10 Video Game Mods That Restored Essential Features

Long before its acquisition by Microsoft, Minecraft was a passion project developed by a scant few people. Unfortunately, as it rose to massive cult success, this team did not really have the scope to expand and optimize the game for every system it might be on.

As it was initially released as an indie project on various game forums, users with vastly different hardware specifications were downloading and playing the game. While Minecraft may have looked very simple when it was first available, it really chugged on lower end PCs.

The goal of OptiFine was twofold - increase the game's FPS on lower spec hardware (sometimes doubling framerate!) and making it look more beautiful by adding HD texture pack support.

In the early days of Minecraft this mod was essential for making it beautiful, which in turn increased its popularity among the YouTube crowd. You can find an archive of the mod and its changelog here.