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Minecraft + Fabric + OptiFine + BSL How-To (1.16.5)

Here’s a quick and dirty overview of how to install and play Minecraft with client-side mods and shaders.

Base Game

  1. Install Minecraft, if you haven’t already
  2. Open the launcher and start the game (1.16.5), if you haven’t already (to ensure the base game is installed and up to date)
  3. Once the game has started, quit the game and launcher, if still open.

Fabric

  1. Grab the Fabric universal installer jar here: https://fabricmc.net/use/
  2. Run the downloaded file, fabric-installer-*.jar (on Mac, you may need to right-click on the file, then hold option and click Open to bypass security restrictions)
  3. When the Fabric Installer appears, click Install. It’s likely defaulted to all the correct values already.
  4. Open the Minecraft launcher and you should now see a new profile fabric-loader-1.16.5 selected. (if not already selected, change the dropdown to it)
  5. Start the game. Once the game menu appears, you should see in the bottom-left corner that the game has been modded.

    (In this screenshot, I have a few other mods installed at this point, so I have more menu options than you would here)

OptiFine

If you’d like to get in on the insane shader action, do these steps too!

  1. Download OptiFine from here: https://optifine.net/downloads
  2. Download OptiFabric from here: https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/optifabric/download
  3. Download Fabric-API from here: https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/fabric-api/download
  4. Download the BSL shader pack from here: https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/customization/bsl-shaders/download
  5. Open your Minecraft game directory. The easiest way to do this is from the Minecraft launcher, select the Installations tab, mouse over the fabric-loader-1.16.5 installation, and click the Folder icon.
  6. Copy fabric-api-*.jar, optifabric-*.jar, OptiFine_*.jar to the mods directory
  7. Copy BSL_*.zip to the shaderpacks directory
  8. Start the game. You should now see in the bottom-left corner of the main menu that OptiFine is loaded!
  9. To enable the BSL shaders in the game, open Options > Video Settings… > Shaders, and select BSL_*.zip from the list of shaders. To disable, select OFF or (internal).

Feel free to tweak other video and performance settings as you see fit!

Happy Shading!