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[Java Edition] Performance Enhancements For Minecraft Servers (Multithreading?)

Performance is a serious issue for servers, and since the release of 1.13 the issues preventing servers from upgrading only seem to rise. Adding multithreading support will allow for Minecraft Servers to be able to upgrade to 1.14, which is known to have issues with chunk loading and lighting. 

The inability to use more than one thread is a huge restriction for servers. There are certain processes that can and should be done in parallel, some ideas are below. Server software like Spigot and PaperSpigot has implemented some of these, but others require such far reaching changes to Minecraft that only Mojang can implement it and have it work for everyone.

Some things that should be added include

  1. multithreaded chunk loading
  2. multithreaded chunk generation
  3. per-dimension tick threads, with synchronization on going through a portal
  4. chunk serialization and gzipping for saving to disk to be done in a separate thread
  5. an option to make lighting not calculated server side
  6. all mobs AI should be ticked simultaneously, this includes mob pathing to players and other things
  7. move as much packet handling as possible to the netty thread
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  • 7
    Registered User commented
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    This is a must. It isn't 2009 anymore. Multi-threaded CPUs are the norm, Mojang not adding this after ELEVEN years is just rediculous. It would fix lag for so many servers.

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    This is way more important than any content update that mojang could ever add and I would be willing to put several major updates off for this.

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    There are many redstone machines and mods in use on my server, such as OpenCubicChunks mod, but because the server does not support multi threading, TPS is very low and often crashes. If multithreading is added, it will solve many delays and improve TPS

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    Absolutely needs to happen, getting frame drops with CPU and GPU usage maxing at 22%. In any other title it'd be entirely unacceptable to not actually change this, but here we are years after launch with mega corp Microsoft owning the title, and awful optimisation. Some real scalability across cores even just on a CPU level, not even GPU, would improve the game's performance and thus the game as a whole. Being able to see things at a long distance should have been a feature of minecraft a long time ago, but as we've seen with the master chief collection it's better to fix something late than never.

  • 3
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    Beneficial for everyone

  • 2
    Registered User commented
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    This is something I and dozens of dedicated builders deal with constantly. It’s very annoying to get work done when we have a crowd of people online, this is a vital update for the small communities that make Minecraft so special.

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    +1 As a server owner, we really need to be able to go to higher versions again.

  • 2
    Registered User commented
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    Just a note on this: 1.14.4 already made lighting, world generation and chunk loading async (separate thread). It comes at the cost of making it slower when there is a single thread due to extra overhead of making sure it works correctly.

    Per dimension thread seem feasible but ultimately shouldn't be necessary.

    Chunk gzipping and saving used to be separate thread in 1.12.2 but that got removed due to the possibility of duplication exploits it caused.

    No idea what mob AI is suggested here. Making it multi threaded - I think moving mob AI to separate thread could be viable.

    Packet handling - this is a hard one. It's also not much of an issue on servers afaik. Actual packet deserialization is already in netty thread and servers generally don't receive huge packets that need a lot of processing.

    Overall a big part of performance drop here is small things adding up (which is not an easy fix) but will hopefully be fixed once and for all when project valhalla (https://openjdk.java.net/projects/valhalla/) is done. This will be a major performance boost but there is nothing mojang can do make it come earlier. It's been in development since 2014.

    The other big issue is chunk saving on main thread which shouldn't be too hard to patch out in a mod, forge, spigot or any other project but it could come at the cost of adding hard to predict and fix exploits. There isn't really much public information about them (for obvious reasons) so I can't know for sure.

  • 7
    Registered User commented
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    How is this not a thing already? I think it is vital  for the game to allow server owners to use their hardware to its fullest potential! I feel this negatively impacts player's creativity and drive to play on servers that are bottlenecked by the inability for the server to use multythreading.

     

    This is killing the multiplayer scene on Java!

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    YES!!!  Server multithreading would allow large servers to achieve much smoother gameplay.  Servers like 2B2T haven't been able to upgrade past 1.2.12 because of scalability issues.  A multi-threaded server would allow 2B2T to upgrade to the latest version for the first time in years.  It would also allow processors with poor single-threaded performance to host Minecraft servers more efficiently (e.g. multi-core arm SBCs).  This feature would be a dream-come-true for so many different types of users! :)

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    For the love of everything please. PLEASE

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    Yeah!! Please do! You should team up with PaperMC and make some optimizations to the game. This would push mega servers like 2b2t to update, which they are already considering. Give us some actual optimizations for once. The 1.15 chunk loading doesn't count.

  • 2
    Registered User commented
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    Would be great for people who want more than 100 players.

  • 3
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    The current single threaded design of servers is now only applicable to minigame servers where you are moved from server to server. Having a server multithreaded will allow Minecraft to get back to its roots as a multi/single player survival single world based game. The current single threaded design really limits what this game is possible of doing. If there is multithreading support servers can and will cater to a larger audience rather than just mini game players.

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    This should be a singleplayer thing also! Similar to https://feedback.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/community/posts/360043003411-Give-Minecraft-Java-Edition-multi-core-support for singleplayer or client side support

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    We really do need threaded tile ticking, its insane how low performance the server is.

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    Java edition NEEDS this. Too often servers I'm playing on are crippled by low TPS.

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    Does Mojang even know how to add multithreading because I think if they did, they'd've added it already?

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    Yes! I don't care about any other features. 1.17 needs to be the Multithreading Update! A full year of nonstop thread rewrite should hopefully be able to make this happen. 64 core processer server shouldn't struggle to host more than 20 players. Especially with 1.16 breaking 0 tick Redstone farms - those are going to become massive lag farms.

  • 2
    Registered User commented
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    I play on a server that is more like an MMO than a traditional Minecraft experience. It's a living world with over 100 players on at any given time. The server owners have whitelisted it (instead of allowing anyone to join) to throttle player influx so that the existing players don't get lagged out. It's really quite unfortunate that our server could be a bustling community (more so than it already is, anyway) because even if you go to Digital Ocean and buy their $960/mo server plan, the server could still probably only handle no more than 200 players without the game becoming unplayable.

    I know this feature isn't glamorous like a cave update or a baobab tree, but solving this problem would enable a quantum leap in human-to-human connections made in the wonderful Minecraft universe.

  • 7
    Registered User commented
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    Even for personal servers just between friends, features like these are neccessary. I cannot begin to comprehend how much these changes will help much larger servers.

    For me I have noticed how much of a difference mods like Optifine and third party servers like PaperMC make in terms of performance. It really begs the question for Mojang - why are none of these third party performance improvements in vanilla Minecraft.

    Feature updates are great and everyone looks forward to them, but it's time to stop negleting the optimisation of the game.

    I love the game and that is why I would like it's development to keep up with the modern world.

  • 5
    Registered User commented
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    This would enable so many fun ideas, if I was able to have 300 players on 1 server I could do so many things.

  • 4
    Registered User commented
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    Performance issues with servers must be fixed ASAP.

  • 4
    Registered User commented
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    It would make hosting a server for me and my friends a lot easier since I can only afford a raspberry pi. please take the time to actually do this.

  • 4
    Registered User commented
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    If you can’t update all of new Minecraft servers to be multithreaded, instead at least include an option for multi thread so if servers need that, they can select it

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    That would be a huge update for servers

    For example skeppy events are limited to 150 players but like +400 players want to play the event but there is no way to put 400+ players in a event without it being unplayable because of lag so multithreading will allow for everyone to play an skeppy event.

    This also apply for many types of server that are more fun in one world.

  • 4
    Registered User commented
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    This is so ridiculously necessary. It makes no sense that we haven't had this for years.

  • 10
    Registered User commented
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    Look skip 1 or 2 or maybe even 3 updates and add Multithreading. This isnt about 1 update in a small area, its about the game. Minecraft without limits, has limits cause of single core

  • 5
    Registered User commented
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    Minecraft needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.

    It has incredibly horrible optimisation that server hardware can actually make it run worse

    It cannot support players over 250.

    This should have been a thing ages ago

  • 4
    Registered User commented
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    400 votes more and we can get on the front page