FPS drop since 4.58

[BlackCat]

I'm honestly unsure of what the issue is here, but on my survival world I've been unable to record (or really play much for that matter) because of some strange FPS issue.

Before 4.58 I was getting 30ish frames while recording and 50+ otherwise.

Now I'm getting around 38 while not recording, and I've not done much to my world in between the versions that could cause this kind of problem, so I'm sort of at a loss here.

I'm not very technically inclined so any help would be great, and I apologize in advance for the lack of details, as this really was sort of out of the blue.

[FlowerChild]

Hmmm...I don't think it would be related, but are you hanging about a snow biome by chance?

It's the only thing I could think of that might have an impact.

Also, if you could try a fresh install just to be safe, I'd be much obliged.

[BlackCat]

Will do, and no my base is not near a snow biome.

Edit: Just ran a fresh install and the FPS issue persists, no mods aside from BTW.

[FlowerChild]

Hmmm...ok. I'll keep it running through the back of my mind in case anything I may have overlooked might be causing this, but unless I hear from others experiencing a similar drop, I'll consider it a system specific issue.

An approximate 20% drop in frame-rate can have a host of causes including background processes on your system and such. Again though, I will continue to mull it over, I just can't pull the alarm bells on a single report :)

[BlackCat]

Thanks man, appreciate the help.

I'll see if I can figure out what I did and if I find a fix I'll post here.

[FlowerChild]

Anything you can do to help narrow it down would be appreciated on my end. Everything from new apps you might have installed on your system, or if you have a similar frame rate drops on fresh worlds.

If you need a copy of 4.57 for comparison purposes, let me know.

[BlackCat]

I'll be fine in that regard, I keep all my old versions (for no real reason)

[FlowerChild]

Hmmmm...I have a bit of a clue here as to what this *might* be, and am looking into how to resolve it ATM. It's potentially related to the snow code, since as I mentioned, I had to fiddle with the game's ray-tracing code to make that happen, and I suspect it may be slowing down a process which is called in a lot of unrelated places even if you aren't in a snow biome.

I'll try to optimize that bit, since I should probably do it anyways, so if you can let me know if your frame-rate goes back up with the next release, I'd be much obliged.

Also, going through my changes for the last release, the only other potential place (and the odds are much lower) I could see this happening is with my villager changes. You didn't happen to have a village, or large number of villagers loaded, when you experienced this drop did you? That one should only have a potential impact (and again...I doubt it anyways), if the villagers themselves are loaded.

[BlackCat]

Yeah I have a ton of villagers, and they are pretty close to my main working area.

I'll keep record of my FPS when they are loaded/unloaded.

And yeah I'll let you know if it improves next release.

[FlowerChild]

Ah, that's very interesting. Yeah, I'd be very interested in knowing if you experience an FPS drop in areas without villagers. It may indicate that I flubbed something in the AI.

[BlackCat]

Flubbed AI doesn't sound pleasant, I'll check it out when I get back.

Thanks again for all the help flower :)

[FlowerChild]

Np man, although my hunches are still leaning towards the snow changes to the ray-tracing code.

One interesting side effect of that, is that if it is indeed the case, it means that code is way more performance sensitive than I anticipated.

If so, I'm becoming quite familiar with the vanilla version, and have already spotted a number of optimizations I could make to it. If this solves your problem, I may just do an optimization pass on Mojang's code for it, with the end result being that in the long run we may be seeing a performance increase come out of this rather than a loss ;)

[FlowerChild]

Any news with 4.59 man? <excitedly runs in circles>

Sorry...I'm rather keen on the potential frame-rate boost I might be able to provide if my hunches are correct :)

[BlackCat]

FPS *seems* to have improved, will do a recording test to see how it goes later on today.

[BlackCat]

Actually, unfortunately, it seems to have stayed pretty much the same with a small amount of improvement.

A few others in the IRC have stated they are having a similar issue, so I'm thinking it has to be something else.

[FlowerChild]

A few others in the IRC have stated they are having a similar issue, so I'm thinking it has to be something else.

Doh! Oh well, must be the villagers then. I'll take a look at that.

Sad part is...no universal frame rate improvements for us then.

[BlackCat]

well shucks, that's disappointing but at least we're problem solving I suppose

anyways, best of luck with finding a fix man

[dawnraider]

I have experienced a similar drop in performance, which I am near a snow biome in both worlds I play,on, and a village is kind of near in both, kind of (a couple hundred blocks) but not likely close enough to cause issues.

[FlowerChild]

Ok guys, I'll finish up the next release then take a serious look at this. I'll need to do it now, or else any performance change will likely get lost in the mass of changes to 1.5.

[ion]

testing was done with latest mcpatcher vanilla textures btw versions 4.59 4.58 4.57 4.56 4.52 same map. 50 villagers nearby no recording test
there was no significant drop or gain switching the versions. there is a significant drop of performance when watching versus a wall of item frames. biggest FPS hogs are items frames with maps in them. removal of item frames got me same FPS at every part of my map.
i can't have the same issues on my system as noir.
further testing needs to be done in a snow biome but i need to switch to creative as i don't have villagers there.

[FlowerChild]

Ok, sorry it took me so long, but I believe I've finally figured this one out, as described in my dev diary thread.

For those of you that have been experiencing this performance drop, if you could try dropping the following file into your minecraft.jar:

http://www.mediafire.com/?255cj23af722t50

with the latest version of BTW installed (4.65), and let me know if that corrects your performance issues, I'd be much obliged.

I suspect I'm on the verge of a discovery here that will result in a performance *increase* in general here, so I'd really appreciate any help you guys can provide by testing it out :)

[JakeZKAM]

Did a quick test on a map I've been making and having some lag issues with and... DAMN IS THERE AN IMPROVEMENT! I always assumed with the kind of game minecraft was that it would run slow on my computer but hell, this is about a 3x improvement when loading chunks. Everything has been loading smoothly chunk by chunk now :)

[savagelung]

I tested in a standard vanilla-generated map. I have several MCpatcher mods installed, but not Better Grass (if that's relevant, anyways).

Pre-patch FPS: 28-30
Post-patch FPS: 30-35

Both times I tested while loading chunks. Occasionally, when traveling long distances, I have needed to relog in order to speed up chunk loading. Chunks load much more smoothly now.

[FlowerChild]

<dances>

So far so good then. Look forward to seeing what this thread looks like in the morning, as I'm getting close to turning in.

Would love to hear from the OP as to whether this resolves it for him. I may not have said anything about it in awhile, but this issue has been gnawing at the back of my skull for around a month now ;)

[ion]

FC this little fix from you improves the FPS a big amount for me.
before i got 21-27 fps when moving and now i get 31-40 when moving.
i've also done the test like stupid jeb ( the tried to prove that there is no drop in FPS in 1.5 by waiting all the chunks to load and posted the FPS) when all chunks are loaded i get now 75-90, while before i was under 60.
you also fixed my most dreaded bug where if you stayed in a place for a while and started moving the new chunks wont load thus giving you a ugly way to see caves underground. very game breaker.

those result are tested with a 32 texture pack with all options from mcpatcher. vanilla pack FPS is a bit higher but not by much.

ignore this:
(also for those that are using texture packs with mcpatcher there is a bug: we don't have anymore animated textures: water, lava flowing water lava, torches etc. vanilla works just fine.
further testing got me that only some texture packs behave like this. newer ones works fine so the fault is from the texture pack not from this update)