Reduce references to OptiFine

[its-miroma]

Once upon a time, OptiFine ("OF" from now on) was the go-to solution for optimizing and prettifying Minecraft.

Those days are gone, OF is no longer commonly recommended, at least on the side of the internet I'm on. In other words: OF is no longer as ubiquitous as it once was, therefore we're no longer so incentivized to hold on to its huge presence.

While FO can still call itself an OF alternative, providing parity with what that offers and maintaining a Comparison Table (which needs updating...), I think it's outgrown that, and it can start moving on from constantly referencing OF as the Goal™ that must be imitated.

In many ways FO is already superior to OF, and that's primarily thanks to its mods' developers. While saying that mod X "provides OptiFine's X feature" might have been useful in the early adoption stage, I believe FO is able to achieve much more than that, and it doesn't need to compare itself to OF as much anymore.

It is also a bit unfair to mod developers, to have their work always compared to OF, as if it were a standard. We know OF sucks: just think of the file names in texture packs, or their poor compatibility with other mods, or their closed nature (which I personally am against). It's bordering on disrespect to the devs to compare their work to OF.

Obviously, FO and many of its mods started as a reimplementation of OF with a cleaner, more modern Fabric base. This is why many of them might have had the OF branding in their name or description (see Optiboxes), but once they grow enough they can distance themselves (see Skyboxify) and be more free in implementing things better.

I couldn't find exact download counts for OF, so we don't have much data to work with, but considering FO has almost 8 million downloads on Modrinth alone I think it's fair to say that it has its relevance online. Even some content creators, such as HermitCraft members, have long switched away from OF, even to FO.

While ignoring OF completely is unwise, I think we can start by dropping the 18 (!) references to it in MMH. In general, for the future, FO should think less of itself as "OF's alternative", and more as the number 1 Minecraft optimization modpack.

[Madis0]

One problem with this is that OptiFine is not just a known mod, but also a resource pack spec format.

So for example:

• BetterGrassify
• LambDynamicLights

could be considered "independent" and

• Iris
• ETF/ETM
• Polytone

have extended features beyond their initial goals, then what about

• Animatica
• OptiGUI
• Skyboxify

which only support that format?
When or why would I remove that mention if the mods themselves mention it there?

[its-miroma]

I'm not arguing that the OF spec is not the original inspiration; I'm saying it's no longer the most useful descriptor for users.

MMH consistently explains FO features by referencing OF first, and only then explaining what they do. This was useful once, but now results in things like Iris being "OF's Shaders", Animatica being "OF's Custom Animations", Colormatic being "OF's Custom Colors", etc.

Iris [...] has extended features beyond [OF's] initial goals.

That's not my primary point.

Content creators and platforms today will explicitly advertize support for Iris. (See Shaders on Modrinth)

This means they think that targeting Iris specifically in their marketing is helpful. That's, imo, a strong indicator that OF is no longer the golden standard, the reference point.

When would I remove that mention?

When most resource pack creators start advertizing their creations as supporting Animatica, OptiGUI, or Skyboxify, explicitly. From what I know, this is already happening, but my view of the internet is ofc biased.

I understand that this is very difficult to quantify, but the transition does not have to happen all at once. What I want to avoid is for FO to remain OF's alternative in perpetuity.

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I'd also want to argue that, by the point a user has installed FO, and has gotten to the Mod Menu, that they would already know (if they cared) about OF compatibility.

What I'm saying is, from a user's point of view, being told that Animatica / OptiGUI / Skyboxify specifically implement OF's specification for animations / gui / skies, doesn't say as much nowadays.