Minecraft: Here’s How To Play Modded Game on LAN

Playing Minecraft on servers with friends is a popular way to enjoy the game in a new way. After countless hours grinding on your own, starting to play with your friends can feel like you’re playing an entirely new game. The fun and joy are enhanced with mods, but if you don’t want to play on servers and wish to play multiplayer locally? How do you play modded Minecraft on LAN?
Client-side mods
Simply put, client-side mods change the game from a player’s perspective, not the entire world. Client-side mods do not affect Minecraft as a game and are usually smaller. A great example of a client-side mod is minimap mods.
OptiFine is likely the most popular client-side mod as it’s used to change animations, graphics, sound functions, etc… These changes are only visible to the player using OptiFine, and no other player is required to download it to play the game on the same server.
The problem with client-side mods is that they can corrupt the world and start crashing the server, which you want to avoid since it’s frustrating when it starts happening.
I was once part of a zombie survival server and wanted to install OptiFine to get better graphics since I find that I enjoy the game much more that way. After some trial and error, I had to completely remove Minecraft from my PC, reinstall it, and play the game without OptiFine since I couldn’t enter the game while OptiFine was installed. My advice is, if you don’t need client-side mods, don’t use them and have the mods be the same.
Checking to see if all players have the same mods
You would think that setting up a server with all players having the same mods would be a walk in the park, but it can turn south rather quickly. Once it does, it’s time to detect what went wrong.
Going through each mod individually is unnecessary to detect what mods are causing problems. Just try to join the LAN server; the game should tell you which mods are causing problems and what you must do to join the server.
Forge VS Fabric
When setting up a modded server, you’ll have the choice of loading all of your mods using Forge or Fabric. The choice is simply a matter of preference, but still, some things can’t be overlooked, which might ultimately make a world of difference between whether or not the server works and is easy to set up and manage.
Personally, I’d go with Forge since most you download have better compatibility and can run in the same instance, whereas you might run into trouble if you do the same with Fabric.
Furthermore, with Forge, you have more mods to choose from. It’s simply a matter of how long Forge has been out. Fabric was announced in 2016 and released to the public in 2018, giving it less time for devs to make mods compatible with the mod loader. On the other side, we have Forge, which was released back in 2011 when Minecraft was officially released, so most mods will work with Forge.
Last but not least, Forge is the only mod loader that’ll tell you which mods are causing a player problems when attempting to join the server, so if you want the benefit of something telling you what the problem is, go with Forge.
LogMeIn Hamachi and Tunngle
Although Minecraft allows you to open your world to LAN to let other players join locally, you can use a VPN like LogMeIn Hamachi or Tunngle that allows players to play locally, no matter where they are.
Both could be considered in case there’s a problem with playing Minecraft through LAN the old-fashioned way, so let’s see how you can make a moded server using one of these VPNs. I’ll use Hamachi as an example since it’s more popular. I’ll divide the process into sections, so let’s begin.
Installing the client
- You’ll want to make a Folder on your PC first. You can name it whatever you like, but I suggest some kind of defining server name.
- Then, go to your chosen browser and download Forge. You have to download the version that matches the version of Minecraft you’re going to play on. (every player needs to download the same version). Once downloaded, run the application and choose the ‘Install Client’ option.
- The person that’s hosting the server will need to run it again and choose the ‘Install Server’ option. Save it into the server Folder you created earlier.
- Go to the server folder and find the Eula text file. Change the part of the text where it says ‘false’ to ‘true’ and save.
- Then, run the Forge version again from the folder. It will start showing you that the server is running. You can type in stop in the bottom right text box to stop the server.
Allocating more RAM
- In your server folder, make a new text document, open it, and paste this code:
java -Xmx3500M -Xms3000M -jar server.jar nogui pause
- Then, go to the Forge executable in the folder again and copy the name. It’ll be something like ‘Forge 1.19.2 – 32.55’. Paste the name into the text document with that code you just pasted by changing the ‘server’ part of the text and then save it as All files and name it start or run with a .bat following the name.
Setting up Hamachi
- Download Hamachi and save it wherever you’d like. Then run it to install.
- Then, open it and press the power on button.
- Choose the ‘Create New Network’ option
- In the Network ID box, name your server and then set a password that users will use to join your server.
- For your friends to join, they’ll have to go to the network and join an existing network, type in the server name, and the password you’ll give out.
The Mods
- First, you’ll want to find the mods you want to download.
- Download the mods, making sure to keep all of them in the right versions (they should match the version of Minecraft that you’re running on the server)
- If you’re just a person who wants to join the server, go into %appdata% and then the .minecraft folder. Go into mods and place the mod there.
- If you’re the server host, you’ll have to do everything from step 3 but also go into your server folder, go to the mods folder within that folder, and put all the mods you wish to use there as well.
- Then, go to the server text document in your server folder.
- Open Hamachi and right-click on the space where you see the turn-on button.
- Click on ‘Copy IPv4
- Then, go back to the server document and paste the IPv4 in the server-ip section.
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