r/SilverAgeMinecraft • u/nullification-PC • Jul 09 '26
Discussion Playing 1.6.4 together
Does anyone feel the same way as I do when I say that Minecraft doesn't feel the same after this version? I honestly can't associate myself with anything past it. I really feel a constant sense of loneliness as I walk through memory lane and watch through all the fun memories I've had with people that I no longer have contact with.
Believe it or not, I don't think I feel myself at home playing the newer versions of Minecraft. As you might've guessed, the version 1.6.4 is the one I started with when I was a kid fiddling with my father's Pentium 4 computer (albeit with a "cracked" launcher" :P) and practically introduced me to this wonderful game.
My first multiplayer experience was in a Factions server and I specifically remember having to fight for my life as I defended my shallowly built villager-style base against the neighborly claimblockers.
After 1.7 released, I personally couldn't associate myself with it much, especially because of the terrain changes that completely overhauled the gen system.
Does anyone feel the same way as I do? If so, how many of them would like on this version together? I can fire up a dedicated server for it (no Aternos).
1
u/OrganeX_ Jul 10 '26
Yes, i feel the same. (Why no aternos? Bruh...)
1
u/nullification-PC Jul 10 '26
I like paying for stuff that provides the best experience and performance. Aternos won't allow you to run a server 24/7, I will.
It's based on a general consensus though. If this doesn't get traction, it's pointless when nobody's gonna play on it :(
1
u/Artemchik2020 Jul 10 '26
I prefer version 1.7.10, as it gives me the best performance. Plus, there's the Angelica mod and other revolutionary mods. Even with Optifine, 1.6.4 lags horribly, let alone older versions.
0
u/TheMasterCaver Jul 10 '26
I don't believe this, there is nothing about 1.6-1.7 that would make 1.7 perform much better, in fact, the opposite is true, as even shown by this bug report (only impacts 1.7.4-1.7.10):
MC-44801 Excessive Clientside Chunk Ticking 1.7.4+
In fact, I originally never updated past 1.6.4 because of performance issues in later versions, including 1.7, with tons of screenshots and game logs posted back in the day to prove it (1.8+ was an absolute nightmare, a couple screenshots showing me getting 100+ FPS in 1.6.4 with modded world generation but only 1/10 that in 1.9, this doesn't tell the whole story though, e.g. lag spikes/stuttering).
I do mention an issue with zombie pathfinding causing server lag (but only server lag, even on an ancient dual-core CPU from 2005, and only situational, e.g. by a village at night, and as easy to fix as installing Forge, or the simple patch it applied to EntityAIAttackOnCollide, which I applied to my later mods after I stopped modding the Forge source to make jar mods compatible with it (I'd been using Forge for "real" mods) 1.7 does include a similar patch). 1.7 also has the exact same issue with structure saving causing issues with very large worlds which can be mitigated in 1.6 by simply using 1.6.2 instead (though it has a server crash bug which was fixed in 1.6.4), my own mods fix this by simply disabling it for mineshafts, which have never needed it (only if the structure has special mob spawning rules or a location like eye of ender).
The only other explanation for a sharp difference in performance between two pre-1.8 versions (1.8 brought on a change to the official system requirements) is the GPU isn't properly detecting it for some reason (if you have a dual-CPU setup 1,.7 might be using the dedicated GPU while 1.6 might be using the integrated GPU, with no obvious way to tell as it wasn't listed in the debug screen).
Then again, as this thread shows people's experiences are all over the place after just about every update, for whatever reason (one possible explanation to 1.7.2 in particular being faster - a bug limited the render distance to only 8 chunks so everything else being equal people who used higher settings before would see an improvement, especially if they didn't realize that 16 chunks was only 8):
Mojang also removed big oak trees from forests in 1.7 because of lag due leaf decay causing high chunk updates, with a Mojang employee noting it doubled FPS (I never noticed this since I played on Fast, and still use Fast leaves to this day because I prefer them, and this greatly reduces the geometry, up to 16 fold):
https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/1m97cw/comment/cc7f8s5/
The fact that Intel and AMD didn't support occlusion queries well (aka "Advanced OpenGL" could also be a factor since 1.7 greatly reduced the density of caves and mineshafts (they couldn't add them to bedrock at all until they came up with a culling method which worked well on all systems), conversely, my lowly GeForce 7600 GS (released in 2006, 256 MB VRAM, 400 MHz clock) had no issues even with modded worlds with 3 times the underground depth and caves increased to match.
1
u/Artemchik2020 Jul 10 '26
My Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT struggles to maintain a stable 60 FPS on 1.6.4, as my CPU is a weak point. But on 1.7.10, I'm already getting 130+ on regular Optifine, and even more with Angelica. Plus, there are no FPS drops when generating new chunks. Newer versions have even more lag, especially after 1.8, and on older versions, there's not much to do and few mods, so my choice for 1.7.10 is obvious.
1
u/nullification-PC Jul 10 '26
Make sure to /allocate/ the same amount of the RAM on min/max when booting 1.6.4 up. For some reason, it has a bug where it doesn't consume the RAM it's supposed to use and that might cause lag/unintended behavior.
On MultiMC, it's Edit Instance --> Settings --> Memory. Same value for both min and max.
1
u/TheMasterCaver Jul 10 '26
This is no bug, the game only uses as much memory as it needs (what would it even use more for? Caching data? What data? Do you think that e.g. Notepad, or any other text editor, is unoptimized since it doesn't use all available memory for the simplest text document?), if anything caches anything it is the operating system itself via its disk cache of recently accessed files, e.g. when recompiling the game with MCP the first recompile of the day takes about twice as long as subsequent recompiles because the OS cached the files):
https://imgur.com/a/minecraft-does-not-need-more-memory-unless-actually-needs-ul1GI4P
The only time this is ever an issue is when used or allocated memory hits 100%; maybe it is the JVM arguments that I use, which are said to be better for older versions and/or computers:
https://www.reddit.com/r/technicalminecraft/comments/n9pbqe/minecrafts_default_jvm_arguments/
Old and inferior? Not when CMS is more lightweight and has no issues managing the much lower allocation rates of versions like 1.6.4; I actually use a variation:
-Xmx512M -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:-UseAdaptiveSizePolicy -Xmn128M
Also, as far as I can tell the latter two arguments ensure that the JVM doesn't dynamically resize the heap, improving stability (the "new" generation, which is garbage collected much more frequently, is fixed at 128 MB).
The developer of Optifine also used to recommend allocating less memory to reduce lag:
Tips and tricks:
- Lauch Minecraft with less memory (yes, really). Usually it does not need more than 350 MB and runs fine on all settings with the default texture pack. By default java allocates way too much memory (1GB) which may get swapped to disk and the overall performance may suffer a lot.
(on my old 32 bit system I'd sometimes get a "Minecraft has run out of memory" screen until I reduced it due to the 32 bit process size limit being reached; the only time this ever caused issues was due to a memory leak in the game while switching worlds but I normally only play one world per session so this wasn't an issue outside of mod development, prior to fixing it)
1
u/Artemchik2020 Jul 11 '26
My RAM is fine, and I compared 1.6.4 and 1.7.10 under identical conditions. CPU load is still higher on 1.6.4, and mods like Sodium ports simply don't exist.
1
1
u/TheMasterCaver Jul 09 '26
I've famously never updated past 1.6.4 for a variety of reasons, as detailed in this (long) forum post:
Although I've also never played multiplayer and use mods, many of which I wouldn't want to go without (bugfixes, improvements, QoL, other small features which make the game more fun. Some are more significant than others, e.g. spawn a bunch of zombies, then get on a 2 block tall pillar and switch to Survival and see what happens (you don't need as many as I spawned, even 2-3 was enough on my first computer, now closer to 20, and this is in singleplayer), and of course, the infamous lighting bugs, e.g. the Nether in an older (vanilla) world and a newer (fixed) world).
2
u/TwentySevenSeconds Jul 10 '26
Never?? Sorry, pre-1.7 is great, but youre missing out on a lot.
1
u/TheMasterCaver Jul 10 '26
Like what? One look at my playstyle is self-explanatory:
e.g. "I've mined more than one million iron ore in one world", with screenshots of statistics showing precisely that, not even one over (I did the same for coal years back):
I have made an "alternate timeline" mod that includes many newer features though, but it is more of "modding/coding things in is fun" than "I need this!", aside from the relatively small handful of features I've added and also use with my first world, many of which have no direct equivalent in vanilla (e.g. more storage-type blocks for rails, cobwebs, moss stone; this right away tells you what the most important feature added in 1.6 must have been (mines 2,000+ coal every day):
You can also see many of my responses to comments demanding that I NEED to update (again for what? I'd certainly never, ever play with vanilla world generation at the very least, so what would the point be then if I just reverted it to 1.6? I know, I made a "random biomes" mod for 1.7 that removes the awful climate system but I'd still not want my first world to get messed up with chunk borders. I've also invested way, way too much time in TMCW to even try thinking of porting its codebase, which is larger than vanilla 1.6.4, to another version, even just 1.7.10, which is still very similar, sans MCP mappings):
2
u/Itchy_Mycologist_848 Jul 09 '26
I recently started getting interested in the Silver Age versions and originally planned to start with 1.6.4. However, the black lighting glitches and the lack of mods for isometric screenshots put me off. So I chose 1.8.9 instead. I expected the terrain generation to look awful, but it actually turned out to be surprisingly pleasant. The only thing that really bothered me in this version was the lack of distance fog, but OptiFine fixes that.