Alfheim Lighting Engine

Mod

by Desoroxxx

Alfheim is a lighting engine replacement for Minecraft, optimized for performance and fixing many bugs

Type

Mod

CurseForge Downloads

2,820,118

CurseForge ID

910715

Modrinth Downloads

276,015

Modrinth ID

srzJgOEn

Last Updated

Nov 6, 2026

Description

Alfheim

Alfheim is a fork (or a rewrite depending on your views on the ship of theseus) of Hesperus which is a fork of Phosphor

What benefit does this have over Phosphor/Hesperus?

Alfheim aims to be compatible in all scenarios, and if for any reasons a something is fundamentally incompatible, a warning will tell you what is happening instead of crashing with hardly any information.

Alfheim also has a lot of optimizations of all sizes over Phosphor/Hesperus it uses slightly less memory overall.

Alfheim also improves client side performance unlike Phosphor/Hesperus, by reducing by lighting related block updates by a factor of 27. To improve client side performance, Alfheim also limits how much lighting updates are performed each frame. In addition, Phosphor/Hesperus unnecessarily forces lights to be updates before each frame which Alfheim doesn't.

Alfheim also fixes more vanilla lighting issues than Phosphor/Hesperus, here is a list of all fixes and where they come from:

Fixed in Phosphor/Hesperus:

Fixes MC-3329
Fixes MC-102162
Fixes MC-116690
Fixes MC-117067
Fixes MC-117094

Fixed in Alfheim:

Fixes MC-92
Fixes MC-50734
Fixes MC-80966
Fixes MC-95515
Fixes MC-104532
Fixes MC-249343

Why not just PR to Hesperus?

Fair question, the reason is simple, Alfheim compared to Hesperus isn't just a fork to fix bugs, it is my continuation of it. And as seen in the past, my continuations of mods aren't just modifying some things, they are pretty invasive and basically change everything internally.

It wasn't this way at first, I wanted to PR some stuff to Hesperus but after doing parts of it, it became clear that it had grown bigger than a PR. So then I decided to do Alfheim, for now it includes optimizations, bug fixes and compatibility fixes, but later down the line I have more plans.

Want to have your own mod or support me?

If you're looking for a mod but don't have the development skills or time, consider commissioning me! My commissions are currently open and I would be happy to create a custom mod to fit your needs as long as you provide assets.

Commissions

You can also support me on a monthly basis by becoming a member. To thank you will have the possibility to access exclusive post and messages, Discord channel for WIP content, and even access to unreleased Prototypes or WIP Projects.

Membership

You can also buy me a hot chocolate.