Best Texture Packs for Minecraft 1.17.1

While Minecraft’s base texture pack has certainly come a long way in the fidelity department compared to the early alpha days, it’s still a bit, for lack of a better word, blocky. I know, it’s Minecraft, it’s supposed to be blocky, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t stand to be a little less blocky. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the Minecraft modding community, though, you have a veritable galaxy of different texture packs to choose from if you want to see your world through a slightly different lens. Here are some of the best texture packs for Minecraft 1.17.1.

Before you dive into fiddling around with the best Minecraft 1.17 texture packs, you’ll need to know how to install them. Some of you may already know how to do this, in which case, you can skip straight to the good stuff. For new players, we’ve outlined the process for installing Minecraft texture packs down below.

How to install texture packs in Minecraft

To install texture packs in Minecraft, follow these steps:

1. Download a texture pack .zip file.
2. Launch Minecraft 1.17.
3. Click on Options and go to Resource Packs.
4. Select the Open Pack Folder button.
5. Drag and drop the texture pack .zip file to the Minecraft resource packs folder.
6. Move the texture pack you want to the Selected section inside the Minecraft Resource Packs window.
7. Click done to reload Minecraft.

Real quick, if you don’t already know, to install texture packs, just download them from modding sites like Curseforge, or straight from the mod developers’ websites. Next, launch Minecraft 1.17 and click on the options button from the main menu, and then select the Resource Packs button. Click on the Open Pack Folder button to open the Minecraft Resource Packs directory.

With the resource pack folder open, copy and paste the downloaded pack into that directory. It should be a .zip file, but you may want to open the .zip file and confirm there’s not another .zip file in there. Sometimes, you will need to extract the inner .zip file to allow Minecraft to read it.

After dragging the .zip file for the appropriate texture pack into the directory, you should see it immediately pop up back at the Minecraft Resource Packs screen inside of Minecraft. You can then select which texture pack you want to use in the in-game resource pack menu by moving it to the “Selected” window.

If one of the texture packs is highlighted red, that means it is not compatible with the current version of Minecraft. In that case, you could try looking for a compatible version.

Finally, click on the Done button from the Resource Packs window, and Minecraft will reload itself. You should be good to hop into a game with your selected resource pack now enabled.

Best Texture Packs for Minecraft 1.17.1

Here are the best texture packs for Minecraft 1.17.1:

• Faithful
• ModernArch
• EpicAdventures
• RetroNES
• Ultra FPS Booster
• Xray Ultimate

Faithful

Starting with one of the longest running texture pack projects, the goal of Faithful is pretty clearly implied by its name: to remain as faithful to the original Minecraft design as possible while improving textures, models, and fidelity. Here is the Faithful 1.17 download link.

ModernArch

Of course, if staying faithful isn’t your jam, you might get a kick out of ModernArch, which features models and textures of a stunningly realistic quality, helped by a super detailed lighting system. Using this pack, you could, with a little creativity, create buildings that almost look true-to-life. Here is the ModernArch download link. Note that the 128×128 files are free, but the 256x, 512x, and 1024x require Patreon memberships to Designio.

Epic Adventures

Perhaps you’d like your Minecraft world to have a little more… articulation? In addition to touching up the graphics of the basic blocks, Epic Adventures features overhauled mob models. If you thought Creepers were unsettling before, wait til you see them with articulated legs and little grasper tentacles. Here is the Epic Adventures download link from CurseForge.

RetroNES

Maybe Minecraft is a little too detailed for you, and you’d like to take things back to a bygone era. Or maybe you’re just tired of Villagers looking like Squidward. RetroNES brings back the brightly-colored pastels of the 8-bit era, reminiscent of an old pixel-y Sierra game. Here is the retroNES download link.

Ultra FPS Booster

Is Minecraft too meaty for your potato PC to run? Not to worry, any rig can run it when you take all the details out. Ultra FPS Booster boils every texture down to a single flat color. It’s a little weird, but it’ll definitely make the game run cleaner. Here is the Ultra FPS Booster download link.

Xray Ultimate

Maybe you’re tired of all the meandering and just want to get straight to the ore mining? Instead of installing an X-ray mod, just use Xray Ultimate and turn every block except ores transparent! Just don’t try to use this on a multiplayer server, or people will definitely get mad at you. Here is the Xray Ultimate download link.

There are many more texture packs out there for Minecraft 1.17, and these are just a few of our favorites.