Nvidium Settings Guide: Vertex Format, Barycentric Shaders, Culling, and Async Loading
Nvidium is a rendering mod configured entirely through its settings screen and hotkeys rather than through crafting or items. This guide explains each option, what it changes, and how to operate it.
Opening and Applying Settings
All of the options below live in the mod's settings interface. Open that screen to view or change them. One setting, Automatic memory limit, notes that you must close and reopen the settings screen before its maximum memory value becomes editable, so plan for that extra step if you intend to adjust it.
Rendering Compatibility and Performance
Use sodium vertex format switches the mod to the vertex layout used by Sodium. According to its description, this path is less performant and consumes more video memory, but it can resolve conflicts with certain other mods. Enable it only if you are troubleshooting mod incompatibilities, not for speed.
Use NV fragment shader barycentric is a performance-oriented toggle. Its description states plainly that turning it on gives better performance, so leave it enabled unless you have a specific reason not to.
Cull degenerate triangles removes degenerate triangles from rendering, which the description says improves performance. This is a straightforward optimization toggle.
Visual Quality Options
Enables temporal coherence addresses a specific visual problem: it removes artifacting that appears when you turn around. If you notice visual glitches while rotating your view, this is the setting that targets them.
Translucency Sorting controls how transparent geometry is ordered, and it offers several levels with different tradeoffs:
- None — no sorting at all, no performance cost, but the result can look quite bad.
- Sections — sorts at the section level, matching Sodium's quality with minimal performance impact.
- Quads — sorts incrementally, spreading correct geometry ordering across multiple frames; this can produce visual oddities while the sorting is in progress.
- Sodium — defers to Sodium's own translucency sorting.
Pick the level that matches your priority: None for maximum speed, Sections for a balanced default, Quads if you accept temporary visual weirdness, or Sodium to hand the task to Sodium.
Should fog be rendered is a simple on/off choice for whether fog appears in the scene.
Memory and Loading Behavior
Automatic memory limit determines a memory cap based on how much VRAM your system has available. Remember that you must close and reopen the settings screen before you can edit the maximum memory value it sets. A related tooltip explains that the maximum GPU memory allowance will cause chunks to be culled once that limit is reached, so the cap directly affects how much geometry stays visible.
Region Keep Distance sets how far away regions remain loaded. Its tooltip carries a warning: this can cause issues, and the recommendation is to rely on a separate mod such as Bobby instead and leave this behavior to Vanilla. Treat it as an advanced option to use cautiously.
Asynchronous chunk section loading is enabled through its own toggle. Its description says it greatly reduces frame time while you are moving, and the benefit becomes more noticeable at higher render distances. Turn it on if you travel frequently or play with a long view distance.
Statistics Logging
A statistics logging level setting tracks how many cull layers are visible. Use it when you want insight into what the culling system is doing; the level you choose determines how much of that tracking is recorded.
Hotkeys
Some actions in the mod are bound to hotkeys rather than screen controls. For any action that has a key binding, assign it yourself in the controls menu using the corresponding hotkey entry. No default keys are assumed here, so set each binding to something that does not conflict with your other mods.