How I test mods, packs and updates

Every page on this site is built on things I did myself in the game. This page explains exactly how, so you can judge the results and repeat them on your own PC.

The test PC

All tests and recordings run on the same machine:

  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X (12 cores)
  • Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER (16 GB)
  • System: Windows 11, Java 25, Minecraft with 4 GB of memory allocated
  • Launcher: Prism Launcher, one separate instance per test, so mods from one test never leak into the next

Your numbers will differ on other hardware. What carries over is the comparison: which mod helps in which kind of scene.

Versions

  • I test on the current Minecraft release (right now 26.3) with the loader the mod supports, usually Fabric.
  • I use the newest release of each mod for that game version from its official page. Betas and demos are named as such.
  • Each article shows what I tested in a “Tested on” line under the title: game version, loader, mod version and date.
  • For Hytale, I test on the current Early Access release with mods from their official CurseForge pages, each set of mods in its own test world, and I name the mod version I tested.

How I measure FPS

  • Same world, same route. Every run happens in a copy of my channel world, Valley of Mods, and follows the same scripted camera flight, so every run sees the same frames.
  • Read from the game. The frame rate comes from the F3 debug screen, once per second, and is averaged per scene. I also keep the worst single second, because averages hide stutters.
  • Vanilla twice. I run vanilla at the start and again at the end of a session. In my FPS test both runs landed within 5 % of each other, so I treat anything under 5 % as noise and not as a win.
  • One change at a time. Each mod is tested on its own against vanilla, combinations only on top of that.
  • Settings stay default unless the article says otherwise (for example render distance 32 in the FPS test).

The full method and every number of the big comparison are in I tested every popular FPS mod for Minecraft 26.3.

Screenshots and videos

  • Screenshots and clips are recorded in the game, on the version named in the article. Some scenes are set up with commands (for example 1,024 villagers hidden in a mountain, or a wall of signs), and the article says so.
  • My first videos in September and early October 2026 used scenes rebuilt in a voxel renderer. Pages from that time label those images as illustrations, and I’m replacing them with real in-game screenshots.
  • I never edit a screenshot to make a mod look better than it is. Brightness or cropping changes are the only edits.

Where the facts come from

  • Versions, loaders, requirements and licenses come from the official project pages on Modrinth, CurseForge and GitHub, and game changes from minecraft.net, the Minecraft Wiki and hytale.com. Each article lists its sources at the end.
  • Download links always go to the official project page. I never re-upload files.

Updates and corrections

When a mod or the game changes, I update the article and note it under “What changed” at the bottom of the page. If you spot a mistake, write to hello@themodhunter.com and I’ll fix it.

Money

The site may show ads, and some pages have clearly labeled affiliate links for server hosting. Neither decides what I recommend: a mod that does nothing in my test gets called out, no matter who made it. Details are in the privacy policy.

Who’s behind this

I’m Matthias Jakisch, a software developer since 1997, and I run The Mod Hunter from Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. More about me and how this started: About.