What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

[CuteGremlin]

I recently found minetest and have come to love it very much. So it is very upsetting to find a large amount of people bashing the game and comparing it to minecraft.
Most of the comments made about minetest being dull and not having mobs is a mute point because you can put them in if you want them.
Having said that i think it would be nice to have water sound and random houses spawn, that is all that's missing

[Esteban]

I recently found minetest and have come to love it very much. So it is very upsetting to find a large amount of people bashing the game and comparing it to minecraft.
Most of the comments made about minetest being dull and not having mobs is a mute point because you can put them in if you want them.
Having said that i think it would be nice to have water sound and random houses spawn, that is all that's missing

A totally agree with you. I think you couldn't say it better!
Is easy to go criticize and ask for things.
IMO the game is awesome how it is.

That the devs not always implement stuff peeps ask or want; I prefer it that way.
And yet I am surprised that things that I never saw someone ask were implemented. I heard the latest build changed the way fire looks like! Usually stuff is added by functionality, but this was an aesthetic change.
Anyways, I rather have a solid, stable and light game that a game with many features and that would go slow on my machine. Not everyone has the budget to get a gaming pc...

[rubenwardy]

People prefer making new features to bug fixes. The fire change was made by a new contributor, and not a member of the core dev team. The core dev team can choose what goes in, but they can't force what people make for the game. Lots of bug fixes are made for the game each release, but some bugs tend to be let in by new features.

I like the new fire.

[MirceaKitsune]

I too agree that Minetest is awesome as it is. But on the other side, I can't disagree that it also has a lot of bugs and misses essential features still. Of course, I'm not taking about copying Minecraft here, but basic quality gaps that need to be filled.

In regard to the engine: A first example is the total lack of meta inventory prediction. You have to wait for the server response whenever you move an item in a chest, and even in single player it causes horrible lag and items to snap all over the place. Player and mob animations also get stuck occasionally, since my model animation networking system appears to fail sometimes. The lack of yaw interpolation causes mobs and players to instantly snap to a new rotation whenever turning around. FPS is also lower than it could be... the VBO patch fixes that, but I virtually got tired of begging other developers to finish the code for it for over an year. There is also no good way to add fluid sounds and particles, and players don't splash as they jump in water which feels horribly fake. There are no player to player collisions either, and a lot more could be added to the list of essential missing things.

In regard to games: Again, I don't want or expect anyone to simply copy Minecraft shamelessly. I do however expect a good game to have mobs by default, a larger variety of different tools / nodes but which fit the same theme, a large variety of good looking biomes, and more complexity although not excessively. Minetest doesn't have this yet. True, minetest_game can be given a variety of nice mods... including mobs, new ores and materials, house decorations, etc. Yet somehow, little to no mod combinations I've seen so far feel satisfying and in harmony, at least to me.

In summary: I agree that Minetest is awesome for sure. I also agree that copying Minecraft is bad and not wanted for a load of different reasons! But I also think that both the engine and available games and mods don't have the necessary quality to compare to MC at all yet, and IMO this needs changing. I'm currently working on mods, and am also making a mental list of engine changes I could and should attempt again in the near future.

[SAMIAMNOT]

Whats VBO?

[TriBlade9]

Vertex Buffer Objects. Combine vertices into one draw call or smth like that.

[MirceaKitsune]

Whats VBO?

What TriBlade9 said. It's basically keeping the geometry on the GPU and in the VRAM, rather than the system streaming it to the video card every frame. This reduces the information that must be processed and visibly improves frame rate.

Problem is that enabling the Irrlicht VBO function in Minetest causes high memory usage, because the geometry of map chunks isn't freed or stored as it should be. PilzAdam worked on the code and managed to reduce the usage to what I'd consider an acceptable amount, especially for something that wouldn't be enabled by default. Even so, the developers still don't wish to add the code upstream for some reason.

[Sokomine]

Having said that i think it would be nice to have water sound and random houses spawn, that is all that's missing

My random_buildings mod does the house spawning, although it does need some updates so that it will work again after some things where changed/improved. It may eventually end up beeing a part of mg_villages. There are also other mods that spawn buildings - i.e. the pyramids, or the small trader homes spawned by the animals modpack (mobf).

[CuteGremlin]

"Sokomine"

My random_buildings mod does the house spawning, although it does need some updates so that it will work again after some things where changed/improved. It may eventually end up beeing a part of mg_villages. There are also other mods that spawn buildings - i.e. the pyramids, or the small trader homes spawned by the animals modpack (mobf).

Random buildings, sounds like just what i need. i didn't like the pyramids because of the unlimited mob spawning and the trader sound interesting. thanks :)

[Sokomine]

Random buildings, sounds like just what i need. i didn't like the pyramids because of the unlimited mob spawning and the trader sound interesting. thanks :)

I hope to have it running soon again, but it may yet be a couple of days before random_buildings works again with the new improvements.

[CuteGremlin]

Random buildings, sounds like just what i need. i didn't like the pyramids because of the unlimited mob spawning and the trader sound interesting. thanks :)

I hope to have it running soon again, but it may yet be a couple of days before random_buildings works again with the new improvements.

Oh, well that's something to look forward to, I can't wait. i just spent two days optimizing my client to make the best minetest ever and this would be perfect for it.

[SAMIAMNOT]

So what are your settings? I use the lightweight game RPi on my crappy PC.

[CuteGremlin]

So what are your settings? I use the lightweight game RPi on my crappy PC.

I am using the standard distro (4.10) at 80fps and i have about 30ish edited mods.
My PC is crappy too, only a single core Athlon xp.
It seems the trick to getting everything to run quick and smooth is telling minetest how to run and avoiding world spawn item as much as possible(i.e large trees=mega frame dump)

[SAMIAMNOT]

How do you get so many fps? At best on RPi or Minimal with no mods I get 20 FPS.

[CuteGremlin]

How do you get so many fps? At best on RPi or Minimal with no mods I get 20 FPS.

Go to your config file and type:

wanted_fps = 80
fps_max = 80
pause_fps_max = 80

Or just copy and pastify

[Casimir]

@ CuteGremlin
wanted_fps are the frames per second you want. As your eyes see about 25 fps there is no need to set it higher than 30.
fps_max are the maximum fps you want. This is to avoid having your computer rendering 600 frames a second and wasting resources and energy.
pause_fps_max are the maximum fps you have in pause menu. You want to keep it low because minetest is doing noting while in pause menu.
The defaults for this values are already picked very well.

@ SAMIAMNOT
Those are settings that actually improve things. They are called server settings because also the singleplayer game is a server.
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1825
You can also reduce your field of view and the minetest window.

[SAMIAMNOT]

I already changed the first two settings to like 50.

[CuteGremlin]

@ CuteGremlin
wanted_fps are the frames per second you want. As your eyes see about 25 fps there is no need to set it higher than 30.
fps_max are the maximum fps you want. This is to avoid having your computer rendering 600 frames a second and wasting resources and energy.
pause_fps_max are the maximum fps you have in pause menu. You want to keep it low because minetest is doing noting while in pause menu.
The defaults for this values are already picked very well.

@ SAMIAMNOT
Those are settings that actually improve things. They are called server settings because also the singleplayer game is a server.
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1825
You can also reduce your field of view and the minetest window.

I am not sure your right there. From my experience the pause fps setting apply's when the game is idle, and the fps max is when the game finishes loading. So if i have different values for each setting i get a wild unstable frame rate, but if i put all three settings to the same value it gives me my desired fps and also a stable one.

[rubenwardy]

Casmir is correct. Pause fps may also apply to the menu.

[Krock]

How do you get so many fps? At best on RPi or Minimal with no mods I get 20 FPS.

You can not get more fps with fps_* settings.

Use a low-resolution texture pack and activate the Bi-linear filter. Some more settings:

Your phone or window isn't wide enough to display the code box. If it's a phone, try rotating it to landscape mode.

Code: Select all

#clouds in the main menu
menu_clouds = false
#clouds in-game
enable_clouds = false
#bobbing settings
view_bobbing_amount = 0.0
fall_bobbing_amount = 0.0

[SAMIAMNOT]

I'll try that. But I think the texture I use (default) is small enough.

[Calinou]

@ CuteGremlin
wanted_fps are the frames per second you want. As your eyes see about 25 fps there is no need to set it higher than 30.
fps_max are the maximum fps you want. This is to avoid having your computer rendering 600 frames a second and wasting resources and energy.
pause_fps_max are the maximum fps you have in pause menu. You want to keep it low because minetest is doing noting while in pause menu.
The defaults for this values are already picked very well.

Eyes do not see in terms of frames; they see a continous stream of light. Also, nearly anyone can distinguish between 25 FPS and 50-60 FPS. Try setitng fps_max to 25 and see, it's far from ideal (but fully playable). :)

[greydmiyu]

Eyes do not see in terms of frames; they see a continous stream of light. Also, nearly anyone can distinguish between 25 FPS and 50-60 FPS. Try setitng fps_max to 25 and see, it's far from ideal (but fully playable). :)

So much this. Where this whole 25FPS (24, actually) is because movies are displayed at 24 frames per second. Why this is in today's day and age is purely a relic of when the technology for movies was first being developed. IE, something back then dictated 24FPS as an ideal and the industry has stuck with it just because ever since.

As Calinou said, eyes don't see in discrete frames; nor does the brain process in discrete frames. People can see the difference and we don't even need to look at computer games to back that up. We can stick with movies. Peter Jackson filmed The Hobbit in 48FPS and people freaked about how different it looked compared to 24FPS movies.

When it comes to video games lower FPS is worse. Watching movies is a passive activity. Nothing we do has any impact of what is displayed on the screen. In computer games the lower the FPS the laggier the game feels. Why? Because it literally is! At 60FPS the time between movement by the player and that movement being reflected on the screen, presuming everything else introduces no lag, is 16.6666...ms. At 30FPS it is 33.333...ms. At 10FPS it is 100ms, or 1/10th of a second.

The only maximum one should not exceed is the FPS of the refresh of the monitor. For most people who do not go out of their way to obtain a monitor with a higher refresh, this is 60Hz or 60 times per second. That is why 60FPS is often a target. Not because humans can or cannot see the difference, or feel the difference in reaction time, but because the monitor literally cannot display any faster than that. However there are 100Hz and 120Hz monitors out there and gamers who purchase such monitors do often try to get their games to match the refresh rate specifically to lower the display lag as far as possible.

</soapbox>

[MirceaKitsune]

I don't agree with the FPS statement. 15 FPS is way too low, and enough to let the user feel everything is slow and ugly. 30 FPS is acceptable, but not what I consider a target either. 60 FPS is what I believe one should aim for, since that's when everything feels most smooth and real.

More than 60 FPS is however unneeded, I agree there. Unless you have a monitor that supports a higher refresh rate... which is very uncommon among LCD / LED monitors today, for some reason I can't fully understand.

[SAMIAMNOT]

Whatever. Its not a big deal. I think Ill keep my clouds and bobbing thank you :)

[Rochambeau]

Also the name change idea has already been discussed before. I think a better name than Minetest could not be found.

Playing minetest for several weeks, i tried to get some friends to join in. But when i mentioned the name "minetest", everybody asked "test, why test?". Suddenly their interest dropped.
The "test"-part still gives the tone/notion of something incomplete, beta. Like a shortliving coding-project of a bored student or something.

Can't blame my friends. I felt the same way. As a first impulsive I went on to freeminer as it has the same engine but a catchy name. (came back for technical reasons :-P)

The name of a game is first thing you see. If that is unattractive or confusing it decreases the perception of the (good) game.

So I suggest a brainstorming for finding a better name (which won't be easy). Did some research:

Openminer - taken
OpenCraft - taken
Minegine - taken
MineFrame - taken
MineWork - taken
WorldCraft - taken
Blockworld - taken
Blockminer - taken
Worldgine - free
WorldMine - taken
Cubegine (Cube+Engine) - free

Of course the best names are already claimed. But there must be something better than "Minetest"... :-)

[CuteGremlin]

Also the name change idea has already been discussed before. I think a better name than Minetest could not be found.

Playing minetest for several weeks, i tried to get some friends to join in. But when i mentioned the name "minetest", everybody asked "test, why test?". Suddenly their interest dropped.
The "test"-part still gives the tone/notion of something incomplete, beta. Like a shortliving coding-project of a bored student or something.

Can't blame my friends. I felt the same way. As a first impulsive I went on to freeminer as it has the same engine but a catchy name. (came back for technical reasons :-P)

The name of a game is first thing you see. If that is unattractive or confusing it decreases the perception of the (good) game.

So I suggest a brainstorming for finding a better name (which won't be easy). Did some research:

Openminer - taken
OpenCraft - taken
Minegine - taken
MineFrame - taken
MineWork - taken
WorldCraft - taken
Blockworld - taken
Blockminer - taken
Worldgine - free
WorldMine - taken
Cubegine (Cube+Engine) - free

Of course the best names are already claimed. But there must be something better than "Minetest"... :-)

CubeEngine sound pretty cool, can't believe no on thought of that before. Great job!
I'm playing CubeEngine and it's as awsome as it sounds, yeah!

[TriBlade9]

CubeEngine won't work, see http://cubeengine.com/

[Joz]

So, CubeEngine is the name of a page which lists voxel engines and not of an engine yet? Then this could be used.

[sfan5]

Not exactly. Cube (or Cube 2) is an engine.