Graphics is one of the game's many visual settings which allows for the game's rendering of an assortment of features to be adjusted to match computer specifications.
There are currently three different options for graphics to be set to, in order of computing expense: Fast, Fancy and Fabulous!, each bringing their own dedicated visual improvements.
Differences between settings
- currently Java Edition centric - Bedrock Edition differences need to be researched
- any differences I may have missed? I've heard that the world border reddening as well as general fog rendering differs.
Summary
| Setting | Leaves | Translucency |
|---|---|---|
| Fast | Opaque | Flawed |
| Fancy | Transparent | Flawed |
| Fabulous! | Transparent | Good |
Fast
Fancy
Fabulous!
Detailed analysis
Leaves
When graphics are set to Fast, leaves are rendered as completely opaque blocks when placed in the world. (In item form, they still appear transparent.) This is likely meant to improve framerates by treating leaves more like full, solid cubes, and allowing their faces to be culled by each other, resulting in the game having to render less faces in forested areas; this, however, does not happen.[1]
Leaves do not use a separate texture file for their appearance in Fast graphics - rather, all transparent regions in the texture are set to fully opaque, and appear black.[more information needed]
Leaves are the only block subject to this - other transparent cubes such as spawners are still rendered transparent, likely due to their comparative rarity.
Translucency
When graphics are set to Fast or Fancy, the game makes compromises on the rendering of many translucent elements of the game.
A notable example of this involves viewing the world through translucent blocks such as stained glass, tinted glass and ice. When this is done, the game will not attempt to render particles, rain, snow or clouds behind the block.
There are also many, much more subtle cases which can be seen. Experience orbs have many associated cases - for example, they can block the rendering of their own shadows, as well as of other entities, including entity-rendered blocks such as chests, as well as non-entity-rendered translucent blocks such as stained glass, and other things like the outlines of targeted blocks.
The effects seem to be time-specific, and often differ depending on the age of the entities in question - different effects can be sighted for experience orbs which existed in the world before the entity behind them than experience orbs which came into existence afterwards.
More obscure cases can be sighted as well, such as with the dying animation of the ender dragon, the world border, and structure block annotations. Untested cases involve F3+G chunk borders and shulker bullets.
History
| Unknown | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ? | Added the graphics setting, with "fast" and "fancy" options. | ||||
| Java Edition Infdev | |||||
| Minecraft Infdev | 20100616-1 | Leaves are now affected by the graphics setting. | |||