Java is just absolutely terrible for realtime online gaming, in my opinion. The problem with it is that it requires an interpreter to go from the language to the machine. This is a double-edged sword in that it greatly increases compatibility at the great cost of performance. This game will always be Java, which makes me a sad panda, but I'll live with it.
There's a great free-ish game engine called Unity that would have been perfect for Minecraft. It's actually really easy for someone with only a little programming experience like myself to have a first-person shooter (like Minecraft emulates) up and running in a short time. Its scripts compile into machine code just like a normal programming language, and the games can be compiled for every kind of system. It is a very popular system for making games on the iPhone, for example, which is a system with very poor processing capabilities.
Oh god why did you mention that game engine (that I've never heard of before) Ronnie. I have too many things to play with already, I'm running out of free time here!
hiartbill on
0
jackalFuck Yes. That is an orderly anal warehouse.Registered Userregular
edited November 2010
JIT compilation isn't really interpretation (at least not in the comp sci sense). The percentage of performance loss as compared to unmanaged languages is in the single digits (and pretty much all of that is from garbage collection rather than JIT compilation).
Oh don't get me wrong Jackal, I'd love to be proved wrong. It just has been from my experience that every Java game has always been slower/more buggy/more memory hoggy than any other.
Also, does anyone else get a new error log file every time they close minecraft? Might better check the folder your EXE is in. I've made a batch file that deletes logs and starts Minecraft just so I don't end up with hundreds of extra files.
Apparently some people are using cloud hosting services to host servers. That might be cheaper than dedicated hosting and it would pretty much eliminate the need for any one person to be awake or visit any place when there is an issue. When that kind of hardware breaks, most of the time no one has to get involved.
I found a guide on how to do it on Amazon but I heard it can be kinda pricey. There are a ton of other cloud hosting services that are cheaper as long as you are willing to use Linux. It is in java, so google apps might work too.
Apparently some people are using cloud hosting services to host servers. That might be cheaper than dedicated hosting and it would pretty much eliminate the need for any one person to be awake or visit any place when there is an issue. When that kind of hardware breaks, most of the time no one has to get involved.
I found a guide on how to do it on Amazon but I heard it can be kinda pricey. There are a ton of other cloud hosting services that are cheaper as long as you are willing to use Linux. It is in java, so google apps might work too.
I'd love it if you could investigate this as an option :P I think I've found about the best price for a VPS that fits our needs, but I haven't really messed with cloud hosting much... Options are always a good thing to have!
A whole pile of bug fixes in this one. There’s still a lot more to do, coming over the next couple of weeks or so.
General fixes:
* players and mobs in lava or fire no longer spam sound effects
* getting hit with a higher damage while recovering from a smaller one now works as intended
* lava flows further in the Nether
* zombie pigs eventually forgives
* added support for custom skin packs
* fixed duplicate buttons when resizing screens
* zombie pigs and ghasts no longer get hurt by fire or lava
* fixed volume sliders now saving properly
Multiplayer fixes:
* hellworld=true no longer overwrites old save chunks. Player positions will still break if you switch it on a running server, though
* boats are now visible to other players
* minecarts move nicer
* fishing kinda sorta works, but needs more work
* sheep and cows look like sheep and cows now
* buckets work now
* fixed stairs being really difficult to destroy
* increased the timeout before “Took too long to log in”
* made it possible to ride carts and boats
* added (after lots of work) the ability to steer server-side boats
* added “no-animals” setting. if true, animals will immediately vanish
* added support for more animation settings. Currently it’s just the “riding” animation, but the same system will be used for sneaking
To make a texture pack, make a zip file that contains the files you wish to replace, then place that zip file in the texture pack folder. There’s a handy button ingame to open that folder immediately.
If you place a “pack.png” file in the root of the zip file, it’ll show up as a preview icon. Please make sure it’s square, and of an even 2^x size. For example, 128x128 pixels.
If you place a “pack.txt” file in the root of the zip file, the first two lines will show up as a description for the texture pack.
* added “no-animals” setting. if true, animals will immediately vanish
YES
Edit: Oh, and I found an even cheaper VPS ($20/month) with a 7 day money back guarantee. 100mbit connection and 2/4gb (dedicated/burst) RAM. HMMMM.....
hiartbill on
0
jackalFuck Yes. That is an orderly anal warehouse.Registered Userregular
Oh don't get me wrong Jackal, I'd love to be proved wrong. It just has been from my experience that every Java game has always been slower/more buggy/more memory hoggy than any other.
Also, does anyone else get a new error log file every time they close minecraft? Might better check the folder your EXE is in. I've made a batch file that deletes logs and starts Minecraft just so I don't end up with hundreds of extra files.
You do have a point. In actual use Java hasn't really proven itself. I was more defending managed languages in general than Java specifically. C# is doing pretty well for itself. I'm not sure if that is because it is just better for games or if it is because MS has been pushing it harder with XNA.
Oh don't get me wrong Jackal, I'd love to be proved wrong. It just has been from my experience that every Java game has always been slower/more buggy/more memory hoggy than any other.
Also, does anyone else get a new error log file every time they close minecraft? Might better check the folder your EXE is in. I've made a batch file that deletes logs and starts Minecraft just so I don't end up with hundreds of extra files.
You do have a point. In actual use Java hasn't really proven itself. I was more defending managed languages in general than Java specifically. C# is doing pretty well for itself. I'm not sure if that is because it is just better for games or if it is because MS has been pushing it harder with XNA.
I share an office with a developer who just started C# while primarily using VB since VB6 all the way up to .NET4, and he really likes C#.
* added “no-animals” setting. if true, animals will immediately vanish
YES
Edit: Oh, and I found an even cheaper VPS ($20/month) with a 7 day money back guarantee. 100mbit connection and 2/4gb (dedicated/burst) RAM. HMMMM.....
Let me know what companies you are looking at, I have some experience with working with them (pro-tip, you tend to get what you pay for)
EDIT: Ruckus - I am a C# developer professionally and I love it.
Yeah, Unity is a pretty solid indie platform and has been making some big waves.
I would personally stick with Unreal Development Kit, as that's what I know.
The UDK, while expensive to license (free to play with), is a pretty damn awesome engine. I remember the first UDK That came out, and how amazing all of the games ran on my terrible old computer. They really made it super efficient, and I would absolutely love to see Minecraft on something like that.
Yeah, Unity is a pretty solid indie platform and has been making some big waves.
I would personally stick with Unreal Development Kit, as that's what I know.
The UDK, while expensive to license (free to play with), is a pretty damn awesome engine. I remember the first UDK That came out, and how amazing all of the games ran on my terrible old computer. They really made it super efficient, and I would absolutely love to see Minecraft on something like that.
You can use it for free for non-commercial projects.
It seems like it would be so simple too. Create a static mesh type of a cube and then just apply the materials and physics for whatever type of thing it is.
Yeah, Minecraft is just a first-person shooter with procedurally generated landscapes, and everything is just an enemy. (you hit a block to reduce its HP until it breaks and drops a piece of ammo)
You could just about take a first-person shooter someone's already made and turn it into this. That would be really interesting.
Not that I'm belittling any accomplishments Notch has earned. I guarantee most of what he did was from scratch, since I've never even heard of an FPS being on Java, let alone having open-source code snippets out there for one.
1) I saved the terrain.png to My Documents
2) I used 7zip (winrar would work) to place it in the zip file. The file structure just looks like this:
-highresvanilla.zip
--terrain.png
3) I made sure minecraft had updated, then I shut down minecraft and moved that zip file into %appdata%\.minecraft\texturepacks
4) I started Minecraft, then clicked 'Mods & Texture Packs'. I clicked 'highresvanilla.zip' then clicked 'Done'
5) Loaded up the game, and it worked perfectly.
If you'd like, Nuka, you can link me to the texture pack you're using and I'll make a friendly version of it for you to use.
But you don't have a custom sign in there anywhere. It's sign.png in the "item" folder.
For those who don't know, I found that you have to put them in the same directory structure as found in minecraft.jar. You can open this ZIP and see what I mean.
Yeah, Minecraft is just a first-person shooter with procedurally generated landscapes, and everything is just an enemy. (you hit a block to reduce its HP until it breaks and drops a piece of ammo)
You could just about take a first-person shooter someone's already made and turn it into this. That would be really interesting.
Not that I'm belittling any accomplishments Notch has earned. I guarantee most of what he did was from scratch, since I've never even heard of an FPS being on Java, let alone having open-source code snippets out there for one.
Actually deformable terrain is pretty unique for a 3d engine. There is a reason why there haven't been many fps where you could blow up walls etc. That's also a big reason for the blocky-ness, the smaller the blocks, the bigger the performance drain. If you were to get small enough to look good in something like Source or Unreal Engine, it would probably not be possible on most hardware.
Posts
I think NaS' server is going to work perfectly though, provided he is ok with us using it.
There's a great free-ish game engine called Unity that would have been perfect for Minecraft. It's actually really easy for someone with only a little programming experience like myself to have a first-person shooter (like Minecraft emulates) up and running in a short time. Its scripts compile into machine code just like a normal programming language, and the games can be compiled for every kind of system. It is a very popular system for making games on the iPhone, for example, which is a system with very poor processing capabilities.
A girl can dream, can't she?
Also, does anyone else get a new error log file every time they close minecraft? Might better check the folder your EXE is in. I've made a batch file that deletes logs and starts Minecraft just so I don't end up with hundreds of extra files.
I found a guide on how to do it on Amazon but I heard it can be kinda pricey. There are a ton of other cloud hosting services that are cheaper as long as you are willing to use Linux. It is in java, so google apps might work too.
I'd love it if you could investigate this as an option :P I think I've found about the best price for a VPS that fits our needs, but I haven't really messed with cloud hosting much... Options are always a good thing to have!
yay
man's making progress
Path of Exile: snowcrash7
MTG Arena: Snow_Crash#34179
Battle.net: Snowcrash#1873
Best to get myself updated now while there's only a few people online so there's nothing to worry about tonight.
Oh hey look at that, I didn't even finish my post and it's done. Woo!
YES
Edit: Oh, and I found an even cheaper VPS ($20/month) with a 7 day money back guarantee. 100mbit connection and 2/4gb (dedicated/burst) RAM. HMMMM.....
You do have a point. In actual use Java hasn't really proven itself. I was more defending managed languages in general than Java specifically. C# is doing pretty well for itself. I'm not sure if that is because it is just better for games or if it is because MS has been pushing it harder with XNA.
I wonder if we need .jar files for this?
So basically it's LIKE dropping your texture pack in the folder, with the added step of zipping it up first
I share an office with a developer who just started C# while primarily using VB since VB6 all the way up to .NET4, and he really likes C#.
I would personally stick with Unreal Development Kit, as that's what I know.
Let me know what companies you are looking at, I have some experience with working with them (pro-tip, you tend to get what you pay for)
EDIT: Ruckus - I am a C# developer professionally and I love it.
Ah, I did a rar file. I'll try that next.
The UDK, while expensive to license (free to play with), is a pretty damn awesome engine. I remember the first UDK That came out, and how amazing all of the games ran on my terrible old computer. They really made it super efficient, and I would absolutely love to see Minecraft on something like that.
You can use it for free for non-commercial projects.
It seems like it would be so simple too. Create a static mesh type of a cube and then just apply the materials and physics for whatever type of thing it is.
You could just about take a first-person shooter someone's already made and turn it into this. That would be really interesting.
Not that I'm belittling any accomplishments Notch has earned. I guarantee most of what he did was from scratch, since I've never even heard of an FPS being on Java, let alone having open-source code snippets out there for one.
Why can't I figure this out. What is in this coffee that is making me so stupid?
1) I saved the terrain.png to My Documents
2) I used 7zip (winrar would work) to place it in the zip file. The file structure just looks like this:
-highresvanilla.zip
--terrain.png
3) I made sure minecraft had updated, then I shut down minecraft and moved that zip file into %appdata%\.minecraft\texturepacks
4) I started Minecraft, then clicked 'Mods & Texture Packs'. I clicked 'highresvanilla.zip' then clicked 'Done'
5) Loaded up the game, and it worked perfectly.
If you'd like, Nuka, you can link me to the texture pack you're using and I'll make a friendly version of it for you to use.
Selecting it and clicking done though does nothing.
EDIT: No wait there it goes.
The mod I use changes the menu screen from the dirt to something else.
Now, I'm wondering if the high-res texture pack fix is working with this update. Does your screen go black and stay that way?
I'm just wondering why the signs are default right now.
lolwut
Also, the high-res fix is broken now.
I'm gonna miss that ambient occlusion.
That's probably why some blocks are broken, and things aren't animating properly.
or am I good to hop on and get to terraformin'?
Steam
But you don't have a custom sign in there anywhere. It's sign.png in the "item" folder.
For those who don't know, I found that you have to put them in the same directory structure as found in minecraft.jar. You can open this ZIP and see what I mean.
Actually deformable terrain is pretty unique for a 3d engine. There is a reason why there haven't been many fps where you could blow up walls etc. That's also a big reason for the blocky-ness, the smaller the blocks, the bigger the performance drain. If you were to get small enough to look good in something like Source or Unreal Engine, it would probably not be possible on most hardware.