Mojang officially cancels Minecraft Super Duper Graphics Pack due to poor performance

[AlTech]

Mojang is officially cancelling the "Super Duper Graphics Pack" for Minecraft.

 

The update was meant to bring somwhat realisitc textures to minecraft.

 

The BBC reports that the update has been scrapped due to Mojang not being satisified with the performance across devices.

 

The update was originally announced at E3 2017 with a planned release in the same year but was ultimately pushed back to 2018 before being cancelled in current year 2019.

 

Edit: To clarify this is regarding Bedrock Edition and not Java Edition.

 

Quote

The plan to make Minecraft look more realistic was unveiled in 2017 at the E3 games show. The ambitious plan was to make a downloadable add-on that all but did away with the basic, blocky look of the massively popular game.

In 2017, Mojang said its work also would produce an add-on for the Xbox version of Minecraft that let the game run at a resolution of 4K on the console.

Originally the Super Duper add-on was due to appear in autumn 2017 but the release date was pushed back to 2018 before being cancelled altogether in 2019.

The technical demands of the update have proved too much, it said in a short apology.

It added: "We realise this is disappointing to some of you - there was a lot of enthusiasm for Super Duper from inside and outside the studio - but unfortunately, we aren't happy with how the pack performed across devices."

Mojang added that it was not entirely finished with improving the look of Minecraft on different game-playing gadgets and said it would share more information about this work soon

 

There's been rumors and some thoughts that the game engine which powers the Bedrock Edition of Minecraft doesn't scale well past a certain hardware performance level.

 

Particularly of note is that the Xbox One X has not performed as well on Minecraft Bedrock Edition as originally anticipated in terms of framerate and being able to run at 4K.

 

The current Bedrock Edition game engine does seem to be on it's way out as we've seen some rumors that Mojang are working on a much more performance optimized game engine.

 

Ultimately I believe this was cancelled because the Xbox One X, despite it's substantially faster hardware than base Xbox One or even the upgraded PS4 Pro, does not seem to have been capable of running what Mojang wanted at the framerate and performance level they wanted.

 

Oh well. What a shame.

 

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49331836

[Princess Luna]

That means Minecraft DXR Ray Traced edition is even further away... /sob

[Froody129]

Tbh... I don't know if this would have been free, and the amount of editions Microsoft puts out for games is scummy. I also think that using really good graphics is made much harder just by how the base game is programmed. A Java game just isn't going to run that well. Nevermind that the game has already lost loads of performance in the last while 

[AlTech]

1 minute ago, Princess Luna said:

That means Minecraft DXR Ray Traced edition is even further away... /sob

Oh yeah definitely. If they can't do this then you can pretty much forget a ray traced update.

[spartaman64]

i mean cant you just install mods or even resource packs to improve the graphics

[AlTech]

1 minute ago, Froody129 said:

Tbh... I don't know if this would have been free,

It was announced as a free update. Pretty much every update for Minecraft is free for existing owners of the game.

 

1 minute ago, Froody129 said:

A Java game just isn't going to run that well. Nevermind that the game has already lost loads of performance in the last while 

We're not even talking about Java Edition. We're talking C++ and Direct X 11 Minecraft Bedrock Edition on Xbox One X.

 

If the Xbox One X struggles to run the C++ and Direct X 11 version then there really is a problem.

 

On non Xbox and Windows platforms the Bedrock Edition uses C++ or other similar languages and OpenGL ES 3.0

[Brooksie359]

2 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

i mean cant you just install mods or even resource packs to improve the graphics

That was what I was thinking. There are a ton of minecraft texture mods if you want to make the game look more realistic. 

[Radium_Angel]

3 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

i mean cant you just install mods or even resource packs to improve the graphics

And there are tons out there, just not any ray-traced ones, that I am aware of anyway

[AlTech]

3 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

i mean cant you just install mods or even resource packs to improve the graphics

This was intended mainly for the Xbox One X and the console and mobile versions of Minecraft which don't support mods. They support super basic "plugins" but no mods.

[BuckGup]

21 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

This was intended mainly for the Xbox One X and the console and mobile versions of Minecraft which don't support mods. They support super basic "plugins" but no mods.

Mobile supports mods

[AlTech]

Just now, BuckGup said:

Mobile supports mods

Not mods in the way that PC does.

 

They support basic plugins from the official Plugin API.

[MeatFeastMan]

I don't understand why they wouldn't just give it until late 2020, improve it further and launch it at the same time as Project Scarlett.

 

And I mean, this is pretty embarrassing considering it's minecraft we are talking about here. If an RX 480 level of performance can't run this new pack then they've obviously done something drastically wrong.

 

And given that AMD and Microsoft are best buddies at the moment, it would make sense to optimize Polaris and future generations of AMD chips to run Minecraft better. What on earth are they doing at Mojang headquarters? Twiddling thumbs on sunbeds?

[jagdtigger]

This smells like BS. I mean i have a shader mod and resource pack on the java version and it looks pretty good:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9d6yj44nk7p9pwq/2019-08-14_20.57.23.png?dl=0

 

If a 1060 3GB and a R5 1400 can handle this why their console couldnt do the same?

[HarryNyquist]

3 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

This smells like BS. I mean i have a shader mod and resource pack on the java version and it looks pretty good:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9d6yj44nk7p9pwq/2019-08-14_20.57.23.png?dl=0

 

If a 1060 3GB and a R5 1400 can handle this why their console couldnt do the same?

If i had to guess, it's because it was shoddily thrown together to meet a release date instead of being developed properly.

[PlayStation 2]

Does Minecraft lack any sort of optimization team?

[GoodBytes]

If the rumor is true, in that the engine would need to be reworked, then I am sure they decided to leave this feature for some sequel, like Minecraft 2, which probably will targets  next console generation. This will also make it easier for them to have the same or similar visual experience cross platform.

[AlexOak]

Quote

While today’s announcement is the first time Mojang has addressed the issues with the Graphics Pack in an official statement from the studio at large, individual developers at the company have previously spoken out on Reddit and elsewhere, explaining the problems the development team was facing, including needing to rewrite much of the graphics portion of the game’s Bedrock Engine from scratch to accommodate the potential improvements

Quote

We’ve been trying to solve Super Duper for a long time,” a spokesperson for Mojang told Kotaku in an email. “We wanted to wait until we determined the path forward before officially addressing the project. We’re looking into different options with our Render Dragon graphics engine, and will have more to share soon.”

https://kotaku.com/mojang-cancels-minecraft-s-super-duper-graphics-pack-1837174850 

[Crunchy Dragon]

11 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

Does Minecraft lack any sort of optimization team?

Possibly.

 

The game is horribly optimized to begin with. Adding graphic modifications like shader packs really don't help it very much. The people at Micro Center didn't believe a buddy of mine when he told them his 980Ti was for Minecraft.

[Guest]

My MacBook would run it just fine don't see a problem

[AlTech]

25 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

Does Minecraft lack any sort of optimization team?

In a word, YES.

 

There's the Bedrock Edition Team, 4J Studios doing stuff with Bedrock Edition on consoles, and then there's the Java Edition Team. And then there's everyone else in other teams like the Realms Team, HR, etc.

 

43 minutes ago, MeatFeastMan said:

I don't understand why they wouldn't just give it until late 2020, improve it further and launch it at the same time as Project Scarlett.

 

And I mean, this is pretty embarrassing considering it's minecraft we are talking about here. If an RX 480 level of performance can't run this new pack then they've obviously done something drastically wrong.

 

And given that AMD and Microsoft are best buddies at the moment, it would make sense to optimize Polaris and future generations of AMD chips to run Minecraft better. What on earth are they doing at Mojang headquarters? Twiddling thumbs on sunbeds?

Unfortunately Minecraft code is quite a mess.

 

The Java Edition today is pretty much completely different code than the game released in 2011. They re-wrote most of it with 1.7 and 1.8 .

 

The Bedrock edition runs on an engine which works well for mobile devices but doesn't scale well beyond that. Which is why something like a beefed up semi custom Polaris GPU aka Microsoft's RX 490 Xbox One X GPU doesn't run well at 4K.

[bcredeur97]

I'm actually not surprised. Minecraft isn't built very well... though it's been improved and new hardware, Java Virtual Machine is just too poor performing.

[AlTech]

3 minutes ago, bcredeur97 said:

I'm actually not surprised. Minecraft isn't built very well... though it's been improved and new hardware, Java Virtual Machine is just too poor performing.

Again, this is regarding the supposedly well optimised C++ edition of the game and not Java Edition. 

[GoodBytes]

3 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Again, this is regarding the supposedly well optimised C++ edition of the game and not Java Edition. 

You can be sure they ported from Java to C++ and not reworked the architecture

[FezBoy]

1 hour ago, Froody129 said:

Tbh... I don't know if this would have been free, and the amount of editions Microsoft puts out for games is scummy. I also think that using really good graphics is made much harder just by how the base game is programmed. A Java game just isn't going to run that well. Nevermind that the game has already lost loads of performance in the last while 

This was not for minecraft java, it's the bedrock edition which is written in c++ and designed to be portable

[FezBoy]

6 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Again, this is regarding the supposedly well optimised C++ edition of the game and not Java Edition. 

Maybe you should edit OP to clarify this