Back when Minecraft transitioned from 1.2.5 to 1.3.x, the visible distance on the "Far" render distance was scaled back a bit (and, as far as I know, existing methods to adjust or increase the render distance stopped working).
I've been toying around with the recent snapshots, and I noticed something. At least for me, The Far render distance doesn't seem to be showing much, if any at all, more than the Normal render distance.
Here's some screenshots I took in snapshot 13w36b.
Screenshot A "Normal" Render distance:
Screenshot A "Far" Render Distance:
Screenshot B "Normal" Render Distance:
Screenshot B "Far" Render Distance:
Screenshot C "Normal" Render Distance:
Screenshot C "Far" Render Distance:
The only difference appears to be the closer fog in the Normal render distance. Otherwise, with the slight exception in the first comparison, where you can see a pair of trees in the Far render distance screenshot not visible in the Normal render distance screenshot (which may be because of the fog), these pictures seem almost identical, and in the current official release, the Far render distance certainly shows a very noticeable bit more than the Normal render distance does.
How is the behavior between these two render distance presets for anyone else?
Hopefully there's an easy fix as I'm getting claustrophobic!
That's a good way to put it. I was already of the opinion that either they should increase the distance of the Far render distance a bit (back to how it was with 1.2.5), and/or add an additional render distance that let you see even more. Yes, I'm aware it's an exponential, give or take, performance drain with diminishing returns, per se, but I don't think it'd be much effort involved in simply making an option for users who wish to make the decision themselves to trade some performance for more view distance (think those who have frame rates in the hundreds, for a prime example). I'm digressing though.
Anyway... I was wondering if something was up on my end, but I guess it's not just me who noticed it. I was hoping others would do comparisons themselves and see.
This makes me wonder, if this is indeed a problem, and nothing limited to just some users, could this be at least a part of why people are reporting increased performance with the snapshots? (not that I'm saying there also wasn't code improvements to also help, mind you.) I hope this scaled back view distance for the Far render distance isn't intentional.
This could just simply be a result of unoptimized code, at the moment. Try and keep that in mind, if you haven't noticed, chunk loading can also be pretty abysmally slow on this snapshot.
Well, hopefully it's a bugged or temporary side result of something else, but I didn't see anyone else mentioning it, so I wanted to see if anyone else had even noticed the same behavior, or it was something just on my end.
Sorry to overload the thread with pictures, but I decided to do a comparison between 1.6.2 and snapshot 13w36b with my main world. Even the Normal render distance differs slightly (it seems to render ever so slightly less, and the fog transition is less smooth in the new snapshot, and it rather abrubtly ends with minimal fog hiding the end of the render distance, sort of how the Far render distance in 1.6.2 behaves), so maybe some of the code they were messing around with affected this. I wonder if they are intending to tweak or adjust render distances any (so long as it isn't negatively, I can dream, can't I?).
Instead of posting comparisons between normal and far, why don't you guys set up a test? Stand in the same spot in a map generated in an early jar, say 1.8. Take a screenshot, then repeat from the same spot in subsequent jars.
Now the thing that stands out to me is that you guys are highly likely using Optifine. It seems like it because of the way the fog is pushed back, but no additional chunks are rendered. that's a feature from Optifine.
Another thing to note is the comparison screens are taken from poor angles. Fly up and get a large overhead shot where you can clearly see if more CHUNKS are being loaded. That'll be the telling factor.
My main mention here is the lack of basically any difference in render distance between Normal and Far with the recent snapshots in contrast with how it was in the immediately prior versions, but not what's changed between each of the render distances between each version dating way, way back.
I'm not sure about Moosah, but I'm not using OptiFine in any of my versions.
Here's a link to a two-image album showing a clearer comparison. A wide angle (from the ground) shot shows how many chunks are affected. From this angle, it's apparent that the fog itself has changed, being pushed back extremely far, if not mostly removed. I recommend sharing this topic/images via Twitter or making a bug report in Mojira, since both of those have a higher chance of being noticed by a dev. This could be a result of them rewriting the rendering engine, not sure.
The next time I go to the nether I'm going to cover my eyes and shoot wherever I hear the marshmallow murmurs from, sight is becoming more and more useless.
The edge of the blue area in my second screenshot is where I imagine the chunks should load up to, but that's not happening. The reason 1.6.2 had the fog so close for far, btw, was that the fog is basically a flat wall that is always perpendicular to the player's view point. The loaded chunks, however, for a square. So if you match the fog with the chunk render edge, you'll see the blue area there instead of land blending properly into fog. Some chunks have to be sacrificed (still being rendered, but hidden by fog) in order to have to fog properly blend with the terrain.
Two ways to fix this:
One (harder method) would be to change the shape of the fog wall so it's cylindrical, not flat. This would keep an even consistency in the blending no matter how the player is rotated.
Two (this could be blended with one for best results) would be to load the chunks in a hexagonal shape, instead of a square. This frees up resources wasted by the normally hidden corner chunks.
As for why they reduced the draw distance itself, no idea. This is a snapshot, however, so it could be a last ditch effort to increase performance so testers can focus on biome issues. Incidentally, this is probably why many people have incorrectly assumed that 1.7 has better performance.
Yeah I notices it too. At first I thought my render distance was on Normal... I really hope they fix this. Also try the comparison with optifine's far render distance.
Also try the comparison with optifine's far render distance.
As far as I know, when 1.2.5 transitioned to 1.3.x, probably due to the change with single player basically running an internal server, any methods to increase or adjust the view distance stopped working. So far as I know, none have been made that work with these newer versions (I'd love to be wrong about that).
Well pardon me! I made this thread before "two snapshots ago" though, and at the time, there was no other thread about it.
The bug you linked to appears to be referring to something much older than two snapshots ago anyway. That appears to be referring to a change in render distance/chunk loading behavior that was from when 1.3.x came about and made single player run an internal server. My comparison shows a difference between the early snapshots and 1.6.4.
A few snapshots after this thread was made, though, it was fixed, and the "far" render distance again worked. The post that bumped this thread was because this bug seemingly sort of came back (from what I've been reading) a few snapshots ago again after it was fixed. I'm unsure of the case now, as I haven't been following it much. The render distance seems to be something that's being changed a lot, so I'm just going to hold off until 1.7 actually hits and see what settles as the result.
And please stop saying you are having problems with 1.7. 1.7 is not out yet. If you want a serious discussion, refer to the snapshot you were running.
Jorgie
The bug listed there is not, in fact, the right one. 1.6.4 works just fine: The far render distance is exactly where it should be. This snapshot, however, does not work fine. The screenshots that someone posted in the previous page that show the superflat world comparison views show exactly what it's been doing. Exactly the same view changes I'm getting. And it's not just with THIS snapshot, it's with all of the 1.7 snapshots. I specifically went back and tried every single one of them to see if they'd work, just to make sure since I dont always remember things properly, and they did not. All of them are doing the view thing. But jump back to 1.6.4, and bam, works fine.
And it may indeed be a chunk loading error, too. It's very hard to tell.
I've been toying around with the recent snapshots, and I noticed something. At least for me, The Far render distance doesn't seem to be showing much, if any at all, more than the Normal render distance.
Here's some screenshots I took in snapshot 13w36b.
Screenshot A "Normal" Render distance:
Screenshot A "Far" Render Distance:
Screenshot B "Normal" Render Distance:
Screenshot B "Far" Render Distance:
Screenshot C "Normal" Render Distance:
Screenshot C "Far" Render Distance:
The only difference appears to be the closer fog in the Normal render distance. Otherwise, with the slight exception in the first comparison, where you can see a pair of trees in the Far render distance screenshot not visible in the Normal render distance screenshot (which may be because of the fog), these pictures seem almost identical, and in the current official release, the Far render distance certainly shows a very noticeable bit more than the Normal render distance does.
How is the behavior between these two render distance presets for anyone else?
Anyway... I was wondering if something was up on my end, but I guess it's not just me who noticed it. I was hoping others would do comparisons themselves and see.
This makes me wonder, if this is indeed a problem, and nothing limited to just some users, could this be at least a part of why people are reporting increased performance with the snapshots? (not that I'm saying there also wasn't code improvements to also help, mind you.) I hope this scaled back view distance for the Far render distance isn't intentional.
Normal
Far
Sorry to overload the thread with pictures, but I decided to do a comparison between 1.6.2 and snapshot 13w36b with my main world. Even the Normal render distance differs slightly (it seems to render ever so slightly less, and the fog transition is less smooth in the new snapshot, and it rather abrubtly ends with minimal fog hiding the end of the render distance, sort of how the Far render distance in 1.6.2 behaves), so maybe some of the code they were messing around with affected this. I wonder if they are intending to tweak or adjust render distances any (so long as it isn't negatively, I can dream, can't I?).
1.6.2 Far render distance:
1.6.2 Normal render distance:
Snapshot 13w36b Normal render distance:
Now the thing that stands out to me is that you guys are highly likely using Optifine. It seems like it because of the way the fog is pushed back, but no additional chunks are rendered. that's a feature from Optifine.
Another thing to note is the comparison screens are taken from poor angles. Fly up and get a large overhead shot where you can clearly see if more CHUNKS are being loaded. That'll be the telling factor.
I'm not sure about Moosah, but I'm not using OptiFine in any of my versions.
Here's a test between 1.6.2 and the 1.7 Snapshot.
1.6.2 Far
1.7 Snapshot Far
Two ways to fix this:
One (harder method) would be to change the shape of the fog wall so it's cylindrical, not flat. This would keep an even consistency in the blending no matter how the player is rotated.
Two (this could be blended with one for best results) would be to load the chunks in a hexagonal shape, instead of a square. This frees up resources wasted by the normally hidden corner chunks.
As for why they reduced the draw distance itself, no idea. This is a snapshot, however, so it could be a last ditch effort to increase performance so testers can focus on biome issues. Incidentally, this is probably why many people have incorrectly assumed that 1.7 has better performance.
1.7 Normal
1.7 Far
1.62 Far
Looks to me as if 1.7 Far is the same as Normal with less fog
https://mojang.atlassian.net/browse/MC-5227
And please stop saying you are having problems with 1.7. 1.7 is not out yet. If you want a serious discussion, refer to the snapshot you were running.
Jorgie
The bug you linked to appears to be referring to something much older than two snapshots ago anyway. That appears to be referring to a change in render distance/chunk loading behavior that was from when 1.3.x came about and made single player run an internal server. My comparison shows a difference between the early snapshots and 1.6.4.
A few snapshots after this thread was made, though, it was fixed, and the "far" render distance again worked. The post that bumped this thread was because this bug seemingly sort of came back (from what I've been reading) a few snapshots ago again after it was fixed. I'm unsure of the case now, as I haven't been following it much. The render distance seems to be something that's being changed a lot, so I'm just going to hold off until 1.7 actually hits and see what settles as the result.
The bug listed there is not, in fact, the right one. 1.6.4 works just fine: The far render distance is exactly where it should be. This snapshot, however, does not work fine. The screenshots that someone posted in the previous page that show the superflat world comparison views show exactly what it's been doing. Exactly the same view changes I'm getting. And it's not just with THIS snapshot, it's with all of the 1.7 snapshots. I specifically went back and tried every single one of them to see if they'd work, just to make sure since I dont always remember things properly, and they did not. All of them are doing the view thing. But jump back to 1.6.4, and bam, works fine.
And it may indeed be a chunk loading error, too. It's very hard to tell.
Whatever the problem is, it's very annoying.