not sure if anyones yet announced this, but he's now also working on an SMP mod too

http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/310298-173robintons-mods/

so full scale skyscrapers are now possible, only downside is though that above 256m you wont see the top!

Pointless being that tall, most builds don't reach the current limit, so practically no ones builds would get anywhere near 4096 tall. Id hate to think about how much more thrashing hard drives would take and how much more CPU Usage there would be.

Hmmm thats true, but still it would be insanely cool to create one large city scraper

Pointless being that tall, most builds don't reach the current limit, so practically no ones builds would get anywhere near 4096 tall. Id hate to think about how much more thrashing hard drives would take and how much more CPU Usage there would be.

Stucuk

although i'm running a hex core 3.3 ghz with 16gb corsair ram, it probably aint much of a test in singleplayer but the only thing i noticed was when building a 1x1 into the air, at 128Y there was a very brief (almost unoticable) stutter.

in the mods defence though, by changing the chunks to 16 blocks tall (Y axis) as opposed to the full 128x16x16 as set by notch, i did infact notice a slight increase in chunk loading times, and also my memory overhead was roughly the same, if not less than normal.

this guy could be onto something....

oh and to add "about most people's builds". last map rdeedfrey and i had to dig to bedrock to be able to even get close to a 90% scale London Gherkin. would be nice to be able to build it at ground level rather than creating a man made chunk error to accommodate.

you know me mate, i like my big builds, it accommodates for my small weiner

Hmmm thats true, but still it would be insanely cool to create one large city scraper

ninjanpirate

you may want to look here for the ultimate sky scraper world

http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/147345-mapmoderncraft-city-v7beta-173height-modhuge-skyscrapers/

he's not made a gherkin yet though perhaps i should send him my mcedit version

you know me mate, i like my big builds, it accommodates for my small weiner

diablothe2nd

Oh... I never knew... Sorry about your misfortune.

Think of the chunk loading times!!

well that looks like one damn funky map, but maybe a skylimit around 2000 would be more appropriate 4000 does still seem just a little over the top

I thought 1.8 was introducing variable height limits (512 max), or did I read that wrong. I'm too lazy to go find my sources right now.

No, you're right, beags. Rumors have it that 1.8 will introduce a variable y-limit up to 512.

Broonie has expressed a lot of interest in going to a 256 sky limit on the next map.

The variable sky limit is going to be capped at 512. This value is selected at map generation time, so whatever Broonie initially starts the map height at, that is what we are stuck at for that map.

Even just doubling the current 128 sky limit can make for some amazing potential for building tall stuff. There is a drawback, though, if you double the map height, you theoretically double the amount of data that needs to be sent to each client on multiplayer, and double the RAM usage. Each chunk is gzipped (compressed) on the server just prior to transmission to clients, and air blocks theoretically compress heavily, so the network load won't be much of an issue, but it takes processor time and RAM to decompress and use those chunks. I guess a test map just after 1.8 is released will be needed?

Also, there is no mention as to whether or not the sea level is modifiable, so if we go with a 256 sky limit, we might be stuck with 128 of ground and 128 of sky, which I guess would be ok, if we knew for sure the amount of ores in the ground (diamond, gold, iron) also doubled per chunk. If not, thats a LOT of stone to move to find the same resources as a 128-limit map. If we can adjust sea level to the standard 65 on a 256 sky limit map, that means we have around 190 block high structures we can build. That would be awesome.

actually that part of what you said about blocks probably adds credence to why i see no noticeable change in performance with the mod at 4096. the terrain generation algorithms haven't been changed, water is still at y64 and no terrain is generated above it's usual height either.

this however could be changed as someone has attempted to merge the Pheonix Terrain mod with this one to have terrain heights into the 1000's of y values. its is glitchy and the developer of Pheonix has had many family issues and stopped work on, which is a damned shame.

i realise notch is working on this too but i cant seem to find any hints as to whether terrain max height will also change. If not, then the only extra traffic to the server will be those highly compressed air blocks. If someone builds a sky fortress, and if said fortress is so high that someone at ground level isn't in range for the chunks to be loaded, then that data wont be needed. Of course that's presuming notch goes for the same Y chunk height change to a 16x16x16 cube.

if that does turn out to be the case, it may actually benefit the server to go to the max height. people can then freely build sky fortresses that are hidden to people stood at ground level, creating less load.

Notch has indicated that the terrain generator is not optimized for 512 yet, and produces odd results sometimes. He included a screen shot of it as well. So that tells me that when selecting a higher map height, the terrain height also increases. I hope that he includes a terrain average height setting, though.

Believe it or not, my house reaches 128. I was upset when i coudnt let it go any higher

if that does turn out to be the case, it may actually benefit the server to go to the max height. people can then freely build sky fortresses that are hidden to people stood at ground level, creating less load.

diablothe2nd

How would it reduce load? The server would have to have more chunks loaded into memory if people are both in the higher bits and on the ground. So the server will have to do more work.

Increasing the Height increases the load, it can't reduce it because the server will have to do more because people will be in more chunks at the same time.

How would it reduce load? The server would have to have more chunks loaded into memory if people are both in the higher bits and on the ground. So the server will have to do more work.

Stucuk

I think he meant that after said sky fortresses had been built, and unloaded, when people walk under them on the surface, they would remain unloaded - thus reducing load.

it sounds fun to jump down from the new skylimit. too bad that you get kicked for flyhaxing if you do tho

actually that part of what you said about blocks probably adds credence to why i see no noticeable change in performance with the mod at 4096. the terrain generation algorithms haven't been changed, water is still at y64 and no terrain is generated above it's usual height either.

this however could be changed as someone has attempted to merge the Pheonix Terrain mod with this one to have terrain heights into the 1000's of y values. its is glitchy and the developer of Pheonix has had many family issues and stopped work on, which is a damned shame.

i realise notch is working on this too but i cant seem to find any hints as to whether terrain max height will also change. If not, then the only extra traffic to the server will be those highly compressed air blocks. If someone builds a sky fortress, and if said fortress is so high that someone at ground level isn't in range for the chunks to be loaded, then that data wont be needed. Of course that's presuming notch goes for the same Y chunk height change to a 16x16x16 cube.

if that does turn out to be the case, it may actually benefit the server to go to the max height. people can then freely build sky fortresses that are hidden to people stood at ground level, creating less load.

diablothe2nd

Following your theory, setting the height lower would create even less load, since it would opt-out the 'highly compressed' air blocks.

Instead of a tower of (16x16x16) x y blocks, a tower of (16x16x16) x x blocks would still be better. Where x is a lower value of y. Since the chunks won't be loaded at all, nor stored to disk, or ramdisk, or whatever there stored too. Remember, more chunks, more I/O, more CPU time. CPU time is what Minecrafts bad at, so the less CPU time, the better. Especially when its all in one big thread like it is just now.

fair point there Broons.

iirc minecrafts view distance on far is a cubic radius of 16 blocks (256)? at a 256 height limit that means you'd see everything up to the sky limit, while with 512 there would be a remaining 192 blocks outside the view distance. this is assuming the ground/sea level remains at 64.

I guess my point was that given a choice between say 256, and 512, both of which would require more cpu, ram and i/o my theory of a 512 would be (in theory) only a small fraction more resource hungry at a 256 limit as the highest chunks would remain unloaded when no ones there.

khar, your answer to stu is correct

i'm keen to put this on a test server and monitor the differences. wonder how he's doing with the bukkit plugin for Cubic Chunks.

oh! you've also got to think on the flip side.

if alot of people congregate on a sky fortress, the chunks below them will eventually get unloaded, so that's pretty much all ground and minerals to the berock that wont need to be considered, and that person in the air will mostly be receiving compressed air blocks instead of full terrain information.

While the client may only be displaying blocks in the sky/on the ground, the server still has to have both loaded. They aren't separated like that. As far as the server would be concerned, the map would be divided into 16x16x512 block chunks.
It's the strain on the server that's far more important than the strain on the client.

It's the strain on the server that's far more important than the strain on the client.

Discharge

Especially when everything is in a single thread.

CPU time to a minecraft server is like pure gold.

@diablothe2nd: Servers are unlikely to unload chunks unless no one has been near a chunk for X amount of minutes. Otherwise it would cause alot of load when players move about due to the constant loading/unloading when a player moves. They don't unload chunks just because no one can see them.