Best Minecraft settings for PC and Steam Deck

Finding the best Minecraft settings is about more than just graphical tweaks, as there are a lot of detailed menus to navigate. Whether you're an avid Minecraft fan looking to get the best out of the creative sandbox or a parent wanting to ensure your child has the best experience, we've got the settings and tips to help out.

As you might expect, the Minecraft system requirements don't call for anything close to the most expensive options in our best graphics card buying guide, but you might want to consider a storage upgrade if you want to download a bunch of the best Minecraft mods. Elsewhere, playing Minecraft on the Steam Deck might prove more difficult than expected due to the game's lack of availability on Steam, but we've got you covered with a workaround.

Minecraft doesn't have a traditional settings menu as you may expect to find, but there are some settings you can play around with.

• Graphics Mode: Vibrant Visuals - Custom (this unlocks adjustable options)
• Shadow Quality: Ultra
• Clouds: Ultra
• Volumetric Fog Quality: Ultra
• Reflections: High
• Bloom: 100%
• Upscaling Mode: Bilinear
• FOV: 100.40
• Use VSync: Vertical Sync
• Deferred Render Distance: 20 Chunks
• HUD Opacity: 80%

Using the above settings on our RTX 4070 testing rig resulted in an average frame rate of 160fps with 1% lows of 99fps at 1,920 x 1,080. Moving up to 2,560 x 1,440, the average frame rate was 147fps with 1% lows of 87fps. Finally, at 4K, the average frame rate was 139fps with 1% lows of 62fps.

Minecraft runs great at all resolutions we tested it on with our mid-range GPU, and looks so much nicer than it did even a few years ago, thanks to the recent inclusion of the Vibrant Visuals setting.

While seemingly not true ray-tracing, the lighting, reflections, and shadows in this new graphics profile are stunning to look at. The ray-tracing setting was permanently grayed out during our testing, even after following all the instructions given by Microsoft, but the Vibrant Visuals profile is more than enough to enjoy Minecraft for those with powerful gaming PCs and high-resolution displays.

Helpful parental settings in Minecraft

There are a lot of menus and settings within Minecraft that can leave you confused, but these are the key settings you should look out for if you're setting the game up for a child.

• Only Allow Trusted Skins: On (General Settings)
• Filter Profanity: On (General Settings)
• Auto-Update Unlocked Packs: On (General Settings)
• Tutorial: Turn off if confident with controls and general gameplay (General Settings)
• Invert Axis: Set to preference (Controller Settings)
• A/B or X/Y Button Swap: Adjust as needed, great for kids used to a certain controller layout (Controller Settings)

Best Minecraft settings for Steam Deck

The best, or at least the most convenient way to play Minecraft on the Steam Deck is via the Xbox Cloud Gaming app, which requires an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription. This allows you to stream the game from Microsoft servers, as opposed to running it natively, which will extend the battery life of your Steam Deck during sessions.

Your other options include downloading launchers via desktop mode, and these can often require additional workarounds for the controls to work in-game. These launchers are also at risk of becoming compromised as they are not official products, so bear this in mind.

Minecraft was once part of GeForce Now, which would be a great way to play, given the release of the new native app, but the game has been removed from the service and has yet to return.

How we tested Minecraft

At PCGamesN, we use dedicated gaming rigs to test the best settings for performance and gameplay in the latest releases. The test rig used to play Minecraft includes the following components: Intel Core i7-11700F, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 12GB, 32GB of DDR4 3,200MHz RAM in dual-channel configuration, and an MSI B560 motherboard. We also test using Windows 11 64-bit.

We always run our testing first at 1,920 x 1,080 to identify the best settings for this entry-level resolution, then again at 2,560 x 1,440 using the same setup to gauge the difference in performance. Finally, we also test in 4K. We use CapFrameX to capture frame data and compare testing sessions.

Does Minecraft need an SSD?

Minecraft does not require the use of an SSD, based on its system requirements, so the game can be downloaded and booted from a traditional hard drive. If you want to get the fastest game-loading time, though, we recommend upgrading to an SSD.

If you are interested in upgrading from an old-school mechanical drive, you can find our current SSD recommendations in our best gaming SSD guide.

How to monitor performance in Minecraft

If you want to keep an eye on performance in Minecraft, we have an easy method that works whether you're using an Nvidia or AMD graphics card.

For Nvidia cards, ensure you have the Nvidia App installed and the in-game overlay enabled, and then hit ALT + R in-game to bring up your performance monitor. With AMD cards, you can enable performance monitoring via the Radeon overlay using the shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + O.

Alternatively, you can download free software such as CapFrameX or Nvidia FrameView, to get a cleaner, more simplified benchmarking tool that works with any graphics card.

With handheld gaming PCs, most will have a dedicated button to access a quick menu from which performance monitoring, sometimes called real-time monitoring, can be accessed.

You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We've also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.