Sodium in All the Mons

Sodium is a rendering engine replacement for Minecraft. It is a client-side optimization mod that aims to raise your frame rates and reduce micro-stutter, and it also fixes many graphical issues in vanilla Minecraft. It does this without changing how the game looks.^[1]

The pack ships Sodium 0.8.13 for Minecraft 1.21.1, as the NeoForge build. It has been in the pack since 0.7.0-beta or earlier.^[2]

What to expect in game

By default, Sodium turns on every optimization your system supports, so you probably don't need to configure anything. If it installed correctly, your Video Settings screen shows its own settings interface. Only change the performance and advanced options if you run into problems.^[1]

Sodium only optimizes Minecraft's rendering code. It does not speed up other parts of the game.^[1]

Where it sits in the quest book

Sodium is not on the ATM Star quest path, so you won't unlock or need it for that route.^[2]

Don't mix it up with the quest called "Sodium Coolant" quest. That quest is in the "Mekanism: Reactors" chapter, in the "Tech" group (chapter 51 of 70 in the book). It is about sodium as a coolant for the Fission Reactor, not about this mod. It comes after "Fission Reactor Port" quest and before "Boiler Ports" quest.^[3]

The rest of that chapter's 92 quests is told in the quest book.^[3]

Same as in the FTB StoneBlock 4 1.21.0 guide

Sodium is a bit different from the other mods in this guide. It adds no machines, items or crafting steps. It is a rendering engine replacement for Minecraft that improves your frame rate and reduces micro-stutter. So there is nothing to craft and no quest to finish here. Your first steps are about making sure it is working for you.^[1]

Step by step

1. Open the Video Settings screen in Minecraft. If Sodium is running, you will see its new user interface for changing settings there.^[1]
2. Leave the settings alone to begin with. By default, Sodium enables every optimization your system supports, which gives you the best experience it can.^[1]
3. Only change the performance and advanced video settings if you run into problems.^[1]

Check your hardware

Sodium officially supports desktop graphics cards with up-to-date drivers that support OpenGL 4.5 or newer. Most cards released in the past 12 years qualify. The mod's page gives these examples: Intel HD Graphics 500 Series (Skylake) or newer, NVIDIA GeForce 400 Series (Fermi) or newer, and AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series (GCN 1) or newer.^[1]

Older cards that already run Minecraft (which needs OpenGL 3.3) should also work with Sodium. The team says it cannot ensure compatibility or give support for them, and they may stop working with future versions.^[1]

Same as in the All the Mods 10 8.1 guide

Sodium doesn't have machines, multiblocks, power, fluids or item automation. It's a rendering engine replacement for the Minecraft client. It's there to raise your frame rate and cut micro-stutter, and it also fixes many graphical issues in the base game.^[1]

What Sodium actually changes

By design, Sodium only optimizes Minecraft's rendering code. Other parts of the game, like world logic, aren't touched by this mod. Its developers point to their separate mods for that, such as Lithium.^[1]

It's built to stay compatible with the wider modding ecosystem without changing how the game looks, so you keep the normal block game feel.^[1]

Settings and defaults

By default, Sodium enables all optimizations your system supports, so you usually don't need to configure anything. The project page suggests changing performance-related or advanced video settings only if you run into problems.^[1]

To check that it's working, open the Video Settings screen in Minecraft. With Sodium installed, it shows Sodium's own redesigned interface for changing settings.^[1]

Hardware requirements

Sodium's official support covers desktop graphics cards with up-to-date drivers that support OpenGL 4.5 or newer. Nearly all desktop cards that already run Minecraft (which needs OpenGL 3.3) should also work, but the team doesn't guarantee support for older cards and they may stop working in future versions.^[1]

Unverified The project page's news item describes Sodium 0.9.x for a newer Minecraft version, including early Vulkan support. Which Sodium build this pack uses, and whether Vulkan applies here, can't be confirmed from the available sources.

If you came here looking for tiers of the Sodium mod, you won't find any in the quest sources. The one quest with sodium in its name, "Sodium Coolant" quest, is about sodium as a coolant for a Mekanism fission reactor. It has nothing to do with the Sodium mod.^[3]

Where the Sodium Coolant quest sits

• It is in the Mekanism: Reactors chapter of the Tech group, and the book unlocks it after "Fission Reactor Port" quest.^[3]
• The next quest that follows from it is "Boiler Ports" quest, which covers getting Superheated Sodium and Water into a Thermoelectric Boiler.^[3]
• The quest says sodium can be used as a coolant instead of water. It is more efficient and reaches higher temperatures, but it is harder to get and reuse.^[3]
• To make it, the quest has you build a Thermal Evaporation Plant (the quest lists Thermal Evaporation Block, Thermal Evaporation Controller and Thermal Evaporation Valve) to turn water into brine. Then you use an Electrolytic Separator to split the brine and get sodium.^[3]

Unverified The sources here show no recipes or quest chapter for the Sodium mod itself, so any tiers or unlock order for it are unverified.

Good news and a heads-up: none of the quests shown to me ask for an item from this mod. No quest task uses anything in the sodium namespace, so I can't point you to a quest that is about the mod itself.^[3][4]

The quest book does talk about sodium, but that is the Mekanism chemical used as a reactor coolant, not this mod. That's easy to mix up, so here is where it shows up.^[3][4]

Sodium in the Mekanism chapters

1. In the "Mekanism" chapter (group Tech, chapter 50 of 70), "Making Chlorine" quest has you build a Thermal Evaporation Plant, feed it water to slowly make brine, then run that brine through an Electrolytic Separator to get sodium and chlorine. The quest says sodium is helpful for the Fission Reactor but not for ore processing. It comes after the Machines quest.^[4]
2. In the "Mekanism: Reactors" chapter (group Tech, chapter 51 of 70), "Fission Reactor Port" quest explains the reactor ports. They take in fissile fuel and coolant, either water or sodium, and with sodium the coolant output carries out superheated sodium.^[3]
3. "Sodium Coolant" quest comes right after the port quest and asks for the Thermal Evaporation Plant parts (Thermal Evaporation Block, Thermal Evaporation Controller, Thermal Evaporation Valve) plus an Electrolytic Separator. The idea is to turn water into brine, then split the brine to get sodium. The quest says sodium is more efficient and reaches higher temperatures than water, but is harder to get and reuse.^[3]
4. "Boiler Ports" quest follows the sodium coolant quest and asks for a Boiler Valve. It covers getting superheated sodium and water into the Thermoelectric Boiler, and the cooled sodium and the steam out of it.^[3]
5. "Thermoelectric Boiler" quest comes after the boiler ports quest and the quest about the boiler's inner blocks. It covers building the boiler and cooling superheated sodium with water.^[3]

Only three quests of the "Mekanism" chapter were shown to me. The other 86 are in the quest book, so check it there for anything else on sodium.^[4]

All the Mons 1.3.0 ships Sodium 0.8.13 for Minecraft 1.21.1 on NeoForge. Sodium has been in the pack since 0.7.0-beta or earlier. The changes below come from Sodium's own release notes, since there are no pack changelog entries for this mod.^[2]

0.8.13 (the version in this pack)

This is a small maintenance release. It fixes some minor bugs and makes the crash log message clearer, so unrelated errors don't get blamed on Sodium when NeoForge keeps loading despite a severe error.^[5]

• The crash log message is clearer when the game crashes because of a missing mod config. That basically only happens when NeoForge loads the game even though it hit a severe error.^[5]
• Fixed a buffer overflow in Kernel32.getModuleFileName.^[5]
• Sodium now uses the correct atomic operations on NativeBuffer.ALLOCATED.^[5]
• Sodium now uses clearenv() to delete an environment variable.^[5]
• Implemented override and overlay priority in the graphics options Config API. This is new in the final 0.8.13 compared with its beta build.^[5][6]

0.8.12: the backport of Sodium 0.8

Sodium 0.8.12 is a backport of modern Sodium 0.8 to Minecraft 1.21.1, so it was a big jump for this version. The release notes list these highlights:^[7]

• World rendering performance is significantly better on some computers, by up to +115%.^[7]
• Transparent objects with complex models render much better, especially when submerged in water.^[7]
• The Video Settings menu has many user experience improvements.^[7]
• Latency and micro-stutter are reduced when chunks update in the world.^[7]
• Entity rendering is slightly faster, especially for transparent mobs and particles.^[7]
• It includes the backport of the Config API, which should make it easier for mods to interact with Sodium across multiple versions.^[7]

The beta builds leading up to 0.8.12 added a display of fps percentiles, which gives a more accurate idea of your typical frame rate and how smooth it is. They also improved the wording of some video options and fixed several crashes, including one when using -Dmixin.debug=true and a "getResources is null" crash. Earlier in the series, the corrupted config screen was fixed so it shows up properly, and a texture light coords change that had been mistakenly applied to 1.21.1 was reverted.^[8]

Compatibility notes

The 0.8.12 release notes list the mod versions known to work: Create Aeronautics 1.3.0, Sable 2.0.0, Veil 4.1.2 and Iris 1.8.13. During testing, Voxy, sodiumleafculling and EBE animations were listed as not working.^[7][8]

Older 0.6.13 release

Before the 0.8 backport, the 0.6.13 release for Minecraft 1.21.1 improved compatibility with some NeoForge mods that use the Fabric Rendering API, and with some Fabric mods running through Sinytra Connector. It also fixed holes appearing in the world with Snow Real Magic! and some other mods, and fixed animated sprites in mod user interfaces not animating. PojavLauncher and BetterEnd were marked as incompatible.^[9]