Minecraft Forums

Hello MC forums

Hopefully someone can help me out. I'm having problems I feel like I shouldn't be having while trying to play MC. I'm fairly new to MC, so I hope someone else can shed some light on my situation. I've seen many topics like this all over the internet, but none of them are ever really answered.

So here's the problem:
I ran Minecraft on my desktop computer at lowest settings and it still had some fps and lag issues, so I downloaded Optifine and with lowest settings it runs at about 20-30 fps. It's bearable.

So I decide to download MC on my laptop, which is a newer and considerably better machine, so I can play without a hitch. Well, I didn't even load it up without the Magic Launcher and Optifine and I spent a good hour messing with the settings and couldn't breach 20 fps. It hovered between 5 and 15. So I decided to ditch Optifine and the Magic Loader and went with MC Patcher (since I was trying to use Misa's Texture pack), and that ran amazingly between 60 and 130 fps on highest settings until randomly it would lag, fps would drop to 0, and the game would freeze entirely. I then tried using Optifine without the Magic Loader (since I read that loaders can drop framerate), and after much hastle editing the .jar, it ran perfectly at 60-120 fps but would seriously lag every couple minutes (often with perfect timing to get me killed) and occasionally froze as with the MC Patcher.

So finally, I caved, running a clean .jar file with no mods OR texture packs (even though I love Misa's). I get the same incredible lag spikes and game freezing with default settings and no mods as I did running the MC Patcher and the Optifine (without the Magic Loader thing). It runs beautifully with 60-100 fps, smooth and no problems with graphics on fancy and render distance on far and etc, but every so often, it just drops to 0 fps and the game freezes for 5-10 seconds, occasionally without recovery (I have to close out the client)

This happens in singleplayer as well as multiplayer on my server (which is hosted on a different computer). My friends on the server report no serious lag spikes coinciding with my 0 framerate and they also report that I still move and perform actions sometimes while my screen is frozen. I certainly can die in the 5-10 seconds without any problems.

So, I've tried Optifine for stabilizing fps, with no luck. I've tried adding and decreasing the amount of memory Java can use, both with mods and without. Java and my video drivers are up to date as well. I can't figure it out. I run other games flawlessly on this machine.

My specs are
Processor: Intel Core i7-2630QM @ 2.00GHz
RAM: 8GB
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GT 550M
OS: Windows 7 64-bit

It's not the most powerful machine there is, but it handles most games without any problems, and I feel like it shouldn't have any trouble running Minecraft. My friends have "worse" machines and seem to run it alright. Anyone can help me out? I don't feel like I should be having these issues.

Quote from Tedster

Okay. Try running MC with ONLY the Magic Launcher.

Tried that now. Seems to linger between 15 and 20 fps with just the Magic Launcher running with no other mods or texture packs. Better than the 5-15 when used with Optifine, oddly enough, but still not very good. Anything you can think of?

Quote from Hidinginthelight

Many laptops with dedicated graphics cards, will switch to the integrated graphics on what it thinks are low demand applications. They do this as part of the power saving methods to conserve battery life.
Java applications fall into this category, and so minecraft goes into that category as well.

You need to go into the control panel for your graphics card, and find the power saving feature and tell it to use high performance for java

You know, I briefly thought about whether or not my computer was actually using the integrated graphics, but had no idea how to make sure it wasn't. When I go into the NVIDIA Control Panel, I don't see anything about power saving or the like, but under one of the amazingly few options there's this



Sorry that's a little big. Not sure how to use a spoiler button yet. Anyway, if I just select the Minecraft application file and then change the 2. preferred graphics processor to High-Performance NVIDIA processor would this accomplish the same thing or am I totally not in the right ballpark here? Sorry, but I'm not especially familiar with GPUs.

That should work for minecraft, and if it doesn't, try again or just switch it back. Make sure that it isn't the integrated graphics if you don't want it to be slow. It won't hurt the hardware, except consume slightly more power, so make sure you aren't on a battery.

Quote from Wormy14

That should work for minecraft, and if it doesn't, try again or just switch it back. Make sure that it isn't the integrated graphics if you don't want it to be slow. It won't hurt the hardware, except consume slightly more power, so make sure you aren't on a battery.

I virtually always play plugged in, so no worries there, but having been trying it now for a little while, I still have very random, sudden drops in fps. It lingers from 40-80 and then everything will stop, and after a few seconds there's a veritable explosion of noise and motion as it all catches up to itself. I notice I am frequently breaking blocks and then moving forward, only to be teleported back to the first block that was apparently never broken or just then breaking.
Anything else I can do with the graphics cards? Gonna try rebooting and making sure the setting are tweaked and try again.

I suppose you could quit everything unnecessary that's running in the background, as well as updating your graphics card directly from the graphics manufacturer's website. You should put minecraft on Max FPS as well. You can always lower the video settings in minecraft, it doesn't have to be max. Was this on a multiplayer server? That seems like latency to me.

I see you have a 64 bit OS but you don't specify that your Java is 64bit also. Make sure that it is.

Also to more easily do what Wormy suggests you can use gamebooster to launch a game with minimal background processes running.

Quote from Wormy14

I suppose you could quit everything unnecessary that's running in the background, as well as updating your graphics card directly from the graphics manufacturer's website. You should put minecraft on Max FPS as well. You can always lower the video settings in minecraft, it doesn't have to be max. Was this on a multiplayer server? That seems like latency to me.

I thought it might be latency as well, just because of the way it was acting, but it happens in singleplayer as well. I can't go more than a few moments (especially where Ghasts are concerned) without having serious drops in fps to the point where I am just running and hoping the game is still registering me as doing so. The only windows I have open while playing are hamachi for the server link. I dunno about any processes that I could shut off. I'm usually pretty wary about messing with too many of those. I do have Max FPS on and have tried messing with the settings. I know it doesn't HAVE to be maxed, but I feel like this machine should be able to handle it. As it is, I have the best CPU among my brothers and theirs all handle it better somehow.

Quote from rodabon

I see you have a 64 bit OS but you don't specify that your Java is 64bit also. Make sure that it is.

Also to more easily do what Wormy suggests you can use gamebooster to launch a game with minimal background processes running.

Hm. Didn't think of that. I'm running 32bit (though I thought 64 bit OS could run 32 bit processes without problems?). I'll try with 64bit Java. I'm not especially familiar with too many 64bit programs, so would I have to run things like my web browser in 64bit if I download 64bit Java? I mean I can do it, I just need to know I guess. Also, would I need to uninstall the 32bit Java?

I'll look into that gamebooster too then, since Wormy suggested that (and I wasn't sure exactly how to go about that suggestion). I'll give it a Google search.

Even though I meant the in-game settings, that might work in improving your performance. Though, I can't say it will be much of an improvement, I don't know. You do not have to uninstall the 32-bit version. You would still uninstall different Java versions, like Java 7, if you are trying to run Java 6. Or the other way around.

Quote from Wormy14

Even though I meant the in-game settings, that might work in improving your performance. Though, I can't say it will be much of an improvement, I don't know. You do not have to uninstall the 32-bit version. You would still uninstall different Java versions, like Java 7, if you are trying to run Java 6. Or the other way around.

Alright, thanks. I've gone ahead and uninstalled Java FX 2.whatever that I had also running (apparently) and installed 64bit Java 7. I haven't had a lot of time recently to test it out, but from what I have seen already, it looks a lot smoother. fps fluctuates between 40-120 and with 20-25 min of play I hadn't seen any extreme drops in fps or freezing or anything, only a little latency when I tested it on the server. So far looking good, but I'll do some more extensive testing later.

Quote from Hidinginthelight

Yes that is the settings you would need to change, but if you select minecraft.exe it only affects the launcher window.. You actually need to make sure that it is set to the nvidia gpu for JAVA.

That makes sense, but I'm glad you told me else I'd never have thought of that. A question about that though: Do I set the NVIDIA GPU for which java application? I notice there are several, including java, javaw, and so forth. I notice javaw is the process running while MC is running, but I'm just not sure.

By the way, thanks to everyone who's offered me ideas and help so far, you've all been great.

Hm, so... After some more lenthy testing, I've noticed it still happens. I'll be fine at 120 fps and then randomly, I'll stutter and drop to 0 fps for a moment. What happens more frequently is a stutter and a drop to about 40 fps, which is by no means terrible, but it is a noticeable drop and the game does reflect it with choppy movement and the like.

Quote from Hidinginthelight

Well, if you just installed 64 bit it should be using java.exe now. javaw.exe is the 32 bit java.

Even better, you should remove all the java installs you have, from remove programs in the control panel, then only install the 64 bit version.

Really? Because even now after I've installed 64bit Java, the javaw.exe is still what's running in Task Manager. Is this because I still have 32bit installed? So if I uninstall all Java, reinstall the 64bit, and set the java.exe to the NVIDIA GPU... as long as java.exe is what's running when MC is running?

Well, it's been a few days now, and I apologize for the delay in posting, but I wanted to do some extensive testing. It appears that my problems have gone. I just hope I haven't just jynxed myself. It seems that downloading 64-bit Java was the key, and I did do a little tweaking of making processes default to the NVIDIA GPU, even though supposedly it should have defaulted to that anyway. Still not sure exactly what the fixer was, but it seems to be working now.

Thanks to everyone who helped out, I really appreciate it.