Starlight Legacy
by contaria
Starlight Legacy is an unofficial Fabric backport of the Starlight light engine rewrite, for Minecraft 1.14 – 1.15.2.
What it does
The mod replaces the light engine that Minecraft uses to calculate block light and sky light. Starlight, the original work it is based on, was built to fix performance problems on larger dedicated servers, where the vanilla engine was slow to update light after changes. Starlight Legacy brings that rewrite back to versions that predate it, and it also fixes a number of bugs in the light calculations.
The rewrite is a deep change, since it reworks the whole light engine rather than adding a patch on top of it. That is the reason it was judged too invasive for a general release, and the author says the effect is strongest on the client side. Larger servers that run Bukkit do not see the same conflict, because the change does not reach their light code. The author's technical notes, included in the source, describe how the engine achieves its speed-up.
Installation uses the Fabric loader only. Either side can run the mod, and neither needs it, so it may sit on a client, a server or both. Files are published for 1.14, 1.14.1, 1.14.2, 1.14.3, 1.14.4, 1.15, 1.15.1 and 1.15.2, and the latest build is 1.0.1-1.15 for 1.15.2. The code is open source under the GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 only.
Key features
Rewritten light engine
The vanilla light engine is replaced with a rewrite that updates block and sky light with less work per change.
Light bug fixes
The rewrite also corrects several errors in how light values were calculated in the original engine.
Backport to older versions
The Starlight work is ported to the 1.14 and 1.15 releases, which never received the original rewrite.
Compatibility
Latest build for each game version and loader.
Only full game releases are shown. This mod publishes no snapshot builds.
How it compares
ScalableLux is a Fabric and NeoForge light engine mod that is open source under the GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 only, for 1.21 – 26.3, and it runs on the client or server as an optional install. ScalableLux Backport is also open source under the same license and is optional on the client or server, but it targets only 1.16.5. Phosphor covers Fabric versions 1.16.2 – 1.19.4, with the same open source license and optional environment.
| Mod | Loaders | Game versions | Environment | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starlight Legacy | Fabric | 1.14 – 1.15.2 | Client or server, optional | 2023-06-10 |
| ScalableLux | Fabric and NeoForge | 1.21 – 26.3 | Client or server, optional | 2026-09-16 |
| ScalableLux Backport | Fabric | 1.16.5 | Client or server, optional | 2026-06-03 |
| Phosphor | Fabric | 1.16.2 – 1.19.4 | Client or server, optional | 2022-06-14 |
Questions
Does Starlight Legacy need to be installed on the server?
Which game versions does Starlight Legacy support?
Why is this mod called a legacy backport?
In the catalog
Starlight Legacy is one of 3,545 Optimization mods on ModsFinder, and one of 2,575 Optimization mods for Fabric. 1,831 mods support Minecraft 1.15.2.
More from contaria
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What the author says
An unofficial backport of the Starlight mod for Minecraft 1.14.x and 1.15.x Starlight was developed for higher scale dedicated servers, as they suffered performance problems due to how ungodly slow the light engine was. The only solution was to create an extremely invasive mod which rewrote the entire light engine. I…
Official listing
- Modrinth page
- modrinth.com/mod/starlight-legacy
- Owner
- contaria
- Published
- 2023-06-10
- Updated on Modrinth
- 2023-06-10
- Facts verified
- 2026-10-15