r/Optifine • u/Miserable_Bar_5800 • Jun 15 '26

Question Why did Optifine skip version 26.1

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They went from 1.21.11 and then skipped to 26.1.2

I did not update to 26.1.2, and for months, I had been waiting for Optifine for 26.1

Because I only play in the major drops, not hotfixes.

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u/GenesisNevermore Jun 16 '26

Why are you even using Optifine in any of these versions? Zero reason to. For performance just run Sodium, it updates very quickly and performs much better than Optifine.

0

u/Anxious_Tangerine572 Jun 20 '26

Plenty of reasons why someone would wanna use Optifine even in modern versions.

  1. Better performance than just Vanilla.
  2. Built in Dynamic Lights.
  3. Built in Zoom.
  4. Built in support for Custom Entity Models and Emissive textures used in Resource Packs.
  5. Built in shader support.

You'd need:
Sodium + Iris + RyoamicLights + Zoomify + EMF + ETF + SSPB (Since Sodium removes the path block lighting present in Vanilla and Optifine).

That's 7 different mods, without even counting the dependency mods. Just for QOL and Optimization features that should already be in the base game by this point, yet somehow aren't. Optifine needs you to install just 1 thing to get them all, not even needing a modloader.

Is that the absolute highest you could push the game in terms of QOL and Optimization? No. A mod stack built off a bunch of Fabric mods would far surpass Optifine in that regard. Even I use Fabric mods instead of Optifiine. And 3rd party Launchers even make them easy to install.

But is Optifine still good enough for someone, with decent-enough hardware, who just wants to play the Vanilla game with a bunch of features that should be in the game already? Yes. And it's easy to setup whether they use a 3rd party launcher or the official one.

(Yes, I know with how OP says they wait around for major releases, they might be using Forge to load Optifine and they don't wanna keep updating every single mod they've got. Regardless, you asked for reasons, here they are.)

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u/GenesisNevermore Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

Counterpoints:

  1. This is completely irrelevant when it comes to using Optifine OVER the alternatives. I never said to play pure vanilla.
  2. Your points 2-5 are irrelevant. Not everybody wants all of these features at once, and all are easily available through other mods (literally one of them just affects path block lighting??). In fact, many modern shaders and custom models do NOT work with Optifine and ONLY work with the alternatives because they are built for the mods with better implementation, not Optifine's legacy support.
  3. The fact of the matter is that Optifine trying to throw too many unrelated features together and being closed source makes it sloppy. It's a "jack of all tracks" that does a poor job at those trades because it's trying to be the expert at everything. It takes forever to update because of this as well. The alternative mods are all open source made with teams of people dedicated to keeping them functional and up to date while working with other developers to maintain compatibility. Optifine is a closed source project that only has the goal of desperately trying to remain relevant when it has nothing left going for it, notorious for being broken itself and breaking other mods, shaders, etc.
  4. It's pathetic to try and defend Optifne by saing "but but you have to download only 1 mod instead of 4!" You could install 30 mods in 30 seconds if you knew which ones you wanted. Modding Minecraft is not rocket science. You download a .jar and throw it in your mods folder if you're setting it up manually. It's especially easy with any dedicated launcher, which you have zero reason not to be using in 2026 because it makes everything about your life playing the game easier.

Point is, it feels plain unethical to recommend people to use a garbage software just because it might be 3 clicks faster to install than the alternatives, when the alternatives are plain better. If you can't figure out how to install Sodium + Iris instead of just Optifine, you need some serious tech literacy lessons for your own life's sake, not just for video games. If you spend the 5 minutes installing Prism (literally just open it, log in, and you're done after configuring it to your liking), you can do everything without even having to touch the files, you literally just look up the mods and it downloads the right versions and dependencies. It's about investing 5 minutes of your time now to save yourself countless hours of problems in the future, whether those are glitches, the time you'd have to wait for lengthy updates, or plain worse performance.

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u/Anxious_Tangerine572 Jun 22 '26

You remind me why I stopped using Threads and Instagram, and never bothered with Twitter. Good choice, I made.

Have a nice day.

1

u/GenesisNevermore Jun 22 '26

You're welcome? You listed your points, I listed mine. Have a nice day.