New Release! (BTW 4.69)

[FlowerChild]

Version 4.69 of Better Than Wolves is ready for download!

Download Link

This release contains the following changes:

-Changed (further optimized) how grass blocks render.

-Changed (further optimized) how the full blocks that comprise most of the world (like stone and dirt) are rendered.

-Changed (optimized) the way most blocks determine if a particular side should be rendered or not.

-Changed (optimized) the way Groth renders to cut down on the total number of polygons involved.

-Changed picks to be effective on beacons and Light Blocks.

-Fixed problem with how water flow was computed in the last release.

-Fixed problem with the rendering of Vine Traps.

-Fixed problem with grass blocks not changing their side texture to the snowy one if they had both a vegetation block (tall grass etc.) and snow on top.

-Removed 3D anaglyph mode from most blocks as it was over-complicating further optimization. Sorry guys, but it was largely useless/headache inducing anyways, and never worked quite right to begin with.

Enjoy! :)

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If you'd like to say thanks for this release and help contribute to the further development of Better Than Wolves, please consider making a donation:

[FlowerChild]

As per yesterday's release, any info on performance differences between this version and the last is much appreciated :)

[FlowerChild]

Just updated the download link to a 'b' version, to fix a rendering issue with the damage overlay on blocks. This only affects the client, so no need to reinstall on servers.

[Bazgracz]

Well, I'm not quite active, but I frequently visit this forum. I must say that I never found any other person who would spend so much time on his project and put so much love into that. I think that if you (FC) didn't loved what you did, you wouldn't created so many epic things.
Thank you for doing everything for us.

About perfomance (I maxed everything except vsync)
BTW 4.66c
Average flying in plain biome:49
Average walking in plain biome: 50
Average in caves: 80
Average flying in tundra biome:46
Average walking in tundra biome:54
Average flying in Extreme Hills:53
Average walking in Extreme Hills:48
Average when Mass Spawning water from water buckets: 60

BTW 4.69
Average flying in plain biome: 55
Average walking in plain biome:52
Average in caves:60
Average flying in tundra biome:49
Average walking in tundra biome:55
Average flying in Extreme Hills: 60
Average walking in Extreme Hills:52
Average when Mass Spawning water from water buckets: 67

These are of course only by looking at FPS and taking average of everything. I didn't get too much boost but there is something. I hope it will be somehow helpful :(.

[Mr_Hosed]

I don't have any raw or useful normalized data, though there was a noticable smoothness, especially in Jungle Biomes, between 6.48 and 6.49.

What suprised me was being able to turn on 'Far' distance on 32-bit old-as-hell desktop and still get not only good FPS, but no noticable chunk popping.

Also, for those of us who really like our MCPatcher graphics mods, I turned everything but 'Better Glass' on and at first glance it seems to be working. It didn't seem to affect anything negatively atleast and my framerates are basically the same. That one will require much further testing though.

EDIT:
In case this is useful at all, my specs

Vista 32bit - Java32
Intel Core2 Duo E8400 @ 3Ghz
3GB DDR2 Ram - 1GB for Java
ATI Radeon HD 5450 - PCI Express x16 - 3GB

4.68: 25 - 60 FPS - 40 avg chunk updates
4.69: 25 - 60 FPS - 40 avg chunk updates

Way to much variation to be useful statistics.

[Prof_Ion]

I really need to stop checking the forums during school! You have officially interrupted my work. Yet simply because it is you doing I am perfectly okay with that! Will be testing this as soon as I finish up.... err forget it will be testing it now!

Edit-more info

Alright after some testing and a bit of play. I haven't seen any dramatic increase for the most part though it feels maybe a bit smoother in some aspects. At the same time maybe an extremely minor fps drop (3-5 fps MAYBE)
Just the matter of being able to play normal render on this old machine is fine by me! Again thanks for the update FC! One day I will buy you a drink... One day.

[FlowerChild]

BTW 4.66c
Average in caves: 80

BTW 4.69
Average in caves:60

Whoa...is that a typo, or did you seriously experience a 25% drop in performance in caves between the two versions? That would definitely be a head scratcher given your numbers seem to be up everywhere else.

[Vexalor]

BTW 4.68: 16-22 fps
BTW 4.69: 15-22 fps

Not very conclusive. If there was a slight drop in fps, I'm going to go ahead and guess that it was the fixes for fluids, which I would rather have fixed and slower than bugged and faster. Wrong.

If it's possible, this version seems even a bit more mind-blowingly smooth than 4.68.

I am going to guess that frame rates should really only express the level of speed the game is experiencing with the things that have to be continually re-calculated, such as the position of entities or rendering a particle effect, while the actual feel and smoothness of the game will be much more affected by things that the game only has to calculate once in a while, like rendering a chunk, which are the actual cause of stutter.

[FlowerChild]

Not very conclusive. If there was a slight drop in fps, I'm going to go ahead and guess that it was the fixes for fluids, which I would rather have fixed and slower than bugged and faster.

No, that shouldn't have anything to do with it. That was a very simple fix that shouldn't impact performance. I had seriously just made a typo in the previous version, the optimizations remained unchanged.

If it's possible, this version seems even a bit more mind-blowingly smooth than 4.68.

Well, it should be, as the changes I made should significantly decrease the complexity of the initial rendering of blocks on chunk load and generate :)

[savagelung]

My FPS in general has stuck around 28-30 from 4.67 to 4.69. Chunk loading and stuttering improved through 4.68 and 4.69, it has really improved my play experience.

I'm still noticing a lot of stutter in the large biomes swamp where I set up my base. I thought it was related to chunk generation, but I'm noticing it even immediately around my base. I think it might be related to mob pathing, because it seems to happen more often when I attack passive mobs or get attacked by hostile ones.

The improvements are undeniable though! There's only so much you can do with integrated graphics :P Thanks a million FC!

[BlueRavenGT]

I can still reproduce the chunk loading problem in 4.69 as I described here.

[FlowerChild]

I can still reproduce the chunk loading problem in 4.69 as I described here.

Dude...I let you posting code slide to begin with, but please drop it there.

I didn't ask for, and don't want your technical advice.

[BlueRavenGT]

Sorry about that. I wouldn't have re-posted if this topic hadn't been posted first (my fault for not checking), but I guess you do a better job at keeping up with stuff than I thought.

[Scottie]

Is it just me, or is this causing the towns not to generate their farm or loot from the blacksmith properly? Given they're the only source of potatoes, carrots and wheat, it could be an issue?

[FlowerChild]

Is it just me, or is this causing the towns not to generate their farm or loot from the blacksmith properly? Given they're the only source of potatoes, carrots and wheat, it could be an issue?

Check the change log from previous releases. This is in no way related to this one.

[Scottie]

Is it just me, or is this causing the towns not to generate their farm or loot from the blacksmith properly? Given they're the only source of potatoes, carrots and wheat, it could be an issue?

Check the change log from previous releases. This is in no way related to this one.

No prob, sorry for that, had a quick look before, but must have searched for the wrong term!

[Bazgracz]

I'm sorry FC, I probably mistyped. I checked again, going thru same caves to check everything so:
4.66c
MIN 48, MAX 173
When loading chunks: 60
After loaded chunks: 100
------
4.69
MIN 8, MAX 159
When loading chunks 55
After loaded chunks: 120

Also I done another test. I created on flatland a little jail where I spawned in normal mode a lot of zombies
4.66c
At start(0 zombies): 250
After adding 10(10): 230
After adding 32(42): 140
After adding 64(108): 100
After adding 128(236): 45
---
4.69
At start: 320
After adding 10: 280
After adding 32: 140
After adding 62: 100
After adding 128: 52

I created this Jail somewhere 60 block from ground. Everything on max except vsync(off).
I hope it will somehow help you FC :(.

[phamtrinli]

FC, just a note Water Buckets harvested from running water now empty themselves when accessing a crafting table.
Buckets created from source blocks remain as Water Buckets when accessing crafting.

I past version checked this and found this also occurs in 4.68 but not in 4.67.

[FlowerChild]

I'm sorry FC, I probably mistyped. I checked again, going thru same caves to check everything so:

It's cool man, I just wanted to verify the figures. I appreciate you presenting this data, that one just seemed strange, and I wanted to make sure it wasn't indicative of a problem with something I recently did :)

[FlowerChild]

FC, just a note Water Buckets harvested from running water now empty themselves when accessing a crafting table.
Buckets created from source blocks remain as Water Buckets when accessing crafting.

Errr...they're the same water buckets man. This isn't the thread for this either, if you find a legit issue, take it to bug reports. If you're not sure if it's a bug, ask other people about it first in tech support.

[ThatOneDude]

I've noticed a performance drop ever since 4.69. The last version of BTW I used was 4.66, (I just got around to updating my client/localhost.) In 4.66, while I was in a Skype call and running my localhost, I could play on normal and fast and get 28–30 FPS. However, I can't get anything above 20 with 4.69.

[Wibbles]

I have a pretty high end system (AMD FX 6300, Radeon 6950). You'd have thought I would have had no issue with MC performance, but in fact it was playable but "jagged", and there were often moments when the game froze for a second whilst I was inching past lava and I ended up in lava as a result, cursing the gods. None of that shit happens now.

In this and the previous version, it is unbelievably smooth... it's like a dream. There's no immersion breaking stuttering or jaggedness, in 4.69 especially. FPS was never really a factor anyway (it never goes below 80, probably averages about 125) as it was always fairly high, but like previous posters it isn't the major benchmarking factor -- it's the smoothness! Not entirely sure how you can measure it.

I'm a seriously happy bunny now FC. Thanks!

[FlowerChild]

I've noticed a performance drop ever since 4.69. The last version of BTW I used was 4.66, (I just got around to updating my client/localhost.) In 4.66, while I was in a Skype call and running my localhost, I could play on normal and fast and get 28–30 FPS. However, I can't get anything above 20 with 4.69.

Errrr...that would be exceedingly surprising man, and benchmarking while running Skype is not really a reasonable thing to do.

[FlowerChild]

it's the smoothness! Not entirely sure how you can measure it.

Well...you can't really. Frame rate figures are largely irrelevant other than for benchmarking. Either it feels good, or it doesn't. It's all well and good if a change gives you a couple of hundred FPS per second, but if you're stuttering here and there, that'll have far more impact on your play experience.

This kind of optimizing isn't particularly sexy though, as I can't sit back and say "I quadrupled your frame-rate!". On the other hand, I think this kind of optimization is far more relevant to how playable, and fun, the game actually is, even if I can't get much street-cred from it with the gangsta programming types ;)

I'm a seriously happy bunny now FC. Thanks!

You're welcome man :)

[SterlingRed]

This kind of optimizing isn't particularly sexy though, as I can't sit back and say "I quadrupled your frame-rate!". On the other hand, I think this kind of optimization is far more relevant to how playable, and fun, the game actually is, even if I can't get much street-cred from it with the gangsta programming types ;)

You can however say "I fixed Minecraft." ;)

Didn't comment on the last release, but this stands for both of them. Dude this is amazing. I can full on sprint through the nether for four minutes (end of the road) without a single missing chunk or any stutter at all. I caught the 'seeing through the world' bug in smp once on logging into smp while in 3.68, but it vanished immediately and I haven't seen it since in .68 or .69. And that's significant as before I couldn't go 10 minutes in smp without coming across it at least once.

Even as a player with a higher end system, I'm glad you did this as it really does make the game feel more immersive with the stuttering gone.

What makes me a little bit sad is that in a week you've largely fixed the performance issues that have plagued minecraft for years, and yet Mojang can't even produce a half assed feature in 4 months of dev time.