How to Host a ModernCraft (Distant Horizons) Server

Start with at least 8 GB of RAM. That floor comes straight from the pack's own recommendation — it's not gameplay systems driving it, it's Distant Horizons generating and holding LOD (level-of-detail) chunks far past the normal render distance, which eats memory even on an otherwise light modlist.

Import the modpack through a proper modpack installer rather than guessing from a client export. ModernCraft (Distant Horizons) is Fabric for 1.21.1, so the loader version and mod set need to match exactly — a mismatched Fabric build is the fastest way to get silent crashes on startup.

Watch the console on first boot until it finishes loading cleanly. Because this pack leans on Distant Horizons and Iris Shaders, give it extra time on the first start — LOD generation and shader-related world setup can make the first boot noticeably slower than later restarts, even though nothing is actually wrong.

Only invite players once that first startup has completed without errors. A pack built around visuals is exactly the kind where players will notice immediately if shaders or LOD rendering didn't initialize right, so it's worth confirming the clean boot before anyone logs in.

Take a backup before importing an existing world, updating the modpack, or changing any config. This pack is intentionally light on other systems, so what's actually at risk is the world itself — any builds or exploration progress made to show off the view are not something you want to regenerate.