Minecraft render distance mods: is Distant Horizons right for you?
If you want to see farther in Minecraft, a render distance mod can be more practical than pushing vanilla view distance to an extreme value. Distant Horizons uses simplified Level of Detail terrain so the far horizon does not need every distant chunk rendered at full detail.
Distant Horizons
Best for: Very distant simplified terrain
Builds and renders Level of Detail terrain beyond normal full-detail chunks.
- Large visual horizon
- Dedicated shader integration path
- Useful for explored and generated worlds
Bobby
Best for: Previously loaded chunks
Keeps and renders chunks that the client has already received, rather than generating a new LOD world.
- Simple cache-focused approach
- Useful for revisiting loaded areas
- Different goal from a full LOD generator
Voxy
Best for: An alternative distant-terrain system
Uses its own distant-terrain approach and should be tested against the exact Minecraft version and modpack.
- Alternative rendering model
- Worth comparing for specific modpacks
- Check current loader support first
How to get more render distance in Minecraft
Start by lowering vanilla render distance to around 8–12 chunks, then let Distant Horizons handle the far terrain. This keeps nearby blocks at full detail while using LODs for the horizon.
For a new setup, choose the Minecraft version and loader first. Fabric commonly uses Sodium and Iris; NeoForge profiles use their matching performance and shader stack. Always match every dependency to the exact Minecraft version.
More distance is not free. LOD generation uses CPU time, memory, storage, and sometimes GPU resources. Increase the distance gradually and wait for the generator to catch up before judging performance.