mobs, custom armor-stand models, emissive layers, animated resource-pack models, and renderer-specific effects may require a dedicated adapter or may remain on the conservative rendering path.

Supported releases

Minecraft	Fabric	NeoForge	Forge
`1.21.11`	`0.3.1`	`0.3.1`	`0.3.1`
`26.1.2`	`0.7.3`	`0.5.5`	`0.5.5`
`26.2`	`0.7.3`	`0.5.5`	`0.5.5`

Install the file matching both your Minecraft version and mod loader. Only one CrowdScale loader variant should be present in an instance.

Installation

Install the matching Fabric, Forge, or NeoForge loader.
Fabric users must install Fabric API.
Place the matching CrowdScale JAR in the instance's mods folder.
Fabric users may optionally install Mod Menu and Cloth Config for easier access to the in-game configuration screen.

CrowdScale is client-side and does not require server installation.

Measuring performance

For a useful comparison, keep the world, camera position, visible entity count, render distance, shader settings, and FPS cap unchanged:

Press F9 to clear previous samples.
Collect at least 600 frames with CrowdScale enabled.
Press F7 without moving the camera.
Collect another 600 frames with CrowdScale disabled.
Press F8 and compare average FPS and 1% low FPS.

An FPS cap or VSync can hide changes in average FPS. Results depend on visible entity count and type, CPU, GPU, shader pack, render distance, and the rest of the modpack. CrowdScale is intended for entity-heavy scenes and does not guarantee a performance increase in every situation.

Current limitations

Profession and equipment layers are preserved through the flattened fallback rather than baked into the quad atlas.
Emissive, animated, transparent, multi-part, and renderer-specific effects may not be suitable for atlas capture.
Quad impostors with shader packs are experimental and disabled by default.
Modded entity renderers and custom server resource-pack models may remain on a conservative LOD path.
Build and unit-test verification do not prove compatibility with every shader pack, resource pack, or modpack.

Reporting an issue

Please include:

Minecraft version
Mod loader and CrowdScale version
Rendering and performance mods
Shader pack and resource pack, if enabled
config/entitylod_crowdscale.json
An F8 diagnostics screenshot
A screenshot of the affected entity for visual issues

License

Entity LOD: CrowdScale is available under the MIT License.

EntityLODCrowdScale