The Minecraft Topic

[efaardvark]

I got my new gfx card installed and yes, it actually works!  It was an "open box" + low(ish) price thing so there was some question there.   

However, since it passed the "smoke test" I thought I'd take a minute to revisit some of the shaders & textures that I've got installed in my minecraft client.  I dug out a screenshot taken while trying the SEUS PTGI "raytracing" shader that I had marginal results with before on my old card and duplicated the scene on the new one.  The old card (RX 480 "POLARIS10") gave me a questionable 21FPS.  That's low enough that things like multi-mob combat would be difficult and really isn't good for much more than wandering around taking screenshots.  The new card (RX 6600XT "DIMGREY_CAVEFISH") gives a more playable 48FPS.  SEUS PTGI is a "ray tracing" shader and this card is not exactly a high-end beast so that's something of an unrealistic test but I'm pleased with the results nevertheless.

Using my usual Sildur's shaders I get just over 100FPS with vsync off.  With Sildurs and vsync on the game play is noticeably smoother than on the old card even in zombie hack-a-thons.  I also get Iris's GPU usage indicator hovering around 90%, whereas with the old card it was always maxed out.  The 100fps that I get with Sildur's is very close to what I get with just Iris too.  i.e. no shaders.  Of course in the no-shader case the GPU usage is down around 20%, but it is another indication that my GPU is keeping up with the game even with shaders active.  Might even be an indication that it is time to start thinking about a CPU upgrade?    (Already thinking along those lines for other reasons besides minecraft but I'm trying to hold off until AM5 socket and DDR5 memory goes mainstream so I can upgrade my whole system.)

Anyway, I don't have time today to do a more in-depth investigation but the ballpark estimate is that the new card is maybe a bit more than twice as fast as the old one in terms of minecraft frame rates.  It is also noticeably faster in some other respects such as initializing the game.  I'll have to experiment a bit more  to see if I can get to the point that minecraft is playable using the more resource-demanding packs like SEUS and high-resolution textures.  I'm actually fairly happy with these initial results.  I may have to back off on some of the settings to make it playable even in the more demanding game situations but if I can manage to do that it would be pretty cool.

 

Spoiler

 

[efaardvark]

Decided to follow one of those woodland mansion maps and ...

I think I found myself a new base.

[efaardvark]

Saw this while wandering around in the Nether.  Something trying to tell me something?

Also, new card + shaders makes the nether look really cool.  (IMHO, YMMV, etc.)  Remember when we only had the nether wastes before the nether upgrade?  The new stuff sure makes the nether a lot more interesting.

Edited November 22, 2022 by efaardvark

[efaardvark]

The dangers of modding minecraft. 

 

[efaardvark]

So I found a small village with some beachfront property with nice views and built myself a small new outpost/base.  Just kind of messing around because I don't have time to get into big builds but with the new village mechanics I find it kind of fun to quickly clean up and fortify a town and get a simple economy going.

Hidden below are Sun- and Moon-rise pics looking out the window from the newly completed upper level (still using Sildur's shaders and "Steven's Traditional" 64x textures)...
 

Spoiler

 

[efaardvark]

Thought I'd try the "Alacrity" texture pack in minecraft.  I'm not really into fancy textures, preferring my old "Steven's traditional" x64 pack that basically keeps the original esthetic only at a higher resolution.  The alacrity pack got some good reviews however and has a few interesting features so I thought I'd give it a try.
 

Spoiler

My favorite thing about it is the bushiness that it gives plants.  Here's a couple shots of a beach.  Note the trees in the background are distinctly un-blocky.  Also note the sugar cane at the water's edge.

The other interesting feature is the conversion of upside-down stairs to proper arches.  Here's a couple identical scenes, one with Steven's:

and one with Alacrity.  Note the curves!  In Minecraft!  The age of miracles has not passed.   

Alacrity does have a few issues however.  The two biggest that I've noted so far are that I really don't like how it treats the trunks of 2x2 trees (giant spruce for instance) and it dropped my frame rate noticeably.  It also makes the nether look pretty ugly imho, especially the lava.  The highest resolution I could find was x32 too, which is a step down from the x64 pack that I'm used to.  I'm going to keep it for a few days to check it out more thoroughly but at this point I'm thinking I'll probably wind up going back to Stevens.

 

Edited February 1 by efaardvark

[efaardvark]

So I added bundles to my single-player/test game.  I haven't really experimented with them before this but I'd heard some people loved/hated them so I decided to see for myself.  I think I like them.  They're kind of like a poor man's shulker box.  You make them with 6 rabbit hide and 2 string so they're clearly an early-game item.  Shulker boxes are supposed to be a late/end game item so they're super powerful.  Bundles just seem to be designed to combat the problem of filling up your inventory slots with stacks that only have a few items in them.  You can take those 1- or 2-item stacks of sticks, cobble, iron ore, coal, etc. that seem to accumulate in the early game and put them all (well, up to 64 items per bundle) in a single bundle that only takes up one regular inventory slot.

The mechanics are a bit weird, but I think it is intentional.  Even using bundles you can still only put up to 64 items in a single inventory slot, so bundles don't actually give you any more inventory space.  Items in a bundle can be different items however.  2 sticks, 3 bread, and 2 wooden planks normally takes up 3 inventory slots, even though by themselves these items all stack up to 64 items/slot.  Seem like they should all fit in a single slot, right?  Well, with bundles you can put them all in a single bundle that does only take up one regular slot.  Makes inventory management a lot easier.

The weird bit is that you can only put one stack in the bundle at a time and there's a last-in, first-out constraint that makes items in the bundle harder to access than items in your regular inventory slots.  If the item that you want is the first one that you put in a bundle then you'll have to remove all the other items from the bundle before you get to the one that you want.  This means that items that you want to keep ready access to you'll still want to put in regular inventory slots.  On the other hand, items that you won't be needing to unpack until you get back to base might be good to put in a bundle.

 

 

Spoiler

 

[animechat]

What is best mod for minecraft?

[efaardvark]

50 minutes ago, animechat said:

What is best mod for minecraft?

That depends a lot on how you play.  I had fun with the RLCraft mod pack for a while but it was a pain to set up.  (Also makes the game really hard.)

Usually I play on my brother’s realms server so no server mods possible there and I’m fine with that.  The only mods I use consistently there are a couple visual mods.  Sildur’s shaders and a 64x texture pack called Stevens Traditional.

[efaardvark]

On 2/13/2023 at 6:23 AM, animechat said:

What is best mod for minecraft?

Sorry, I was in a rush and forgot to add the most important mod(s) in my previous post!  If you want to use shaders then you will need either Optifine or Iris.  Even if you don't use shaders or any other mods using one of those two will drastically improve your FPS in minecraft.  (Even on potato PCs.)  I used to recommend Optifine but for my purposes Iris works just as well (or better) and doesn't use as much system resources.  Optifine does have software hooks that Iris doesn't so a lot of mods require Optifine.  I don't run with a lot of mods so I can use Iris.  Most visual mods will work with either.  YMMV.

Some links for convenience..

Iris

Optifine

Sildur's shaders.  I use the "Sildur's Vibrant" version.  I've also been known to use the ProjectLUMA shaders.  LUMA hasn't been updated in a few years but it still works.

Steven's Traditional textures (I use the 64x)

My system specs:

• AMD Ryzen 7 2700X CPU (8/16 cores clocked @ 3.7GHz)
• 32GB RAM
• AMD Radeon RX 6600XT GPU w/8GB RAM
• OS is Ubuntu linux 22.04.1 LTS (aka "Jammy Jellyfish")

(You can probably get away with a lot less cores on the CPU, especially with newer CPUs, and a lot less system RAM.  also, until recently the GPU was an ancient Radeon RX480.  It was about half as powerful as the 6600XT but it worked fine for minecraft using the above mods.)

hth...

Edited February 16 by efaardvark

[efaardvark]

[efaardvark]

It sounds like 1.20 is going to bring at least one big change.  Netherite gear is now going to require a "Netherite upgrade smithing template" as well as the diamond armor/tool and a netherite ingot to craft.  The template by itself requires 7(!) diamonds and another template to duplicate, making that netherite gear extremely expensive and difficult to obtain.

 

 

[efaardvark]

Pekora is right up there with the "best" - and by that I mean worst - of anime's mad scientists.  Sure it was only chickens THIS time, but remember, she's also got that caged warden in her basement.. and has already "introduced" several of her genmates to it. 

"If you don't try anything dangerous, you won't be able to have a scientific breakthrough."  -  Pekora