Sodium

This release adds official support for Minecraft 1.17.1 and with it many new improvements and fixes.

Changes and fixes

• A brand new chunk rendering backend has been introduced, bringing the best performance yet to any hardware that can run Minecraft.
• Added support for some Fabric API features, such custom fluid rendering and blocks with attached data.
• Many improvements to how we use and allocate VRAM, reducing stutters caused by loading chunks and overall GPU memory usage.
• Additionally, chunk loading was improved to prevent overload and to better stabilize frame rates. This can help with loading into worlds or when many blocks are changing at once.
• Improved the amount of time it takes to rebuild the chunk graph. This can reduce lag associated with moving around in the world or loading chunks at higher render distances.
• Many new optimizations for high resolution texture packs, especially when animated textures are used.
• Fixes and improvements for fog effects during sunrise/sunset and while underwater, helping to improve visuals drastically.
• Reduced VRAM usage in ocean biomes and other environments with lots of water.
• Support for custom translations (to be added in a future release)
• Improvements to particle rendering/culling, helping performance in particle heavy servers.
• Additional optimizations for biome color blending.
• ... and many other smaller, miscellaneous optimizations specific to Minecraft 1.17.