Exordium Guide: Buffering the Hotbar, Health, Scoreboard, Tablist, and More

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Exordium reduces the performance cost of frequently redrawn interface elements by buffering them instead of rendering them every frame. Each supported element has its own set of controls, and you operate them through the mod's interface and the corresponding hotkeys (set them in the controls menu).

How Buffering Works

Every buffered element follows the same pattern. You switch buffering on or off for that element, set a maximum framerate for it, and optionally force blending or force updates when other mods cause display problems. Lowering an element's maximum framerate means it is redrawn less often, which saves performance at the cost of smoothness.

Elements You Can Buffer

The following overlays each have their own enable/disable control and their own maximum framerate setting:

Hotbar — the item bar at the bottom of the screen.
Health/Hunger/Armor — the survival status overlay.
Experience — the experience bar and level number.
Scoreboard — the sidebar score display.
Tablist — the player list shown while the tab key is held.
Bossbars — the boss health bars at the top of the screen.
Vignette — the darkened screen edges. This one uses a custom buffered implementation.
Crosshair — buffering it removes the inverted-color effect from the crosshair, and its framerate setting applies during F3 mode.
Chat — the chat overlay.
F3 overlay — the debug screen.
XaerosMinimap — the minimap overlay.
Paperdoll — the player model overlay.

Per-Element Options

For most elements you will find these controls:

Enable/Disable buffering for that element.
Maximum framerate (labeled as the max FPS for that element). This caps how often the element is redrawn.
Force Blend — forces texture blending on for that element. This may resolve conflicts with other mods.
Force Updates — makes the element update on every possible update frame, while still respecting the framerate limit. This may also resolve conflicts with other mods.

The chat, F3, and XaerosMinimap overlays use a target framerate rather than a maximum, and the vignette, crosshair, and bossbars have their own update-forcing controls.

The Update Check Rate

One shared setting controls how often the game checks UI elements for changes. Setting it to match your monitor's refresh rate is recommended.

Practical Tips

If an overlay looks frozen or fails to refresh, raise its maximum framerate or turn on Force Updates.
If an overlay renders incorrectly alongside another mod, try Force Blend.
If you want maximum performance, lower the maximum framerate on elements you rarely look at, such as the scoreboard or tablist.
Buffering the crosshair changes its appearance by removing the inverted-color effect, so leave it off if you prefer the original look.
Disable buffering entirely for any element that misbehaves, then re-enable it once the conflict is resolved.