[Mod] Farming Redo [1.23] [farming]

[prestidigitator]

(Oops. Nevermind. For some reason Don's post showed at first, but the post he was responding to didn't.)

[prestidigitator]

Okay, so I have a partial and slightly more satisfying answer. I did some very careful testing, and to do so I separated the logic of the update code from the final call to minetest.set_node(), and I did this for both the new timer method and the standard ABM. I decided to test both throughout the lifetime of my 16x16 test wheat field (even though theoretically the standard ABM should perform the same throughout), and test while being present throughout the entire lifetime or leaving for the first few stages of it. Here is what I found:

• Both sets of logic perform about the same. The standard logic and the timer-based logic typically execute in the approximate range 8-12µs per call.
• The standard ABM call to minetest.set_node() takes about 10µs in the beginning.
• The timer-based call to minetest.set_node() takes about 20µs in the beginning. Switching to minetest.swap_node() which doesn't reset metadata or check for construct/destruct callbacks reduces this by about 5µs (didn't try this with the standard ABM).
• Leaving for part of the lifecycle and coming back does not significantly affect either implementation. In fact, the timer-based logic tends to run at its maximum performance of about 7µs per call when you return (it does execute more frequently for a short period though, as the timers of all the nodes catch up; this can then be made up for later because there are that many fewer growth stages left to do). It also doesn't seem to adversely affect minetest.set_node(); the impact on that is somewhat independent of player presence or absence, and is instead affected by...
• The performance of all code, but of minetest.set_node() in particular, drops over the lifetime of the plants. This is true for both the standard ABM and for the timer-based implementation. When most plants are fully grown (say, 1400+ growth stages out of 1792 for my 16x16 test wheat field), the standard ABM can easily take 40µs or more per call including both the logic and minetest.set_node(), and the timer-based implementation can easily take 50µs or more.

Why the minetest.set_node() call take different times from the ABM vs. the timer, why it slows down over time/number of calls or the reduction of the frequency of calls due to fewer plants still growing, and whether it's the active time of the map node or the number of node replacements or what, are still mysteries. But these results are promising for the viability of updates while absent, at least compared to simple ABM updates, even though they are not very flattering to the game logic of the Minetest engine.

I may go back and use the same testing methodology to characterize the metadata-based ABM, now that I understand at least roughly what is causing the slowdown, and that it is not necessarily related to the plant update logic.

[Kilarin]

Why the minetest.set_node() call take different times from the ABM vs. the timer, why it slows down over time/number of calls or the reduction of the frequency of calls due to fewer plants still growing, and whether it's the active time of the map node or the number of node replacements or what, are still mysteries.

Does this need to be opened as a bug report for minetest?

[prestidigitator]

Does this need to be opened as a bug report for minetest?

Don't know. I suppose it could be due to some kind of memory leak or something, which would qualify as a bug. But it could also be an inefficient datastructure or some property of the Lua interpreter. While it's possible performance could be enhanced if that's the case, it probably doesn't really count as a bug. Still, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try, if someone wants to report it. It's possible a dev might feel like investigating the behavior....

[prestidigitator]

I've committed the timer-based implementation and done a pretty good amount of testing. I believe it might be ready to pull/integrate. TenPlus1, if you could take another look at it and possibly test again on your server, I'd appreciate it. Below is a description of the final test I ran to compare this to the existing code.

Test Procedure

1. Setup: Clear the test map block, its immediate neighbors, and all blocks in a vertical column from those upward of plants. Create a 16x16 floor of wet dirt within the test block. Remove all "artificial" lighting so only the sun affects plants in the area. In init.lua, turn on (uncomment) "farming.DEBUG = {}".
2. Test Start: Set the time of day to the current trial's "start time" using the "/time" command. Instantaneously clear and then set all nodes above the wet dirt floor to "farming:wheat_1" (I did this using the luacmd mod). Also clear statistics using farming.DEBUG.reset_times().
3. Wait for the current trial's listed "present" percent of a plant's average lifespan.
4. Using fast move, fly straight up until at least two map blocks higher than the plants (first time, confirm you are high enough by verifying that farming.DEBUG.report_times() doesn't change).
5. Wait until twice a plant's average lifespan has passed since the start of the test. (Almost) all growth should theoretically be complete at this point (for the timer-based solution).
6. Test End: Descend to the level of the plants, and repeatedly call farming.DEBUG.report_times() until it doesn't change over the period of at least 3 average growth stage lengths. This indicates the plants are done growing, the test is complete, and the reported times are correct for the trial.

I also set the average growth stage length to 20 seconds for this test (by setting the ABM interval to 10 for the ABM-based solution and STAGE_LENGTH_AVG to 20 for the timer-based solution). This fit the maximum lifespan of the plants into a single daylight period and made the length of each trial tolerable (around 4-6 minutes).

Data

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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                      ||           Standard ABM           ||            Timers                |
| Present | Start Time || Time (ms) | Runs | Time/run (µs) || Time (ms) | Runs | Time/run (µs) |
+---------+------------++-----------+------+---------------++-----------+------+---------------+
|  100%   |   10000    ||   43.9    | 1792 |     24.5      ||   64.5    | 1792 |     36.0      |
|   75%   |   10000    ||   45.0    | 1792 |     25.1      ||   40.1    | 1407 |     28.5      |
|   50%   |   10000    ||   44.7    | 1792 |     24.9      ||   30.8    | 1023 |     30.1      |
|   25%   |   10000    ||   46.3    | 1792 |     25.8      ||   17.9    |  570 |     31.4      |
|    0%   |   10000    ||   47.2    | 1792 |     26.3      ||    9.6    |  264 |     36.3      |
|  100%   |    4000    ||   53.1    | 2950 |     18.0      ||   64.0    | 2922 |     21.9      |
|   75%   |    4000    ||   54.4    | 3091 |     17.6      ||   28.4    | 1596 |     17.8      |
|   50%   |    4000    ||   47.9    | 2676 |     17.9      ||   12.9    |  977 |     13.2      |
|   25%   |    4000    ||   47.0    | 2293 |     20.5      ||    9.4    |  580 |     16.2      |
|    0%   |    4000    ||   43.1    | 1792 |     24.1      ||    8.6    |  256 |     33.6      |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


• Present: The percent of average plant lifetime the player remains present until departing the area.
• Start Time: The time-of-day set using the "/time" command at the start of the test.
• Standard ABM: Data collected while running the standard, existing Farming Redo ABM-based updates (from commit e1df7aa).
• Timers: Data collected while running the new, timer-based updates.
• Time (ms): Total execution time of the (ABM or timer) update method call, added across all runs from test start to test end.
• Runs: The number of times the (ABM or timer) update method was called, from test start to test end.
• Time/run (µs): The time one (ABM or timer) update method took to execute, averaged over all runs from test start to test end.

Analysis/Conclusion

The timer-based solution is about 50% slower than the ABM-based solution while plants are growing (in sufficient light) and while the player is present. For 256 growing plants this comes to about 20 extra milliseconds of total server time spread across their entire lifespans (at least on the machine I used to test it). For all other test scenarios, the timer-based solution is either roughly equal to or faster when considering server execution time as a resource.

The timer-based solution also allows plants to grow while the player is away from the area. In fact, it's more efficient that way. This should encourage players to engage in other activities while the plants grow.

Finally, the timer-based solution spreads growth out in a continuous pattern. Instead of half of the plants in an area suddenly all advancing in unison, a plant or two will grow by a single stage every once in a while. This not only provides a more "organic" feel to watching the grass grow, but spreads the execution of the update method out so it frequently takes a small amount of time instead of infrequently taking lots of time. This should, in general, be good for server lag. There is one case when all timers will execute at once in a batch: when a map block is activated and timers have to catch up to the amount of time that has elapsed (ABMs seem to do a similar thing, ignoring their normal statistical chance of execution). If the elapsed time includes periods of sufficient light for plant growth, the implementation should make up for this extra time with fewer growth stages later.

[ronnietucker]

If its a map chunk that you want to regent do
/deleteblocks here.

This will regenerate the chunk and plants should grow.
Do not do it in areas that have thing built.

Thanks for the reply.

Roughly how far from built stuff should I be before doing the /deleteblocks ?

I've only really built in one area, but I'd like to keep that area if possible.

[Don]

I am pretty sure a map chunk is 80 nodes each way. If you test it in an area far enough away from buildings then you should be able to see.

[ronnietucker]

I am pretty sure a map chunk is 80 nodes each way. If you test it in an area far enough away from buildings then you should be able to see.

Turns out you can choose the area by doing something like:

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/deleteblocks (-83,15,-51) (-150,14,-113)

Thanks!

[TenPlus1]

A brand new farming routine has been added with the hard work from prestidigitator that allows crops to grow even when the player is far away from his/her farm...

[prestidigitator]

A brand new farming routine has been added with the hard word from prestidigitator which allows crops to grow even when the player is far away from his/her farm...

Cool. It's a great mod. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to contribute.

[TenPlus1]

Hopefully I'll be adding it to Xanadu server later today for full testing with a playerbase...

[Kilarin]

A brand new farming routine has been added with the hard word from prestidigitator

Huzzah!!!!

And thank you BOTH very much!

[cHyper]

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00:50:48: ERROR[main]: ========== ERROR FROM LUA ===========
00:50:48: ERROR[main]: Failed to load and run script from
00:50:48: ERROR[main]: C:\Users\chyper\Documents\minetest\win64\bin\..\games\cHy
per\mods\farming\init.lua:
00:50:48: ERROR[main]: ...etest\win64\bin\..\games\cHyper\mods\farming/pumpkin.l
ua:78: attempt to perform arithmetic on field 'LIGHT_MAX' (a nil value)
00:50:48: ERROR[main]: stack traceback:
00:50:48: ERROR[main]:  ...etest\win64\bin\..\games\cHyper\mods\farming/pumpkin.
lua:78: in main chunk
00:50:48: ERROR[main]:  [C]: in function 'dofile'
00:50:48: ERROR[main]:  ...minetest\win64\bin\..\games\cHyper\mods\farming\init.
lua:61: in main chunk
00:50:48: ERROR[main]: ======= END OF ERROR FROM LUA ========

[TenPlus1]

cHyper: Farming Redo runs fine and has been tailored to run on Minetest 0.4.12 and above, so please double-check which version of Minetest you are running and also use the latest Farming Redo...

[TenPlus1]

Farming Redo 1.20b now works with Minetest 0.4.13 changes...

[Silwncer]

Do i need mod for that armor ?

[TenPlus1]

Version 1.21 out today with a new auto-refill feature for when you are planting crops... Thanks crabman77 :)

[zzantozz]

I wanted to try this out, but it's crashing in the init script. I'm on Ubuntu with minetest 0.4.11. I started a new minetest (not minimal) world with the v6 generator, and when I enable it, it fails to start with the below message. I'm pretty new to minetest. Is it ok to load a mod that conflicts with the name of an existing one like this, especially a built-in one? Should I be building from a minimal world instead?

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18:56:21: ACTION[main]: WARNING: Mod name conflict detected: "farming"
18:56:21: ACTION[main]: Will not load: /usr/share/games/minetest/games/minetest_game/mods/farming
18:56:21: ACTION[main]: Overridden by: /home/ryan/.minetest/mods/farming
18:56:21: ERROR[main]: ========== ERROR FROM LUA ===========
18:56:21: ERROR[main]: Failed to load and run script from
18:56:21: ERROR[main]: /home/ryan/.minetest/mods/farming/init.lua:
18:56:21: ERROR[main]: /home/ryan/.minetest/mods/farming/pumpkin.lua:78: attempt to perform arithmetic on field 'LIGHT_MAX' (a nil value)
18:56:21: ERROR[main]: stack traceback:
18:56:21: ERROR[main]:    /home/ryan/.minetest/mods/farming/pumpkin.lua:78: in main chunk
18:56:21: ERROR[main]:    [C]: in function 'dofile'
18:56:21: ERROR[main]:    /home/ryan/.minetest/mods/farming/init.lua:62: in main chunk
18:56:21: ERROR[main]: ======= END OF ERROR FROM LUA ========
18:56:21: ERROR[main]: Server: Failed to load and run /home/ryan/.minetest/mods/farming/init.lua
18:56:21: ERROR[main]: ModError: ModError: Failed to load and run /home/ryan/.minetest/mods/farming/init.lua


[benrob0329]

I'm pretty sure you need to use a vertion of MT 0.4.12+ (.13 is better) which can be obtained via the Minetest Stable PPA (check the download page on minetest.net)

[zzantozz]

I'm pretty sure you need to use a vertion of MT 0.4.12+ (.13 is better) which can be obtained via the Minetest Stable PPA (check the download page on minetest.net)

I shall give that a try. Thanks for the quick reply!

[zzantozz]

I got 0.4.13 from the PPA, and it works fine. Thanks again. It might be good to mention the version requirement in the top post. Many of the mods seem to do that.

[Echoes91]

May I ask why this mod still uses the old textures for wheat and seeds?
I think that the default ones have quite improved.

[TenPlus1]

Thanks for letting me know echoes91, will update the mod textures with those of the default game...

[TenPlus1]

Updated to version 1.22, added Grapes and Trellis to grow them on (craft trellis with 9 sticks). Wild grape bushels are found at higher climates.

[cessna151]

Does anyone have a recipe/cook list for this mod?

[ufa]

I saw that this mod have the same directory name as the original mod (farming). Is it supposed to superseed it? Or should I rename and keep 2 farming directories?

[Don]

I saw that this mod have the same directory name as the original mod (farming). Is it supposed to superseed it? Or should I rename and keep 2 farming directories?

Keep the name "farming". It will work fine with the default farming mod.

[TenPlus1]

Keep the directory as 'farming' as it replaces the default farming with farming redo.

[redblade7]

I can't get cotton seeds to go past Stage 1, it's been half an Earth day and I've planted them in a lot of places, hoeing the ground first (they become extremely hard to see as the regular green dirt takes over and the cotton plant does not grow).

[firefox]

I can't get cotton seeds to go past Stage 1, it's been half an Earth day and I've planted them in a lot of places, hoeing the ground first (they become extremely hard to see as the regular green dirt takes over and the cotton plant does not grow).

do you also have a water source near them?
all plants do not only need soil, but also water.

without water they won't grow and eventually the soil will dry, revert to normal dirt and grow grass.