How to Play FTB Modpacks

Last modified on Dec 31, 2020 in General

By Noah

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Overview

Minecraft is an incredible experience for many, and for many more, it has served as a foundation for far more – With the growing community of modders, Minecraft has seen a giant number of mods and modpacks to tailor the experience to the player’s needs. Whether it’s a set of mods focused on ‘teching up’ through the ages of steam, coal, and fusion, or a modpack dedicated to expanding Minecraft’s adventure more than ever before. Feed The Beast has been a group at the core of many of the most popular modpacks in Minecraft History, including Direwolf, Skyfactory and Infinity Evolved. At Apex we host the latest versions of just about every pack they’ve released, recently, however, FTB had decided to end their partnership with Curseforge, and instead, use their own launcher exclusively for the latest updates of their modpacks.

Still, that doesn’t stop the FTB Launcher from being a convincing choice. With its direct support for all From The Beast modpacks, including modpack-specific RAM settings, it remains the easiest way to play and keep up to date with FTB packs, even when they were still partnered with Twitch. So in this guide, we will look at how to install the FTB launcher and get started with your favorite Feed The Beast modpack!
 

How to play modpacks with FTB Launcher

Minecraft runs on Java, so it’s important to ensure you have the latest version installed, you can always check on Windows by searching and clicking on ‘About Java’ in the Start Menu. (aboutjava.png in drive) If you’re unable to check, you can still always try installing the latest version on the Java Website. It’s important that after you finish installing Java, you restart your computer.Click here to go to the Java Website

FTB Launcher Installation

On Windows

1. Navigate to the Feed The Beast website and click the download button under “Windows”.
2. Click and run the .exe file after it has finished downloading.
3. It will take a moment to load, after it has, click Next.
4. Change the directory if you wish, then next again.
5. It may say “This directory already / doesn’t exist”, click yes in either case to continue the installation.
6. It will now download its files and install them. When it’s finished, ensure “Run FTBApp” is checked, and click finish.
7. After a few moments, the launcher will start and you will be able to install your first modpack!

 
On OSX / MacOS

1. Navigate to the Feed The Beast website and click the download button under “Mac OS”.
2. Double-click on the .dmg file once it has finished download to begin the install process.
3. It will verify, then a window will open, drag the “FTPapp” icon into the “Applications” icon. This will install the application into your Applications folder.
4. After that, close the window, open your applications folder, and double-click on FTPApp.
5. If you get a popup saying your security settings will not allow it, do the following:
   1. Click the Apple button and click System Preferences
   2. Click Security & Privacy
   3. Click on the lock button in the bottom corner and use your password to authenticate
   4. Finally, click “Open Anyway” for the FTPApp
   5. The popup will appear again, but this time give you the option to Open, click it
   6. From now on, when you open the FTPApp, that popup will not appear.
6. After a few moments, the launcher will start and you will be able to install your first modpack!

 
Configuring and running a Modpack on FTB Launcher

1. Now that the download is finished, we can install a modpack from either the Home tab or “Browse” under the Modpacks tab.
2. For this, we will choose FTB Academy in the Home Screen, when hovering over the packs icon, a download icon appears, click on that to begin the installation..
3. Then if you want, you can choose a specific version, we will be leaving that to the latest and clicking the install button.
4. At the bottom of the application, you will see its current action and a progress bar if available, this will consist of FTB downloading and installing various files.
5. When it has finished, it will appear in both “Recently Played Packs” on the Home tab and “My Modpacks” under the Modpacks tab.
6. Now you can hover over the pack and click the Play icon. The Minecraft launcher will open, if you have not logged in before, log in using your Minecraft email and password.
7. Click Play on the launcher, the final steps for install will finish, and your game will start.

 

Common Issues

Insufficient Memory allocated to Java
Usually this isn’t as much of a problem with FTB packs as the launcher tries to use the recommended size, however if the issue happens, you can fix it by doing this:

1. Click the three dots when hovering over your modpack in the FTB Launcher
2. Click on the Settings tab for the pack
3. Change the “Instance Memory” slider. For example, if it was on 4GB, try raising it to 6GB.

It’s important to not raise it much more than 50% of your total system memory. For example, if you have 8GB of RAM, you shouldn’t raise it any further than 4GB.

The app says “Issue connecting to backend… Please wait or relaunch” when starting from the taskbar (Windows)
This error happens if you try pinning the shortcut for the FTB Launcher to your taskbar while it is open. To fix the error:

1. Unpin the current shortcut.
2. Open your start menu, and search “FTBapp”.
3. Right-click on the best match, then click “Pin to Taskbar”.

 

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