Infinite world size

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SegFault22
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Infinite world size

by SegFault22 » Post

I remember from a while back, some guy had the idea to change an integer from signed to unsigned, and that would greatly improve world size and many other things. What's holding us back from doing that?

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Re: Infinite world size

by sfan5 » Post

previously: -30 000 <-> 30 000
now: 0 <-> 60 000
Yeah, I see the great improvement.
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Re: Infinite world size

by Krock » Post

SegFault22 wrote:I remember from a while back, some guy had the idea to change an integer from signed to unsigned, and that would greatly improve world size and many other things. What's holding us back from doing that?
int16, signed: 0000 0000 0000 0001 (number 1)
int16, unsigned: 0000 0000 0000 0011 (number 3)

No matter of signed or unsigned, they still have the same amount of bits!
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Re: Infinite world size

by webdesigner97 » Post

And what is the advantage? Did ANYONE ever experience a too small world? No.

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Re: Infinite world size

by twoelk » Post

but the word "infinite" is sooooo cool. even if it hardly has any use in real life

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SegFault22
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Re: Infinite world size

by SegFault22 » Post

Okay, I don't remember what dude said about the integer. If you want to know, go ask him, because I'm too lazy to do that right now.
There actually is an issue with the world being too small, when you have a large server with several hundred players - the issue is even worse if the server is a PVP server.

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Re: Infinite world size

by RHR » Post

There actually is an issue with the world being too small [...]
really? I've tested many servers and I always found enough empty space. Most people just walk not far enough from spawn, so it's often overpopulated there. Larger worlds wouldn't help people who are too lazy to search ...

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Re: Infinite world size

by paramat » Post

As far as i understand, apparently it would be a major engine rewrite, and not worth it since most people find 64km^3 just large enough. I have big ideas and work with megastructures and the world's just big enough for me ;) I can stack 16 4km height realms, which seems just enough. So really you potentially have 16 x 64km^2 = 65536km^2 of space.

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Re: Infinite world size

by spillz » Post

The bigger constraint is storage limitations because the game stores everything, including the procedurally generated terrain, to disk once it has been traversed by a player instead of only saving the blocks that have been player (or entity) modified.

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Re: Infinite world size

by Jordach » Post

Concurrently, Minetest's world saving size is stupidly large for what it is: a 4gb world in SQLITE3 compresses down to about 1.5gb in LevelDB, others might vary, but there is a HUGE difference between the two, OldCoder has been known to use LevelDB as worlds can become rapidly large.

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Re: Infinite world size

by sfan5 » Post

Has anyone used the redis DB backend for a big server yet?
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Re: Infinite world size

by philipbenr » Post

sfan5 wrote:Has anyone used the redis DB backend for a big server yet?
Funny, While I was trying to compile Minetest on my brothers old laptop a while ago, I got an error having to do with redis... Oh well, I got over it.

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Re: Infinite world size

by Casimir » Post

By the way. Is there a setting to choose the default backend?

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Re: Infinite world size

by Nore » Post

I do have code that should make the world infinite, however, there are still a lot of limitations:
-> probably overwritten mapblocks by other ones (didn't check this one though)
-> you still can't go further than 214748 because of the way floats are sent (a 32 bit integer)
-> horrible code
-> probably other things
-> and it is outdated

Anyway, if you want to give it a try: https://github.com/Ekdohibs/minetest/tree/unlimited-map
Last edited by Nore on Fri Jul 24, 2015 09:42, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Infinite world size

by sfan5 » Post

philipbenr wrote:
sfan5 wrote:Has anyone used the redis DB backend for a big server yet?
Funny, While I was trying to compile Minetest on my brothers old laptop a while ago, I got an error having to do with redis... Oh well, I got over it.
redis not found! is not an error, it is just a warning.
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Re: Infinite world size

by Morn76 » Post

sfan5 wrote: redis not found! is not an error, it is just a warning.
Then why does that warning have an exclamation mark at the end? That should be reserved for serious probems, not a failed optional dependency like hiredis.

It's very confusing:
-- redis not found!
-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
Makes it look like a redis-related error, when it's not.

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Re: Infinite world size

by sfan5 » Post

Morn76 wrote:
sfan5 wrote: redis not found! is not an error, it is just a warning.
Then why does that warning have an exclamation mark at the end? That should be reserved for serious probems, not a failed optional dependency like hiredis.

It's very confusing:
-- redis not found!
-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
Makes it look like a redis-related error, when it's not.
It's the same for leveldb too...
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Re: Infinite world size

by Morn76 » Post

sfan5 wrote: It's the same for leveldb too...
Then please fix that one too while you're at it. :-)

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Re: Infinite world size

by philipbenr » Post

redis not found! is not an error, it is just a warning.
Okay, but then why did it stop compiling on me? I tried three times and every time it died.

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Re: Infinite world size

by sfan5 » Post

philipbenr wrote:
redis not found! is not an error, it is just a warning.
Okay, but then why did it stop compiling on me? I tried three times and every time it died.
Did it stop compiling on database-redis.cpp?
If not, the problem is not redis.
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Re: Infinite world size

by Morn76 » Post

Morn76 wrote:
sfan5 wrote: It's the same for leveldb too...
Then please fix that one too while you're at it. :-)
And besides, if I read "git blame" output correctly, that LeveDB error message was in fact also added by you. Übertreib' es doch nicht so mit den Ausrufungszeichen! Don't overdo it with exclamation marks! ;-)

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Re: Infinite world size

by thetoon » Post

webdesigner97 wrote:And what is the advantage? Did ANYONE ever experience a too small world? No.
Well, we got that one a lot. And to be honest, I never experienced a too small world in MT. But I don't play much these days, and for rather short sessions. I remember, back when I played MC, having been frustrated by _vertical_ limits. Granted, MT doesn't have those (actually it does, only much much bigger). But most player's exploration goes horizontal, and it's a bit odd to have the same size upwards (where almost no-one usually goes, beside "alternative" worlds and some paramat's experimentations) and forward.

Mind you, if the engine was particularly friendly to flying devices, that could make sense. But here we have either too much space above us or too few beside.

I do understand this is a huge change to drive all through the code, mods, etc. And I do perfectly understand it would be low priority, and take a lot of before-thinking. But I disagree on the whole "64km is enough for everybody" stance. We call for more mods and games, more different experiences built around MT's engine. And that's inspiring. But right now, what we're saying is "we'd love new interesting ideas, but you'll have to make them fit in a 64km-sided cube, no discussion". While we should be all "right, there's a limit right now, let's see what would be needed to lift it up".

Infinite world size might be too much to handle, now or ever. But 64km is too restrictive a limit to stay forever, don't you think?

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Re: Infinite world size

by HeroOfTheWinds » Post

The only way I can think of larger world size being achieved is by thinking outside the box, and outside the server case. ;) This is no less ridiculous, however: Use a network of servers, and when one person goes beyond the bounds of the world on one server, start transferring data from the next. Very naive, I know. :P I know very little about server management, but perhaps my ideas will be possible one day.

And I really don't think infinite size will ever be able to be achieved. Only extremely large values that are close enough for man's purposes.
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Re: Infinite world size

by BrandonReese » Post

Event an "infinite" world would be limited by storage space so it really wouldn't be infinite. I think that has been mentioned in this thread. My world with plenty of undiscovered and unused land is over 7gig. I should probably switch to leveldb but I'm scared to.

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Re: Infinite world size

by sfan5 » Post

BrandonReese wrote:Event an "infinite" world would be limited by storage space so it really wouldn't be infinite. I think that has been mentioned in this thread. My world with plenty of undiscovered and unused land is over 7gig. I should probably switch to leveldb but I'm scared to.
The longer you wait with switching the more you need to do.
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