What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

[Zeno]

Since Minetest uses vsync and I was not able to disable it for testing purposes [...]

Minetest doesn't use vysnc AFAIK -- and I have a fairly good idea because I rewrote the limitFPS() function. What I did notice when I was working on that stuff is that the driver (in my case nVidia) was had, by default, "Sync to VBlank" to true for OpenGL.

[lansney]

little question about Graphics... as I saw, it seems the game use too much cpu and don't use GPU calculation, is that true? I saw earlier some post about this thing and OpenCL ( != OpenGL ).

[MykieDoesStuff]

little question about Graphics... as I saw, it seems the game use too much cpu and don't use GPU calculation, is that true? I saw earlier some post about this thing and OpenCL ( != OpenGL ).

Yes..... Minetest uses mostly the CPU for calculation. For the GPU, uses for rendering the images and the models.

[Linuxdirk]

Minetest doesn't use vysnc AFAIK -- and I have a fairly good idea because I rewrote the limitFPS() function. What I did notice when I was working on that stuff is that the driver (in my case nVidia) was had, by default, "Sync to VBlank" to true for OpenGL.

So it’s my drivers fault :D Well. If it stays at >= 60 FPS it’s all fine with me :)

But doesn’t Minecraft use OpenGL, too? Or Astromenace? Or Cube II (Sauerbraten engine)? They all run with > 60 FPS: Astromenace and Cube II with around 200 FPS and Minecraft witch up to 100 under some circumstances.

If it’s the driver wouldn’t the other OpenGL applications be limited to 60 FPS, too?

[Zeno]

Minetest doesn't use vysnc AFAIK -- and I have a fairly good idea because I rewrote the limitFPS() function. What I did notice when I was working on that stuff is that the driver (in my case nVidia) was had, by default, "Sync to VBlank" to true for OpenGL.

So it’s my drivers fault :D Well. If it stays at >= 60 FPS it’s all fine with me :)

But doesn’t Minecraft use OpenGL, too? Or Astromenace? Or Cube II (Sauerbraten engine)? They all run with > 60 FPS: Astromenace and Cube II with around 200 FPS and Minecraft witch up to 100 under some circumstances.

If it’s the driver wouldn’t the other OpenGL applications be limited to 60 FPS, too?

I really don't know (maybe it's an irrlicht specific thing that the opengl vysnc is honoured?). It's easy enough to change your driver config to remove vsync being enabled by default.

Edit: HDX-128

[rubenwardy]

Minetest sleeps to go down to 60 fps. See the fps_Max setting. Above 65 fps is pointless, as the majority of screens don't support it.

[Calinou]

The game is intentionally limited to 60 FPS in order to:

• reduce temperature and noise,
• reduce power usage (and thus power bill),
• increase hardware life span.

Minetest is barely sensible to input latency, so there is really no point in having more than 60 FPS, except with a 75/120/144 Hz monitor.

Use /set -n fps_max 0 (/set -n fps_max 60 to go back) to disable the FPS limit in a local game.

[Linuxdirk]

Use /set -n fps_max 0 (/set -n fps_max 60 to go back) to disable the FPS limit in a local game.

Limiting to <60 FPS works, but setting to 0 or setting to 100 FPS has no effect, it stays/flickers at 59/60 …

[Wuzzy]

Setting FPS limit to any value higher than 60 or even disabling it is absolutely just a waste of resources, therefore, a FPS limit is a good thing. The reason for this is that the human eye is not endlessly fast at recognizing images. 60 or 100 or even (hypothetical) 1000 Hz, you could literally not see the difference. If your eye is very good, maybe 65 Hz, but that's the absolute reasonable maximum.
IMO 60 Hz is absolutely enough for every game. But if your monitor supports higher frequencies, feel free to play around with the setting a bit and see for yourself if you see a real difference between 60 Hz and 144 Hz. If yes, I will call you Fly Eye. :D

[rubenwardy]

^ it may be due to placebo if you do.

[Calinou]

Use /set -n fps_max 0 (/set -n fps_max 60 to go back) to disable the FPS limit in a local game.

Limiting to <60 FPS works, but setting to 0 or setting to 100 FPS has no effect, it stays/flickers at 59/60 …

Then your driver is forcing VSync, or your minetest.conf has vsync = true in it.

[sfan5]

The reason for this is that the human eye is not endlessly fast at recognizing images. 60 or 100 or even (hypothetical) 1000 Hz, you could literally not see the difference. If your eye is very good, maybe 65 Hz, but that's the absolute reasonable maximum.

{{citation needed}}

[Jordach]

Setting FPS limit to any value higher than 60 or even disabling it is absolutely just a waste of resources, therefore, a FPS limit is a good thing. The reason for this is that the human eye is not endlessly fast at recognizing images. 60 or 100 or even (hypothetical) 1000 Hz, you could literally not see the difference. If your eye is very good, maybe 65 Hz, but that's the absolute reasonable maximum.
IMO 60 Hz is absolutely enough for every game. But if your monitor supports higher frequencies, feel free to play around with the setting a bit and see for yourself if you see a real difference between 60 Hz and 144 Hz. If yes, I will call you Fly Eye. :D

Go get one of those shiny 144hz monitors yourself, then go back to 60fps. You'll instantly notice said difference. May I mention even USAF pilots can tell the difference between 150hz and 250hz.

[Don]

This give a bit of info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_rate

[Linuxdirk]

Then your driver is forcing VSync, or your minetest.conf has vsync = true in it.

We go round in circles :)

Neither my driver is forcing vsync (no other application stops at 60 FPS, all applications that have something to do with OpenGL are 100-500 FPS, depending on what they display) nor my minetest.conf contains anything related to FPS or vsyncing.

Maybe there is a setting that only Irrlicht/Minetest respect but I actually don’t know or care because vsync was never an issue to me since ~8 years of using Linux.

[Jordach]

Then your driver is forcing VSync, or your minetest.conf has vsync = true in it.

We go round in circles :)

Neither my driver is forcing vsync (no other application stops at 60 FPS, all applications that have something to do with OpenGL are 100-500 FPS, depending on what they display) nor my minetest.conf contains anything related to FPS or vsyncing.

Maybe there is a setting that only Irrlicht/Minetest respect but I actually don’t know or care because vsync was never an issue to me since ~8 years of using Linux.

You have to specifically make Minetest disable vsync.

Plop this line into the magic conf. (Bonus points if you get the cartoon reference.)

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

vsync = false

Works perfectly on Windows 7.

[Linuxdirk]

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

vsync = false

Works perfectly on Windows 7.

Doesn’t work on my machine.

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

$ nvidia-settings --version | grep version
nvidia-settings:  version 340.65  (buildmeister@swio-display-x64-rhel04-11)  Tue Dec  2 09:59:19 PST 2014

$ uname -rms
Linux 3.17.6-1-ARCH x86_64

$ minetest --version # I’m still on 0.4.10 because the repos aren’t updated yet
Minetest 0.4.10
Using Irrlicht 1.8.1
Build info: VER=0.4.10 BUILD_TYPE=Release RUN_IN_PLACE=0 USE_GETTEXT=1 USE_SOUND=1 USE_CURL=1 USE_FREETYPE=1 USE_LUAJIT=0 STATIC_SHAREDIR=/usr/share/minetest

$ grep vsync .minetest/minetest.conf
vsync = false

As said before: Other OpenGL applications are not limited so it’s not a driver issue.

[Wuzzy]

Hello Jordach aka Fly Eye.
;-)

Well, I guess I better take back what I have said about FPS and stuff. xD

[Linuxdirk]

Well, I guess I better take back what I have said about FPS and stuff. xD

As long as it is greater than or equal to my monitor’s refresh rate I don’t care much. I’m just curious why Minetest is the only OpenGL application on my machine that uses vsync.

[4aiman]

If your eye is very good, maybe 65 Hz, but that's the absolute reasonable maximum.

Seems you didn't use to have an old CRT monitior.
That thing made me notice flickering at any frequency below 100Hz.
My current TV is LCD, of cource, but I still can see flickering (when a certain conditions are met) wht the refresh rate is below 72Hz.

It doesn't mean I'm against fps limit.
I'm against "generalizing".

[ArguablySane]

There are two closely related features which I think would be very useful for mods and general playability.

The first is a better API for creating user interfaces and forms in the game. Currently the only possible interaction is moving items around, typing in text boxes, and pressing buttons, and even those have problems sometimes. It'd be a lot of work, but I'd like to see something like the GTK+ API which gives modders access to a greater variety of UI elements and allows callback functions to run when the user triggers certain events. The particular use I was thinking of was a magic spell creation and enchanting interface which effectively works like a graphical programming language or circuit diagram editor. Obviously something that complicated isn't currently possible.

The other feature is better client/server separation in mods. It would be great if some user interface tasks could be run entirely client-side, with updates only being sent to the server when something interesting happens. This would fix the annoying bug where items can briefly appear to disappear or be duplicated while transferring them to/from an inventory. It would also allow more complex interaction with user interfaces without creating lag or unnecessary network traffic.

[rubenwardy]

There are two closely related features which I think would be very useful for mods and general playability.

The first is a better API for creating user interfaces and forms in the game. Currently the only possible interaction is moving items around, typing in text boxes, and pressing buttons, and even those have problems sometimes. It'd be a lot of work, but I'd like to see something like the GTK+ API which gives modders access to a greater variety of UI elements and allows callback functions to run when the user triggers certain events. The particular use I was thinking of was a magic spell creation and enchanting interface which effectively works like a graphical programming language or circuit diagram editor. Obviously something that complicated isn't currently possible.

The other feature is better client/server separation in mods. It would be great if some user interface tasks could be run entirely client-side, with updates only being sent to the server when something interesting happens. This would fix the annoying bug where items can briefly appear to disappear or be duplicated while transferring them to/from an inventory. It would also allow more complex interaction with user interfaces without creating lag or unnecessary network traffic.

This is all planned for 0.5, by some core dev or another.

[ArguablySane]

This is all planned for 0.5, by some core dev or another.

Ah, wonderful, thanks. I eagerly await whatever they come up with.

[Linuxdirk]

where items can briefly appear to disappear or be duplicated while transferring them to/from an inventory.

This isn’t only limited to playing on servers (actually the local game is a server, too … but you know what I mean). Even when playing in singleplayer moving items around is EXTREMELY laggy. On my machine it takes up to 3 seconds.

[leeminer]

where items can briefly appear to disappear or be duplicated while transferring them to/from an inventory.

This isn’t only limited to playing on servers (actually the local game is a server, too … but you know what I mean). Even when playing in singleplayer moving items around is EXTREMELY laggy. On my machine it takes up to 3 seconds.

+1
This issue is confusing even for me. When you tell the computer to do something, it should do it as expected. At the very least, put an hourglass animation so you know it is "thinking".

[Don]

where items can briefly appear to disappear or be duplicated while transferring them to/from an inventory.

This isn’t only limited to playing on servers (actually the local game is a server, too … but you know what I mean). Even when playing in singleplayer moving items around is EXTREMELY laggy. On my machine it takes up to 3 seconds.

+1
This issue is confusing even for me. When you tell the computer to do something, it should do it as expected. At the very least, put an hourglass animation so you know it is "thinking".

Even if it just visually did it and then did the thinking. Not sure if that is possible but it would make a lot of people happy

[superschizo]

My personal experience is that minecraft is more kid-friendly. Minetest is way too complicated for my 7 year old. Even after we showed him how to add mods, he adds way too many mods for the computer to handle and complains about minetest being laggy, lol. He just isn't old enough to handle the extra abilities of minetest. So he prefers to play minecraft on the consoles and begs for minecraft on the pc (which is not likely for us to get). Get the kids involved, and the parents will follow I think out of curiosity of what their kids are doing and the desire to spend time with their kids.

Having said that, as for me, I prefer minetest due to being able to customize the game and the price :) From seeing the youtube minecraft videos that my kids watch, it seems that the minecraft servers for now have more in quantity and variety than minetest, probably due to the millions who have played minecraft vs the number who play minetest.

My wife's opinion is that minetest lacks the solid graphics and bright colors of minecraft. Of course minecraft has a paid staff to develop and unify these features. I could see this also appealing to kids.

[Calinou]

My wife's opinion is that minetest lacks the solid graphics and bright colors of minecraft. Of course minecraft has a paid staff to develop and unify these features. I could see this also appealing to kids.

It is possible to use Minecraft textures on Minetest, you can automate this task by writing or using a converter script.

[Linuxdirk]

It is possible to use Minecraft textures on Minetest, you can automate this task by writing or using a converter script.

You can even change* the font to a Minetest-like font.

* The GUI’s scaling abilities are horrible and far away from being intuitive or even valid or consistent, but if you fiddle around with the various settings you can make it actually look okay-ish when using a different font than the default one …

[M.Tester]

Hi,

I installed MineTest as alternative to MineCraft for my son.
Minetest is good, very good.
A well done job, and a big thanks to all developers.
My son played many hours with Minetest, but still asked for MineCraft, so I bought it.
And as I compare them ...

In this discussion, I must agree that MineCraft has a serious avantage to MineTest.
You don't have to be a IT'er to install it or to use it.

It is fantastic that you can change MineTest as you wish.
Everyone can contribute with mods, ...
You can change the installed mods to your wishes.

But that is also the problem with MineTest.
I had a lot of concernes/problems installing mods:
- Changing the name of the upzipped directory.
- Placing the directory in the correct place.
- Mods won't play, errors.
Upgrading MineTest to 4.11:
- Installed mods are gone. Very confusing to a child.
- Catalogue mods shows mods that will not install. Also very confusing to a child.
- Newly installed mods from the catalogue give errors on variables.

I can search and solve these problems.
But that is not what a child wants, he just wants to play.
Check or uncheck a mod: done.

So to the question why MineTest is less used than MineCraft:
MineTest has to evolve to a userfriendly environment.
Not everyone is a IT'er (I am one myself) .

I just want to give some pointers (not critic):
- the graphics and the sound are important to a child
-- maybe there could be a subgroup to MineTest that could assist developpers in adding graphics and sounds. Divide graphics and sound in categories, connected to certain biomes.
- animals are available (thanks to for example Mob Framework (Sapier)), but I must agree also here the graphics and the sound are important to a child.
- the mods catalogue could be divided in 3 or more tabs/groups
-- 1 = tested and adapted with sound and graphics and approved for mayor release
-- 2 = ...
-- 3 = not tested/experimental
- if a mod needs other mods, install them also automatic and activate only the items in the other mods that are needed.

In the forums and the answers I read a lot "you can change, you can download, ...".
Indeed, I can change things and I can download other files.
But to a child, if he has to do all that, it is not a game, it is a puzzle.

Sorry if I have offended someone with my response.
But that is what is missing in MineTest.
A solid, stable and easy to use environment, certainly for a child.