Screenshot 1 of 5. A medieval village street with stone walls, timber houses and villagers, shown with Wispy Shader.
What Wispy Shader works with.
| Platform | Java Edition |
|---|---|
| Loaders | Iris, OptiFine |
| Minecraft versions | 1.8.9, 1.13.2, 1.14.4, 1.15.2, 1.16.5, 1.17.1, 1.18.2, 1.19.4, 1.20.6, 1.21.11 |
Wispy Shader is a performance-optimized shader pack for Minecraft Java, running on Iris and OptiFine. It began as a fork of Mellow Shaders and keeps a soft, fantasy, vanilla-like look with bloom and colour grading. It installs on the player's machine only.
Shader loaders and versions
- Iris and OptiFine: Minecraft 1.8.9 to 1.21.11. Some builds for 1.8.9 to 1.21.11 require Iris Shaders.
Effects and performance profiles
l_aggy stripped the expensive composite passes from Mellow Shaders and rewrote the fog, lighting, sky, water, TAA and bloom passes with faster math and fewer lookups and samples. What remains is biome-specific lighting in every dimension, plus bloom, sharpening, tonemapping, TAA, motion blur, film grain and a vignette.
Five profiles in the shader settings trade effects for frame rate. The creator's figures come from V1.3, tested on an i5-4570 with HD4600 graphics at 8 chunks (iGPU) and a laptop GPU at 24 chunks (dGPU).
- ULTRA_PERFORMANCE, 190+ FPS on iGPU and 440+ on dGPU, with minimal effects.
- PERFORMANCE, 190+ FPS on iGPU, a balance aimed at integrated graphics.
- BALANCED, 180+ FPS on iGPU, a mix of features.
- QUALITY, 120+ FPS on iGPU, with more effects.
- ULTRA_QUALITY, 120+ FPS on iGPU and 380+ on dGPU, with every feature on.
The creator also claims a 40%+ gain on Balanced over MakeUp - Ultra Fast with all effects off.
Installation
- 1.Install Iris Shaders or OptiFine.
- 2.Place the pack's ZIP file in the .minecraft/shaderpacks folder.
- 3.Select Wispy in Video Settings, under Shader Packs.
- 4.Choose the performance profile that matches your hardware.
Questions about Wispy Shader.
4 questions
How do I install Wispy Shader?
Install Iris Shaders or OptiFine, then put the pack's ZIP file in the .minecraft/shaderpacks folder. Open Video Settings, go to Shader Packs, select Wispy, and pick a performance profile. Some builds of the pack require Iris Shaders, so Iris is the safer loader.
Does Wispy Shader work with Iris and OptiFine?
Yes. Both loaders are listed for the pack, covering Minecraft 1.8.9 to 1.21.11. Three of the published files require Iris Shaders, while the newest release lists no required dependency. Bedrock cannot run either loader, so the pack is Java only.
Is Wispy Shader good for low-end PCs?
It is built for that. The creator tuned it for integrated graphics and reports 190+ FPS on the lighter profiles on an i5-4570 with HD4600 graphics at 8 chunks. Those are the creator's own V1.3 numbers, so results on other hardware will differ.
How is Wispy Shader different from Mellow Shaders?
Wispy is a performance-focused fork of Mellow Shaders by TheCMK. l_aggy deleted expensive composite passes and simplified post-processing to raise frame rates. Mellow keeps the full original feature set, so choose it if speed matters less than the complete look.
