Optimization update is out
Another update in infdev: http://www.minecraft.net/infdev/
Level generator:
The level generator is about twice as fast now. This can be optimized further..
And I kind of changed it in the process, heh. :D
The big fix here was to make it pull entire chunks of raw data from the noise function rather than just one sample at
a time.
Unfortunately, splitting it out into an asynchronous thing caused massive problems (monsters falling down
into nothing, then getting stuck in ground when the land suddenly appeared, rendering glitches, even more uneven
framerate, problems with saving/loading maps while it was generating), so I ended up ditching that.
Saving to disk is much less aggressive now, but this means that the game pauses for longer when quitting or switching map, as it has to save out more unsaved chunks. I can do a lot of tweaks to this, such as saving entities and level data separately.
Monster spawner:
The maximum number of monsters and animals is the same, but they should spawn
much slower now, both increasing performance on slow computers and tweaking the balance a bit.
The huge groups of
monsters will get tweaked as well. Some of them fit in groups, others should be solo, I will tweak the count per
monster type.
Also, I fixed a couple of major bugs in the spawning code which let them spawn in bright areas.. Sorry about that.
Miscellaneous Fixes:
Planted trees now use the correct tree type.
The pathfinder no longer leads mobs over cliffs in certain areas of the map (negative coordinates)
Finally, a warning:
Don’t delete the level you’re currently playing. It won’t
explode your computer or anything, but it will produce strange results.