Graphics are not the most critical element when it comes to some games, and Minecraft proved that from a lot of points of view. The blocky visuals of the sandbox title did not stop this game from turning into one of the most popular titles of all time, but you can still switch to modders if you who want to give its looks an overhaul. A lot of attention has been drawn recently by one particular shader pack thank to its addition of what resembles ray tracing effects.
Even though this is not the type of ray tracing you have been used to from Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Battlefield V, or Metro Exodus, the rendering method used, the ‘path tracing,’ in the latest build of Sonic Ether’s Unbelievable Shaders (SEUS) does not look worse. A couple of short clips have been posted by the artist @notglacier on Twitter, and there you can see how the game is changed because of the shader. Some effects can also be observed associated with ray tracing, including light beams and their reflections on different surfaces.
Minecraft with ray tracing effects needs more performant computers than vanilla Minecraft version
No matter how bad of a potato your PC is, Vanilla Minecraft might work on it, but a lot beefier will be needed if you want to run this shader pack at an acceptable speed. GTX 1070 Ti and an i9-9900k CPU has been used by Notglacier, and that combo was enough for only 25 – 40 fps.
If you would like to give a substantial visual overhaul to your favorite game, go to Sonic Ether’s Patreon page and download the shader pack from there as it is available to backers. You also get access to his Discord server and experimental builds if you pledge monthly payments and that is great.
