I've noticed a really bad stutter glitch in both of my two mob farms, with both friendly and hostile mobs. I'm pretty sure I've found the exact cause of the stutter, but I don't know if this is just my setup or a "feature" of the game for everyone.
The Bug:
When you leave the attention range ("aggro radius", etc.) of a big pack of mobs, the game will stutter for a few seconds, two to three in my case. Imagine you have a room full of many monsters on the middle floor of your base. If you go more than 16 blocks below that room, you'll stutter for a few seconds. Going 16 blocks above the room does the same. I found the number 16 experimentally; It seems mobs have a spherical attention range, radius 16 blocks.
Before you TLDR, my computer is more than enough to handle Minecraft. During any other point in the game, I run 150fps at max settings. The brief stutter only happens when I walk away from my mob traps.
The Map:
I put together a quick test case map so others can try this and report if they have the stutter too. I was surprised to not find any specific reference to stuttering like this in my searches, so I need to be sure it's not just me.
An aerial shot of the test. The center of this barn houses about 60 pigs and chickens, and the diamond ring marks the edge of a 16 block radius circle surrounding the barn.
Here are the culprits, swimming in their pen:
To repeat the stutter, start towards the center of the ring like so:
...Then walk outside of the ring:
That little graph in the corner shows a noticeable spike in frame draw times. You can view that graph while you test this by holding F3. Notice that my framerate doesn't really show that I have stuttered. Even though there was a significant 3 second pause there, the framerate reports about 70 just afterwards.
The Save:
What I'd like to know is if your game freezes up for a few seconds when you leave the circle.
Here's the download; Just load it up and walk out of the ring.
If most people see the same stutter, we report it to Notch.
____
Edit: If it doesn't make you stutter, please explain your game's configuration and possibly PC specs.
I was building a test bed for grinding and I'd already built farm animal collection canals. A large batch of animals built up while I worked on the grinder itself. I noticed the same stutter whenever walking to or from the area (though I didn't test enough to find distance out)
I was building a test bed for grinding and I'd already built farm animal collection canals. A large batch of animals built up while I worked on the grinder itself. I noticed the same stutter whenever walking to or from the area (though I didn't test enough to find distance out)
Yeah, it was a real pain building the farm this section was cut out of, because of the same thing. I'd be building a little ways away from where the animals were piling up and would keep stuttering around.
Quote from Pilot_Death »
Quote from Pilot_Death »
I don't think onlyanyone hackers keeps 60 pigs penned up within a two foot radius.
So I don't see a problem.
The farm this was on is legit. Normally I would have killed the pigs and let that pen fill up with chickens to farm their precious eggs, but they tend to multiply like rabbits. Basically this is a normal mob farm, but lit above ground and covered in grass. The waterway that used to deposit animals in the pen is removed so they won't escape onto the test area.
Enormous lag spike for me (bars up to the top of the screen) when i stepped about 2 blocks outside of the circle. I held f3 and walked around the circle, in and out, trying it a number of times and it did that consistently.
Very Interesting find, the stutter happens for me, this game stutters a lot randomly actually, and I'm fairly sure this shows that mobs you get away from will cause tiny process spikes, infact let me kill some pigs...
8 pigs: noticable stutter
4 pigs: small blip, still noticable, and annoying enough
2 pigs: nothing really noticable...
My hardware is Core2 Duo E8400, running minecraft on a ramdrive
Hey notch might wanna have a look over that sprite awareness code and smooth it out :smile.gif:
I just tested this out. My comp is pretty old (2.8ghz, 512 ram, Win XP, some crappy integrated vid card), but Minecraft would run ok on Fast and Tiny. Since the update, I've been having some lag issues.
Testing in this map, I did get major slowdown/stutters everytime I approached the ring from the inside. FPS was so low Minecraft would be still for a few seconds before catching up to normal speeds. Then I slaughtered the pigs, and had no more trouble.
Anecdotally, this would explain some of the problems I've been having in my base. Mobs would probably be at the right distance for this to be happening all the time as I move around my base.
I think you've stumbled upon something very significant here
Hmm, same thing for me, which would explain the near constant lag spikes near my home that only happen when im not on peaceful. One of the chunks just outside my house is near the top of the list for mob spawning, so theres always a lot of stuff right there.
Im sure this is one of the things that will get fixed up when the code gets seriously optimized though, which unfortunately probably wont be until mid to late beta.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from Zanith »
There was a man who feared not the reaper
He dug in the earth ever deeper
Diamonds of his
Were lost, with a hiss
There is a man who now fears the creeper
The Bug:
When you leave the attention range ("aggro radius", etc.) of a big pack of mobs, the game will stutter for a few seconds, two to three in my case. Imagine you have a room full of many monsters on the middle floor of your base. If you go more than 16 blocks below that room, you'll stutter for a few seconds. Going 16 blocks above the room does the same. I found the number 16 experimentally; It seems mobs have a spherical attention range, radius 16 blocks.
Before you TLDR, my computer is more than enough to handle Minecraft. During any other point in the game, I run 150fps at max settings. The brief stutter only happens when I walk away from my mob traps.
The Map:
I put together a quick test case map so others can try this and report if they have the stutter too. I was surprised to not find any specific reference to stuttering like this in my searches, so I need to be sure it's not just me.
An aerial shot of the test. The center of this barn houses about 60 pigs and chickens, and the diamond ring marks the edge of a 16 block radius circle surrounding the barn.
Here are the culprits, swimming in their pen:
To repeat the stutter, start towards the center of the ring like so:
...Then walk outside of the ring:
That little graph in the corner shows a noticeable spike in frame draw times. You can view that graph while you test this by holding F3. Notice that my framerate doesn't really show that I have stuttered. Even though there was a significant 3 second pause there, the framerate reports about 70 just afterwards.
The Save:
What I'd like to know is if your game freezes up for a few seconds when you leave the circle.
Here's the download; Just load it up and walk out of the ring.
If most people see the same stutter, we report it to Notch.
____
Edit: If it doesn't make you stutter, please explain your game's configuration and possibly PC specs.
So I don't see a problem.
I tend to keep mobs in my inventory.
Yeah, it was a real pain building the farm this section was cut out of, because of the same thing. I'd be building a little ways away from where the animals were piling up and would keep stuttering around.
The farm this was on is legit. Normally I would have killed the pigs and let that pen fill up with chickens to farm their precious eggs, but they tend to multiply like rabbits. Basically this is a normal mob farm, but lit above ground and covered in grass. The waterway that used to deposit animals in the pen is removed so they won't escape onto the test area.
8 pigs: noticable stutter
4 pigs: small blip, still noticable, and annoying enough
2 pigs: nothing really noticable...
My hardware is Core2 Duo E8400, running minecraft on a ramdrive
Hey notch might wanna have a look over that sprite awareness code and smooth it out :smile.gif:
Into the cellar! There's a ternader a'comin!
Testing in this map, I did get major slowdown/stutters everytime I approached the ring from the inside. FPS was so low Minecraft would be still for a few seconds before catching up to normal speeds. Then I slaughtered the pigs, and had no more trouble.
Anecdotally, this would explain some of the problems I've been having in my base. Mobs would probably be at the right distance for this to be happening all the time as I move around my base.
I think you've stumbled upon something very significant here
What do you mean it doesn't work? - Flint Generator
Once upon a time in Minecraft... - The Three Little Pigs
Ready! Set! Go! - Speedboat Racecourse
Look out below! - Death From Above
Im sure this is one of the things that will get fixed up when the code gets seriously optimized though, which unfortunately probably wont be until mid to late beta.