Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan

gamingonlinux.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 177 posts

Re: Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan

#131

Post by cogman10 »

willis936 wrote: post #104
barrkel wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it crazy? Any rewrite that would be as flexible wrt mods would be shaped similarly.

Java garbage collection gets out of control when cramming 100+ poorly optimized mods together. The bedrock edition is great in theory but the proper mod API never appeared. Regardless, people have accomplished some really impressive stuff with commands, but it is an exercise in pain. The other issue with bedrock is it is far from feature parity with java. If these two things were hit then java could be reasonably ret…

Java garbage collection is what's allowing those 100+ poorly optimize mods to be functional at the same time in the first place.

Games with robust modding will almost always feature a garbage collected language which is what's primarily used for the modding.

Consider this, if the mod interface was C/C++, do you think those poorly optimized mods could be trusted to also not leak memory?

Re: Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan

#132

Post by NeveHanter »

hobofan wrote: post #80
hastily3114 wrote: post #78

Why are they even maintaining two versions of the same game?

Java is for the modding user-base. If they would kill that, there is a good chance that the whole Youtube/Twitch creator ecosystem around the game dies, and with that it's popularity. Bedrock is more performant and more portable across platforms (e.g. on consoles where you couldn't mod anyways).

It won't die. Its not a problem to skip auth checking if at some point MS tries to use kill switch (hopefully EU would make that fully legal in EU if that's not provided by the company).

As for feature parity, there are mods backporting modern features back to 1.7.10.

Java is also portable to all the consoles, its just Microsoft did use that as an argument to try to kill the Java Edition. Nobody prevented Microsoft from adding bedrock like modding to Java Edition.

The only thing that needs to happen is the one single stable mod API for Minecraft Java Edition. The incompatibility between Forge, NeoForge, Fabric, etc. is terrible, but from what I know about some of the folks involved this won't happen as they cannot constructively discuss the matters.

Re: Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan

#135

Post by piperswe »

creatonez wrote: post #86
codingbot3000 wrote: post #69

Microsoft seems to be doing anything they can to get rid of Minecraft Java users having bought a Mojang license in the past. Either they are conspiring against their users, or they just don't care. The dubious Mojang account migration. Their lack of support for kids who got their accounts phished recently. Migrating to Vulkan breaking old hardware. Sad story, but it was to be expected MS bought Mojang.

I'm not super worried that this transition is cutting off hardware too soon. - Vulkan requirement raises the baseline to 2016-2017 hardware. 2017 was 9 years ago. - They're not cutting off OpenGL right away, according to the announcement they will release 26.1 as OpenGL-only, and then at least one more full release where you can choose between the two options. Based on their usual schedule it will probably be at leas…

> - The community can fill in the gaps in multiple ways. Translation layers are available to connect to newer servers with older clients (ViaVersion), as well as with Bedrock clients (GeyserMC). Mods will almost certainly be released to reimplement the rendering engine in OpenGL or GLES. Renewed interest may mean OpenGL 2.0 compatibility mods could come back. Also, Mojang recently liberated Minecraft from variable name obfuscation, so modding will be easier than ever before.

And reimplementing the rendering engine for a different graphics API isn't even unprecedented, because there's a mod (VulkanMod) that reimplements the rendering engine for Vulkan already!

Re: Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan

#136

Post by aleph_minus_one »

cogman10 wrote: post #131
willis936 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java garbage collection gets out of control when cramming 100+ poorly optimized mods together. The bedrock edition is great in theory but the proper mod API never appeared. Regardless, people have accomplished some really impressive stuff with commands, but it is an exercise in pain. The other issue with bedrock is it is far from feature parity with java. If these two things were hit then java could be reasonably ret…

Java garbage collection is what's allowing those 100+ poorly optimize mods to be functional at the same time in the first place. Games with robust modding will almost always feature a garbage collected language which is what's primarily used for the modding. Consider this, if the mod interface was C/C++, do you think those poorly optimized mods could be trusted to also not leak memory?

> Consider this, if the mod interface was C/C++, do you think those poorly optimized mods could be trusted to also not leak memory?

Garbage collection does not solve memory leak problems. For example

- keeping a reference too long,

- much more subtle: having a reference to some object inside some closure

will also cause memory leaks in a garbage-collected language.

The proper solution is to consider what you name "poorly optimized mods" to be highly experimental (only those who are of very high quality can be treated differently).

Re: Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan

#137

Post by permo-w »

wongarsu wrote: post #94
hastily3114 wrote: post #78

Why are they even maintaining two versions of the same game?

As far as I remember the original plan was to only maintain both in a transitional phase, with the aim of fully replacing the Java edition. A simple plan: bring Bedrock to feature parity with Java, add a modding API that satisfies 95% of use cases, then force everyone onto Bedrock. The feature parity is mostly there, but modding in Bedrock seems to have become a non-goal, and Bedrock has so many bugs that if your pla…

Put more simply, a large proportion of the existing playerbase, including most large content creators, despises Bedrock.

Re: Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan

#138

Post by CursedSilicon »

NeveHanter wrote: post #132
hobofan wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java is for the modding user-base. If they would kill that, there is a good chance that the whole Youtube/Twitch creator ecosystem around the game dies, and with that it's popularity. Bedrock is more performant and more portable across platforms (e.g. on consoles where you couldn't mod anyways).

It won't die. Its not a problem to skip auth checking if at some point MS tries to use kill switch (hopefully EU would make that fully legal in EU if that's not provided by the company). As for feature parity, there are mods backporting modern features back to 1.7.10. Java is also portable to all the consoles, its just Microsoft did use that as an argument to try to kill the Java Edition. Nobody prevented Microsoft f…

Wrong kind of death. Taking mods away after a decade and a half of the game being modded inside out would massively reduce the creative scope of the game for players. It would become "boring" and die out

Re: Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan

#139

Post by permo-w »

bombcar wrote: post #114
hastily3114 wrote: post #78

Why are they even maintaining two versions of the same game?

They wanted everything on bedrock but they can’t do it, and losing the Java modding ecosystem would literally kill the game, which remains popular because of all the YouTube content, 90% of which is Java (even unmodded). Much of the cashflow is from kids watching a YouTuber doing something in Java Minecraft and attempting it themselves in bedrock, which is why feature parity is the only thing they’re really working o…

(Not saying you are but) I think people here are overstating modding and understating Bedrock's inferiority for content creation. The bugs, the differing technical surface and redstone logic, the basic missing key technical features from Java, like the F3 menu. Yes modding is a huge factor, but even if they released an amazing Bedrock modding API 3 years ago, Java would still be dominant in the content creation community and therefore still be the lifeblood of the game.

Bedrock is aimed at kids and they've never made any real effort to supplant Java with it. It's just a very effective way of hitting different target markets

Re: Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan

#140

Post by ryandrake »

qiine wrote: post #101
wongarsu wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I remember the original plan was to only maintain both in a transitional phase, with the aim of fully replacing the Java edition. A simple plan: bring Bedrock to feature parity with Java, add a modding API that satisfies 95% of use cases, then force everyone onto Bedrock. The feature parity is mostly there, but modding in Bedrock seems to have become a non-goal, and Bedrock has so many bugs that if your pla…

Such a colossal waste..

I still don’t understand what problem Bedrock Edition solves. I guess it was for consoles that don’t support Java?
Post reply on HN