Managing Shader Packs and Shader Settings in Oculus

guide

Oculus provides an in-game interface for adding shader packs, choosing which one is active, reloading them, and moving shader settings in and out of the game. Everything below is done through that interface and its hotkeys; no crafting or item use is involved.

Opening the Shader Screens

The main entry point is the Shaderpack Selection Screen. From there you can reach the other shader-related screens:

Shader Pack List... shows the packs available to you.
Shader Pack Settings... opens the options for the pack currently in use.
Open Shader Pack Folder... opens the folder where packs are kept.
Refresh Shader Packs re-scans for packs so newly placed ones appear.

Each of these actions is bound to a control you can assign yourself. If a key is not already set, open the controls menu and assign the corresponding hotkey.

Adding Shader Packs

Packs are added by dragging and dropping them onto the interface. Drop one pack to add it, or drop several at once to add them in a batch. After a successful drop you will see a confirmation naming what was added.

Not every dropped file will be accepted. If the files are not valid shader packs, you will be told so, and a single invalid pack is reported by name. Two other problems can occur: a pack may fail to copy, or it may already exist in your shader packs folder, in which case you are told it is already there.

If no packs are present at all, the list simply reports that there are no packs.

Selecting and Toggling Shaders

Choose the pack you want from the selection screen. Shaders can also be toggled on and off, and the interface reports the result: either the toggle succeeded or it failed, with the reason given.

Reloading is a separate action, and it also reports success or failure with a reason. If a pack fails to load, report the error to the shader's developer. A generic load problem should go to the Oculus developers instead.

Some packs cannot be used at all. A pack may be flagged as incompatible because it uses features that are not supported. Related to this, a pack may request a specific feature (SSBO) that your GPU does not support, in which case it may not work correctly.

Shader Settings

The settings screen exposes the options belonging to the active pack. One option you may see is Max Shadow Distance, which controls how far away terrain and entities can still cast shadows; anything beyond that distance casts none, and lowering the value can improve performance noticeably. This option is unavailable when the pack has already defined its own shadow render distance.

Two file actions are available for settings: importing settings from a file, and exporting the applied settings to a file. Importing more than one settings file at once is not allowed. An import can also fail, and a successful import is confirmed by name.

A few general behaviors apply across these screens:

Hold SHIFT and click to reset a control.
Resetting everything asks you to confirm resetting all options before applying.
Setting a single option back to its default also asks for confirmation.
Fullscreen must be turned off before certain actions; you will be prompted to disable it first.

Debugging and Compatibility Notes

Debug logging can be turned on and off, and the interface tells you which state you are in. Enabling it can fail if your computer does not support debug features. If you do not have a debug context, you are asked to restart to enable OpenGL client debugging.

Oculus depends on Rubidium for good performance. If Rubidium is missing, you are told to obtain it, put it in your mods folder, and relaunch. If an incompatible version is present, you are told to get the correct version, remove the wrong one, and relaunch.

Finally, be aware that macOS is known to have problems with many shader packs, and that Not Enough Crashes can interfere badly with crash handling and produce inaccurate results; MixinTrace is suggested as a more reliable alternative.