Simple HUD
If you have ever found yourself constantly tapping F3 to check your coordinates, framerate, or the time of day, you already understand the problem that Simple HUD solves. This lightweight Fabric mod adds a small, tidy information panel to the top-left corner of your screen, giving you the numbers you actually need without the wall of text that the vanilla debug screen throws at you.
Simple HUD is built for Minecraft 1.17 through 1.19 and runs on the Fabric loader. It does not try to be a full debug replacement. Instead, it is a focused supplement to the F3 menu, designed for players who want quick access to a handful of stats while keeping their view of the world clear.
What Simple HUD Displays
The mod keeps things intentionally minimal. Everything appears in a compact cluster at the top left of the screen, so you never have to look far from your crosshair. The current readouts include:
- Average and minimum FPS, measured over the last second
- Server ping, currently supported in 1.19.3
- Your exact coordinates
- A small clock showing the in-game time
Because the display is so small, it stays out of the way during building, mining, and combat. You get the essentials at a glance and nothing more.
Color Coding That Tells You What Matters
One of the smartest touches in Simple HUD is its use of color as a status indicator. You do not need to read the numbers carefully to know whether something is wrong.
For framerate, yellow means your FPS has dropped below 60, while red warns you that it has fallen below 30. For ping, yellow appears above 100 ms and red above 400 ms, which is a handy signal before a lag spike ruins a fight. The clock also changes color: when it turns green, it means it is either nighttime or thundering, so you can head to bed and skip the night.
The author has stated that future additions to the HUD will follow the same color logic, keeping the visual language consistent.
Reduced Debug Info and Server Rules
Many multiplayer servers toggle the reduced debug info gamerule to prevent players from gaining an unfair advantage. Simple HUD respects that choice. You can configure whether the mod honors the server's setting, and if you consent to it, the HUD will hide any information that would not appear in the reduced F3 screen. This makes the mod a reasonable citizen on survival and competitive servers rather than a loophole.
Configuration and Mod Menu
Simple HUD integrates with Mod Menu, where you can adjust several options to suit your preferences. The color coding can be toggled, the number of decimal places shown for coordinates can be changed, and the time format is customizable as well. If you prefer a 24-hour clock or want fewer decimals cluttering the display, a few clicks in the config screen take care of it. The Mod Menu dependency is not strictly required to run the mod, though it is baked into the code for convenience.
Compatibility With Other Mods
Simple HUD only adds a single render call to Minecraft's code, which makes it extremely unlikely to break your game or conflict with other mods. It is known to work alongside popular performance and rendering mods such as Sodium, Iris, and BetterF3. The main caveat is HUD overlap: another mod's interface element may cover Simple HUD or be covered by it. If that happens, the author asks players to report it on the issue tracker so a compatibility list can be maintained. A future update is planned to let users move the HUD freely, which would resolve most overlap problems.
For players who manage large modpacks, the foxygame.net launcher makes short work of setup: its built-in catalog lets you add Simple HUD alongside your other Fabric mods in a single click, and it keeps each add-on updated automatically so version mismatches never sneak up on you.
How to Install Simple HUD
Getting started is straightforward. First, make sure you have Fabric Loader installed for your version of Minecraft, along with Fabric API, which Simple HUD depends on. Next, download Simple HUD for Minecraft from the official mod page, choosing the file that matches your game version. Then place the downloaded .jar file into your mods folder, which you can find inside your Minecraft installation directory. Finally, launch the game with the Fabric profile and look at the top-left corner of your screen. If the panel appears, you are ready to play.
If you use Mod Menu, you can tweak the settings immediately from the mods list without restarting the game.
Final Thoughts
Simple HUD does exactly what its name promises. It gives you coordinates, framerate, ping, and time in a clean, color-coded display, and it does so without the clutter of the full debug screen. For Fabric players on 1.17 to 1.19 who want useful information at a glance, it is an easy recommendation. The planned additions, including backward compatibility and a movable HUD, suggest the mod will only become more useful over time.