Best Mods to Play Survival Minecraft

In this blog post, we’ve compiled the ultimate collection of "Vanilla+" mods and resource packs. We aren't adding nuclear reactors or dragons, we are simply fixing what Minecraft got wrong. From turning 2D sprites into lush 3D models to making mobs move with realistic weight and bounce, this list will breathe new life into your survival world.

⏰ 60-Second Summary of the Modpack

🧬 Vanilla... But Alive: Forget the stiff, robotic movement of vanilla mobs. With Fresh Animations, every mob in your world moves with personality. Villagers stride with purpose, spiders crawl terrifyingly, and slimes bounce with actual weight. Combined with 3D Skin Layers, players and mobs finally look like part of the world.

👁️ Optifine Parity: This modpack also includes the most loved features from Optifine. Like zoom, connected textures, dynamic lights, in-depth video settings etc. Perfect alternative for that!

🚀 Beauty with Brains: Most "aesthetic" modpacks destroy your framerate, not this one. Because it’s built on the same foundation as Essentially Optimized, you get these next-gen visuals while still running 3-4x faster than Vanilla. It is the perfect balance of eye candy and raw horsepower.

🌍 Works Everywhere: As a purely client-side pack with no content altering mods, it is compatible with any vanilla world or server.

⚡ Rapid Updates: Our simple, focused approach means we can update to new Minecraft versions incredibly quickly and always keep the modpack up to date.

🧩 But what's in the modpack?

MODS:
Sodium
Sodium is the gold standard when it comes to optimizing your game on Fabric. It is a rendering optimization mod for Minecraft that boosts frame rates and compatibility without changing the look and feel of the game.

Sodium Extra
Sodium Extra gives Sodium a lot more options, making it feel more like Optifine.

Reese's Soidum Options
Reese's Sodium Options replaces Sodium's options screen with the intention to make the user experience better.

Iris
Iris does not improve the performance, but it does something else important. It allows us to use shaders while playing on Fabric. Since shaders are a pretty popular feature players want to have, I decided to add this mod to the modpack as well.

Lithium
Lithium improves the FPS by rewriting the game physics and mob AI, but it doesn't change any vanilla Minecraft mechanics. The mod works on both the client and server, and can be installed on servers without requiring clients to also have the mod.

Entity Culling
What Entity Culling does is it introduces asynchronous path-tracing to efficiently determine what's actually visible to the player, and only render that. Anything that is hidden by blocks or behind you won't be rendered. This greatly improves the performance by not wasting resources on elements that you can't even see.

Concurrent Chunk Management Engine (C2ME)
C2ME mod is a performance-enhancing mod for Minecraft that focuses on improving chunk generation, I/O, and loading times by utilizing multiple CPU cores. It's especially useful on the server side, but also gives a lot of improvements on the client side.

More Culling
More Culling does the same thing as Entity Culling, but even more aggressively, so having these 2 mods installed will cover the culling issues effectively.

FerriteCore
This mod reduces the memory usage of Minecraft in a few different ways. If you are low on RAM or have issues of running out of memory, this mod will definitely help you.

ImmediatelyFast
This mod squeezes out extra performance in rendering-heavy situations, where Minecraft often struggles. Looking at the performance comparisons of this mod, it's definitely a significant improvement in terms of FPS and a must have in every optimization modpack.

3D Skin Layer
Replaces the flat second layer of player skins with a 3D modeled version. It automatically switches back to vanilla 2D rendering when players are far away to maintain performance.

Clean F3
A lightweight mod that cleans up the debug screen by removing unnecessary information, making it easier to read the FPS and coordinates.

Mod Menu
It lets you view the mods you have installed and, if supported by the mod, enables quick and easy access to the mod's config screens. This is a must have mod if you are running your game with multiple mods.

Continuity
A mod that allows for efficient connected textures, similar to OptiFine. It supports connected glass, sandstone, and other blocks without needing OptiFine installed.

Make Bubbles Pop
This mod completely overhauls bubble particles, making them pop and rise realistically to the water surface. It also adds bubble particles to underwater chest openings and explosions.

Zoomify
A lightweight zoom mod that provides a highly configurable zoom feature, effectively replacing the need for OptiFine's zoom.

Dynamic Lights
Adds dynamic lighting to the game, allowing items like torches and lanterns to emit light when held in your hand or dropped on the ground.

Sodium Fullbright
Allows you to increase your brightness (gamma) beyond the default settings, which is incredibly useful for seeing in dark caves or at night.

RESOURCE PACKS:
3D Rails and Ladder
Changes the flat textures of rails and ladders into detailed 3D models, adding depth to your railways and builds.

Remodeled Doors 3D
Gives all doors and trapdoors in the game a 3D model, making them look much more substantial and realistic compared to the flat vanilla versions.

3D Crops Revamped
Updates crop textures to have actual 3D geometry, making your farms look much more lush and detailed.

Overdetailed Saplings
Replaces the flat sapling textures with high-quality 3D models that add a nice touch of detail to your forestry.

Cyber's 3D Amethyst
Transforms the flat cross-texture of Amethyst clusters and buds into beautiful 3D crystal models.

Better Lanterns
Improves the look of lanterns and chains with 3D models and better holding animations.

Simple 3D Chain
Gives chains a 3D model to match the lanterns and removes the random rotation, making them look cleaner.

Fresh Animations
An animation overhaul resource pack that gives mobs fluid, dynamic, and realistic animations, bringing the world to life.

No Pumpkin Blur
Removes the annoying black overlay when wearing a carved pumpkin, giving you clear vision while staying safe from Endermen.

Better Hoppers
Adds directional arrows or visual indicators to hoppers, making it much easier to see which way they are facing when building redstone contraptions.

Low on Fire
Lowers the fire overlay on your screen when you are burning, so it doesn't block your entire view during combat.

Essentially Enhanced is a client-side modpack dedicated to amazing optimization and great looks. It is designed in collaboration with Essentially Optimized to deliver the greatest performance boost out of all the modpacks while also making Minecraft look better.

Thanks to the collaboration with Essentially Optimized, this pack outperforms other similar Quality Of Life & Visual modpacks.