That's the infamous "lag spike of death", caused by the game constantly saving every few seconds (as Optifine claims); Optifine* still has a setting to change the autosave interval although as far as I can tell it has no effect, probably because the game now runs an internal server, which separates the game logic and related activities, including saving, from the client (mostly just rendering), which also effectively makes the game multithreaded (single core CPUs could still see lag spikes). I've noticed myself that versions before 1.3.1 have a lot more lag spikes and worse performance than 1.3.1-1.6.4 (1.3.1 is when the SSP-SMP merge occurred, not sure what changes occurred in 1.0; I say up to 1.6.4 because I get a similar "LSOD" issue since 1.7, though this one has something to do with my graphics card).
*You can find old versions of Optifine here; I believe the setting you are looking for is under "Performance" or "Other" (at least as of current versions, they may have changed the options menu since then). There are also individual downloads for several versions that only fix this issue without including the rest of Optifine. Note that in order to install either you have to follow the instructions here since there is no automated installer.
i usually get lag spikes every 3-5 seconds on versions of minecraft before 1.0. i dont get lag spikes on new versions however.
That's the infamous "lag spike of death", caused by the game constantly saving every few seconds (as Optifine claims); Optifine* still has a setting to change the autosave interval although as far as I can tell it has no effect, probably because the game now runs an internal server, which separates the game logic and related activities, including saving, from the client (mostly just rendering), which also effectively makes the game multithreaded (single core CPUs could still see lag spikes). I've noticed myself that versions before 1.3.1 have a lot more lag spikes and worse performance than 1.3.1-1.6.4 (1.3.1 is when the SSP-SMP merge occurred, not sure what changes occurred in 1.0; I say up to 1.6.4 because I get a similar "LSOD" issue since 1.7, though this one has something to do with my graphics card).
*You can find old versions of Optifine here; I believe the setting you are looking for is under "Performance" or "Other" (at least as of current versions, they may have changed the options menu since then). There are also individual downloads for several versions that only fix this issue without including the rest of Optifine. Note that in order to install either you have to follow the instructions here since there is no automated installer.
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?