Welcome to the first snapshot of 26.4! We're kicking things off with a range of technical updates and improvements, including Vulkan becoming the default graphics API.

Changes

World Generation

• Upgrading worlds from before Caves and Cliffs will now also generate sulfur caves below old chunks

Minor Tweaks to Blocks, Items and Entities

• Red and Brown Mushrooms can now be placed on any block with a solid top face regardless of lighting conditions
  • They can still not spread unless the brightness is less than 13, or their support block overrides light requirements

"Graphics API" Video Setting

• "Default" now behaves the same as "Prefer Vulkan"
• The game will no longer change the graphics API setting automatically if a startup crash is detected.

Technical Changes

• The Data Pack version is now 122.0
• The Resource Pack version is now 98.0

Network Protocol

Added minecraft:mod_list Custom Packet Payload

• This packet is intended to inform servers about client mods to simplify debugging
• Vanilla client sends an empty packet at the start of configuration phase, as it does not know about any mods - that is still a responsibility of 3rd-party modding platforms

Modified minecraft:intention Packet

• The host field in the serverbound intention packet can now hold additional parameters (previously it stored only the domain name used for connecting to a server)
  • The new format is similar to URI query strings - the domain can now optionally be followed by a ? character and then followed by key=value pairs separated by a &amp character
  • Empty values can be omitted (including = sign)
  • Keys and values are escaped according to the standard URI rules ("percent-encoded component")
  • Keys starting with _ are reserved for vanilla use
  • Example: example.com?key1=value2&key2
  • Users can now input properties in any "Server Address" field in the server list
    • Additionally, any address in form of <id>@<host> will be parsed as <host>?_id=<id>
  • If a server uses SRV DNS records, the host field will contain both original and resolved domains
    • If the resolved domain is different from the original domain, the resolved one will be used as the "primary" one, while the original one will be added as _o ("origin") property
    • Example host string: <redirected domain>?_o=<original domain>:<original port>, while the port field in the intention packet will be set to the resolved port value
  • The field size has been extended to 1024 characters
  • Note: since the minecraft:intent packet is unencrypted, properties should not be used for any security-sensitive purpose

Modified minecraft:transfer Packet

• Added properties field - a string to string map of properties that will be added to the host field in the minecraft:intent packet sent to the target server

Dedicated Server Properties

• Added allowed-connection-ids
  • A list of comma-separted ids
  • If non-empty, the server will match the values against _id property in minecraft:intent packet
    • If there is no match, the server will reject the connection
  • This works both for both status and login connections, so any user connecting without the correct _id in the server address will not see the status and will not be able to join the server
• Added status-contact-details field
  • If non-empty, the value of this field will be sent in the minecraft:status_response packet JSON payload under the contact property
  • This value is meant to be used to signal a way to contact the server owners about the server, even if there is no website or other information about it
  • This field is meant to be human-readable, but there are no other restrictions on field format
• Added enable-legacy-status field
  • This option allows disabling existing legacy (pre-1.7) server status and ping protocol handling
  • To preserve existing functionality, value defaults to true
  • Note: enable-status needs to be set for any status information (modern or legacy) to be set

Data Pack Version 122.0

• Entries for different biomes in multi-noise biome sources can no longer overlap across all noise parameters with the same offset

Commands

• The fillbiome command will now fill biomes with block accuracy
• NBT conversion from floating point types to integer types now always converts to the closest possible valid number after rounding down

World Generation

Features

Changed straight_trunk_placer

• Added trunk_width field
  • optional int provider, the width of the trunk centered around the origin
  • defaults to 1.0

Placed Features

• The possible domain in the XZ plane of Placed Features included in biomes is now validated
  • Feature placement can only occur within a 3x3 chunk region: as such, it is not valid for a Placed Feature to select a position outside of that range
  • Note: the size of the feature itself is not currently taken into consideration, which may still overflow the chunk

Placement Modifiers

Changed cuboid

• xz_size and y_size have been adjusted to represent the actual size of the cuboid, instead of implicitly being 1 block larger
  • As such, an xz_size of 2 will actually produce a 2x2 cuboid instead of 3x3

Changed fixed_placement

• positions now requires at least one element

Noise Settings

• The default_block field has been removed
  • This is now always air - any other block should be defined by the Material Rule

Material Conditions

Updated minecraft:steep

• No longer considers height modifications from Eroded Badlands "surface extensions" in an order-dependent way

Tags

Biome Tags

• Added #generated_in_below_zero_retrogen - biomes to generate below worlds that predate Caves and Cliffs
• Added #is_cave collection tag

Resource Pack Version 98.0

Shaders & Post-process Effects

Order-Independent Transparency shaders

• The OIT algorithm was simplified by replacing the wavelet-based mathematics with depth bin-based accumulation
  • Slightly improved performance at least on some devices
  • Reduced floating point precision issues on average
  • OIT_WAVELET_RANK shader define was removed
  • OIT_COEFF_COUNT shader define was replaced by OIT_NUMBER_OF_DEPTH_BINS
  • OIT_COEFF_ATTACHMENT_COUNT shader define was renamed to OIT_TRANSMITTANCE_TARGET_COUNT

Fixed bugs in 26.4 Snapshot 1

• MC-8959 - The player automatically jumps when pressing against a block while in water
• MC-44560 - When pushed to the edge of water or lava, entities jump by themselves
• MC-50749 - Jumping into water against a wall causes the player to bounce
• MC-123848 - Item frames (and items within) drop atop the block they're attached to instead of under it when removed from a ceiling
• MC-135211 - Entities automatically jump when falling into 1-block-deep water from certain heights
• MC-135212 - Entities automatically jump when falling into water of any depth from certain heights
• MC-262252 - The generation of lush caves and dripstone caves is poorly defined
• MC-276879 - /data truncates floats when casting to longs, but rounds down in all other cases
• MC-278651 - The host name in handshake packets for SRV records is inconsistent
• MC-296053 - Item frames don't update properly when modifying their Facing NBT tag
• MC-299060 - Setting item frames' direction with commands can cause desyncs
• MC-303702 - Small gaps still appear in item models
• MC-307065 - Missing optimization for the side faces of the builtin/generated item model
• MC-310051 - Floating point cancellation artifacts from bits.fsh
• MC-310131 - Placeable entities momentarily appear at the wrong location when placed
• MC-310767 - Pipelines always declare a D32_FLOAT depth attachment format with the Vulkan rendering backend
• MC-311195 - Placed armor stands are rotated incorrectly for one tick
• MC-311265 - The world border renders incorrectly from outside
• MC-311473 - Duplicating items with the scroll wheel in Creative mode can produce ghost items
• MC-311582 - The texture of desert pyramid maps has one inconsistent pixel compared to the others
• MC-311726 - The water inside waterlogged copper grates has the falling fluid state property set to true
• MC-311727 - The check for whether a player is standing on air doesn't use the player's updated position
• MC-311773 - Red and brown mushrooms cannot be placed at any light level, unlike in Bedrock Edition
• MC-311786 - Running /test run with a rotationSteps value that is out of range causes an error
• MC-311788 - Teleporting item frames moves them further than it should visually
• MC-311818 - Traveling to the End in Spectator mode regenerates the obsidian platform
• MC-311836 - Minecart sounds are now distorted
• MC-311859 - Damaged dyed wolf armor no longer shows cracks in the colored parts
• MC-311966 - The tooltip of the "Quit Shortcuts" option calls the Command key "Cmd"