Installation

Installation

what you need

• Fabric Loader 0.16.0 or newer
• Fabric API
• Sodium 0.6.0 or newer
• Java 21 or newer

Sodium is required, not optional. Helium's config screen lives inside Sodium's video settings and some culling systems use Sodium's block entity API directly.

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steps

1. install Fabric Loader from fabricmc.net if you haven't already
2. grab Fabric API and Sodium from Modrinth and drop them in your mods folder
3. download Helium from Modrinth and drop it in your mods folder
4. launch the game

that's it. no config required out of the box.

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optional mods

mod	why you'd want it
ModMenu	adds a Helium entry in the mod list with a quick settings button
Lithium	handles game logic optimizations, pairs well with Helium which focuses on rendering
Iris	shader support, compatible with Helium

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where is the config

Options > Video Settings > Helium - it's a tab inside Sodium's settings panel.

if you have ModMenu installed, there's also a shortcut from the mod list screen.

the config file itself is at .minecraft/config/helium.json if you want to edit it directly or back it up.

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java version note

Java 21 is the minimum. most modern launchers (Prism, MultiMC, official launcher) will let you set the Java version per instance. if you're on Java 17 or lower, Helium won't load.

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building from source

you need Java 21 installed. the Gradle wrapper handles everything else.

git clone https://github.com/qborder/Helium.git
cd Helium
./gradlew remapJar

output jar is in build/libs/. use the one without -dev in the name.

to run a dev client:

./gradlew runClient

to generate IDE sources for IntelliJ or Eclipse:

./gradlew genSources

then import as a Gradle project.