How to Install Complementary Shaders: Complete Guide

Installing Complementary Shaders takes about five minutes once you understand the shape of the process: a shader pack cannot run by itself, so you first give Minecraft a shader loader, then you give the loader the pack ZIP, then you select the pack in the game's menus. This complete guide walks through each stage for Minecraft Java Edition, with both major loaders, Iris and OptiFine, and the checks that confirm everything worked.

Before you start

• Minecraft Java Edition, installed and launched at least once so its folders exist. Complementary Shaders does not exist for Bedrock, see the Bedrock guide if that is your edition.
• The pack ZIP, downloaded and still zipped. If you have not downloaded it yet, start with the download guide; if you have the file, run the quick ZIP checks first.
• A decision about loaders. Iris is the modern, actively developed loader and the one the official Complementary installer sets up. OptiFine is the long-established alternative. You need exactly one of them, never both.

Step 1: Install a shader loader

Option A, The official installer (easiest)

The Complementary developers publish an installer that downloads and installs Complementary Shaders together with the Iris loader. You run it, choose your style, and click install. One requirement catches people out: the installer needs a standalone Java runtime on your computer, the Java bundled with Minecraft will not work for running the installer itself. If the installer route appeals to you, this step plus Step 2 below are handled automatically; skip to Step 3.

Option B, Install Iris manually

1. Download the Iris installer for your Minecraft version from the Iris project's official distribution.
2. Run it, confirm your Minecraft version, and install. Iris arrives bundled with Sodium, a performance mod that pairs well with shaders.
3. Launch Minecraft and select the new Iris profile. On the title screen you should see an Iris/Sodium indication in the version corner.

The Iris route is covered step by step in installing Complementary Shaders with Iris, including how it fits into Fabric setups.

Option C, Install OptiFine

1. Download the OptiFine build that matches your exact Minecraft version.
2. Run the OptiFine installer (it also needs Java) to create an OptiFine profile, or place it in a launcher that manages it for you.
3. Launch the OptiFine profile once so its folders and menus exist.

Loader-specific details and trade-offs are in using Complementary Shaders with OptiFine.

Step 2: Put the ZIP in the shaderpacks folder

1. Launch Minecraft with your loader profile and go to Options → Video Settings → Shaders (Iris) or Options → Video Settings → Shaders in the OptiFine menus, both loaders place a shaderpacks folder button in this screen.
2. Click Open Shader Pack Folder (label varies slightly by loader). A file window opens at exactly the right location.
3. Move or copy your Complementary ZIP into this folder, as a ZIP, unextracted.
4. Return to the game. If the pack is not listed yet, leave the shader screen and re-enter it, or restart the game, to refresh the list.

Prefer to navigate manually? Where to put the ZIP file lists the folder paths for Windows, macOS and Linux for both loaders.

Step 3: Select and apply the pack

1. In the shader list, click ComplementaryUnbound or ComplementaryReimagined, the entry shows the pack name without the version clutter.
2. Apply/confirm (Iris applies on selection; OptiFine uses Done). The screen will reload its rendering, a brief pause is normal.
3. Load a world and look around. You should immediately see different light, sky and water.

If the entry is missing, greyed out, or selecting it changes nothing, work through how to enable Complementary Shaders and the not showing in the list fix guide.

Step 4: First settings to check

Out of the box the pack uses its default profile, which targets a balance of looks and performance. Before a long session:

• Pick a profile honestly. In the pack's settings screen (Shader Pack Settings / Options button in the shader menu), the profiles run from Potato to Ultra. Start one step below what you think your PC deserves; you can raise it later. The presets guide explains what each level changes.
• Set your render distance deliberately. It is the heaviest single dial for shader performance, see render distance and performance.
• Change one thing at a time afterwards, in the same scene, so you learn what each setting does. The best settings guide is a good route through the menus.

If something goes wrong

And the general triage hub is Complementary Shaders not working.

Choosing your style before you install

Complementary Shaders is one project with two distinct looks, and the choice is worth making deliberately because you download and install a separate ZIP for each style. Unbound is the realistic style, its lighting, sky and atmosphere aim for a more cinematic, naturalistic version of the game. Reimagined is the vanilla-preserving style, it reimagines Minecraft's lighting while keeping the game's own visual identity recognisably intact. Neither style is a cut-down version of the other: both are fully customisable after download, and both are covered in depth in the complete Unbound vs Reimagined comparison and which style should you choose?

You do not have to commit to one forever. Many players install both ZIPs from the start, at roughly 0.53 MB each, the pair takes almost no space, and then switch between them from the shader list whenever a world or a mood calls for the other look. Each style appears as its own entry, and each keeps its own saved settings, so experimenting costs nothing. If you are short on time, install the style that matches your intent for your main world first, play a full in-game day with it, and add the second style later using exactly the same steps. Installation does not lock anything in: adding, removing or swapping a pack never touches your worlds.

If you play more than one Minecraft version

Players who keep several game versions, a current survival world, an older modded instance, a creative world on a previous release, need to think in terms of instances, not a single global setup. Each Minecraft version needs its own matching loader build, because the loader version must match the Minecraft version exactly. Each instance also has its own shaderpacks folder, so a pack installed for one version does not automatically appear in another.

The good news is that the pack itself rarely blocks this. The current release, r5.9.3, supports Minecraft Java 1.7.10 through 1.21.11 and 26.1–26.3, so in most cases the same Complementary ZIP can simply be copied into each instance's shaderpacks folder and selected there. Your saved settings travel with the small .txt file that shares the ZIP's name: copy that file alongside the ZIP into another instance and the pack arrives with your profile and options already set, instead of starting from defaults. The one-by-one method still applies, install and launch one instance, confirm the shader menu exists and the pack loads, then repeat for the next, because a problem isolated to one instance is far easier to diagnose than the same change made in three places at once.

What a finished installation looks like

Before you declare the install done, run this short verification pass. It takes a minute and separates a genuinely working setup from one that merely looks plausible in a menu.

• In the launcher: the profile you launch is the loader profile, Iris or OptiFine for your exact game version, not the vanilla profile.
• On the title screen: the loader indication is present, confirming the loader actually ran.
• In the shaderpacks folder: your Complementary ZIP sits directly in the folder, still zipped, with no extra wrapper folder around it. After you have changed any pack option, a matching .txt settings file appears beside it, a quiet sign that the pack has run and saved state.
• In the shader menu: the pack is listed, selectable, and highlighted as the active choice after you pick it.
• In a world: in daylight, near water, you can see directional shadows, reflective water and warmer sunrise and sunset light compared with vanilla. If you are unsure, toggle the pack off in the same spot and compare, the difference should be unmistakable.

If every point checks out, the installation is complete and stable. From here, the productive next step is not more installing but learning the pack: work through the best settings guide in a familiar world, changing one option at a time so each effect earns its place.

Frequently asked questions