Circular Rendering

English | 中文

This is a Fabric mod that modifies chunk rendering to a circular (or elliptical) shape around the player.
By default, it renders chunks within a perfect circle (radius = view distance × 16 blocks).
You can optionally scale the left/right radius to create an ellipse, culling more chunks to the sides while keeping forward/backward visibility unchanged. This reduces GPU load and improves FPS without affecting gameplay mechanics.

Features

• Renders chunks in a circle centered on the player (default behavior).
• Optional elliptical rendering: the forward/backward radius remains fixed, while the left/right radius is scaled by a configurable factor (renderRadiusScale).
  • When renderRadiusScale = 1.0, it's a perfect circle.
  • When renderRadiusScale < 1.0, it becomes an ellipse (narrower left/right).
• Optional vertical range limitation: limit rendering to a certain number of chunk layers above and below the player.
• Chunk loading (logic updates) remains square, so all chunks are still loaded and updated.
• Presets & Custom Mode (Sodium only): Quickly switch between predefined configurations (Aggressive, Performance, Balanced) or unlock full control with Custom Mode.
• Compatible with Sodium:
  • When Sodium is present, configuration sliders and presets appear in the Video Settings screen.
  • Without Sodium, the mod works standalone using a JSON config file.
• No effect on entities or other objects – only chunk rendering is affected.

Dependencies

• Required: Fabric Loader ≥0.18.4
• Optional: Sodium 0.8.6+ (for in-game GUI configuration)

Installation

1. Install Fabric Loader.
2. Download the latest circular-rendering-<version>.jar from the Releases page.
3. Put the JAR into your mods folder.
4. (Optional) Install Sodium if you want the in-game configuration sliders and presets.

Configuration

With Sodium installed

1. Go to Options → Video Settings.
2. Scroll down to find the Circular Rendering section.

Configuration Mode

• Enable Custom Configuration (toggle):
  • OFF (default): You can only choose from three presets (Aggressive, Performance, Balanced). All other sliders are locked.
  • ON: Presets are disabled, and you can freely adjust the sliders below (Render Radius Scale, Enable Custom Vertical Range, Vertical Range).

Presets (available only when Custom Mode is OFF)

• Render Preset dropdown:
  • Aggressive: Render Radius Scale = 40%, vertical range enabled, 3 layers.
  • Performance: Render Radius Scale = 80%, vertical range enabled, 10 layers.
  • Balanced: Render Radius Scale = 100%, vertical range disabled (vanilla behavior, but still optimized).

Selecting a preset automatically applies its parameters.

Manual Configurations (available only when Custom Mode is ON)

• Render Radius Scale (10% – 100%):
  • 100% = perfect circle (radius = view distance × 16).
  • Lower values make the left/right radius smaller, turning the circle into an ellipse and culling more chunks to the sides.
• Enable Custom Vertical Range (toggle) – when enabled, you can set:
  • Vertical Range (1–32 layers): Number of chunk layers (16 blocks each) to render above and below the player.

Without Sodium

The mod creates a JSON config file at config/circular-rendering.json.
Example content:

{
  "renderRadiusScale": 1.0,
  "enableVerticalRange": false,
  "verticalRange": 16,
  "preset": "BALANCED",
  "customMode": false
}

• renderRadiusScale – a double between 0.1 and 1.0.
  • 1.0 = perfect circle.
  • < 1.0 = ellipse (narrower left/right).
• enableVerticalRange – a boolean, enables vertical range limiting when true.
• verticalRange – an integer (1–32), number of chunk layers to render above and below the player (each layer = 16 blocks).
• preset – one of "AGGRESSIVE", "PERFORMANCE", "BALANCED". This field is only used when customMode is false.
• customMode – a boolean:
  • false (default): The configuration is controlled by the preset field; the other three fields are ignored.
  • true: The configuration uses renderRadiusScale, enableVerticalRange, and verticalRange; preset is ignored (but may be updated internally when parameters match a preset).

Changes take effect after restarting the game or reloading chunks.

How It Works

• Vanilla mode (no Sodium): The mod injects into WorldRenderer.renderBlockLayers and filters the chunk list using the shape defined by:

  (forward² / a²) + (right² / b²) ≤ 1
  

  where a = view distance × 16 (fixed forward/backward radius) and b = a × renderRadiusScale (left/right radius).
  When b = a, the shape is a circle. If vertical range is enabled, it also checks chunk Y layers.
• Sodium mode: The mod injects into Sodium's OcclusionCuller.isWithinRenderDistance and returns false for chunks outside this shape or vertical range.

Both approaches only affect chunk rendering; chunk loading remains square, so game mechanics (redstone, entity AI, etc.) work normally everywhere.

Compatibility

• Works with Minecraft 1.21.11.
• Fully compatible with Sodium 0.8.6+ (both mods can be used together).
• Should be compatible with most other mods that don't heavily modify chunk rendering. If you encounter issues, please report them.

Building from Source

Clone the repository and run:

./gradlew build

The built JAR will be in build/libs/.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.