Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft To Launch Minecraft Education Portal For Teachers
Mickeycaskill writes: Microsoft wants to help educators use Minecraft to teach pupils about maths, history, creative design and other subjects and skills, claiming the game is already being used in classrooms in the US and UK. Minecraft developer Mojang was bought by Microsoft last year for $2.5 billion and the game has been featured in a number of HoloLens demos, an indication of how it sees the former indie phenomenon as more than just a game. "Very soon after Minecraft launched, we noticed teachers bringing the game into their classrooms," said a blog post. "Often inspired by the passion of their students, they started using Minecraft to design history lessons, teach language classes, explore mathematics, physics, computer science, writing, and more."
MOOOOOOO! MOOOOOOO!
So let's teach WWII by playing Wolfenstein.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
You mean Hitler didn't waste time and energy on quack science and other assorted occult crap?
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
2005 called, it wants its complaint back.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Very soon after Minecraft launched, we noticed teachers bringing the game into their classrooms
Often inspired by the passion of their students, they started using Minecraft to design history lessons, teach language classes, explore mathematics, physics, computer science, writing, and more.
Bullshit, bullshit, and more bullshit. I don't doubt that teachers have in fact used Minecraft for these things, but they're certainly not designing lessons, teaching classes, or exploring subjects. They're faffing about with Minecraft and the students don't benefit from it.
I don't know; I just got off the phone with 2015. It wanted me to let 2005 know that Java is still shitty.
Microsoft is already working towards less java visibility. The Windows installer from Microsoft is now an .msi file, and when you install it, it installs and uses it's own embedded Java runtime.
When I noticed this last week (after a disk problem caused me to roll back my Windows install) I uninstalled the troublesome and always nagging-for-updates JVM on my system. If you don't use Java for anything else, you're certainly better off using the embedded runtime.
So any new installer of Minecraft on the Windows platform will not need to know about the JRE at all.
Go home RMS, you're drunk!
Are those feelings or do you have data to back that sentiment up? Yes the Java jre has a few ethical problems (I'm looking at you, planned yahoo toolbar), however, the language itself isn't bad. It has one of the most mature development communities out there. With the addition of Streams and Lambdas, I think it's finally hit a nice balance between complexity and features.
"No, I won't go out with you."
He totally did, although Himmler was by far more into the occult stuff.
On the other hand, there really wasn't a cyborg Hitler. Well, not until he relocated to his moonbase after his stays in the U.S. and Argentina.
2005 called, it wants its complaint back.
I'm sorry you are having clock malfunctions, but just so you know the current year is 2015 :P
But seriously, when modded minecraft takes 6+ gigs of ram to load in 15 minutes, and after that gives you mainly 1 frame every 3 seconds lasting up to a half a minute, with spurts of 10 frames a second for a couple seconds, it's really hard to give good words to any of the components involved.
But OK, modded minecraft isn't fair. So how about vanella minecraft?
The stock 1.7.10 client under Java 7 (the last cross-platform version), or even the stock 1.8 client under Java 8 (with lwjgl 2.0, which is windows only for now) - I get between 20 and 25 frames a second with the occasional one second lock up every few minutes.
This is on an i7-5820k and Nvidia GTX 970 with 32GB ram - a PC that ranks 97% world wide in 3dmark.
Again, it is extremely difficult to give any good words to any component involved here.
The joke used to be "Can it run Crysis?", but since the answer is now "Yes, at 120fps on a 4k display" the joke has become "But can it run modded minecraft?"
Note I am refraining from putting any blame squarely on any single component involved here, including Java.
(My only real Java-ish related complaint is the sorry state of lwjgl 2.0, but even that isn't a Java problem specifically and so shouldn't count)
If you would like me to run any specific benchmarks on my PC to give the supporting numbers, please feel free to ask. Just let me know what and how and I'll post up the results.
For a baseline, I do own 3dmark, as well as some current high end games like Crysis, Shadow of Mordor, and GTAV which I can benchmark side by side.
What I sadly do not have is any form of screen capture software, nor the experience with such software to produce a video.
Iron Sky http://www.imdb.com/title/tt10...
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Go home RMS, you're drunk!
Risk Management Solutions???
I probably need a neck beard to understand wtf you are blabbering about.
Sorry for the double-reply, but after answering your direct complain I forgot to put in my on-topic reply.
Using Minecraft for education is a completely valid option to be considered.
I know from experience it can do so quite well in some cases, being both on the instructor and student side of things within minecraft.
I was an instructor teaching Lua programming using ComputerCraft on a server setup specifically for education.
I was also a student in various vanilla redstone classes, as my redstone skills are quite lacking compared to even a moderately advanced builder.
Some of the articles listed classes sound like they would work great within minecraft especially creative design, physics, and math, but even advanced math like logic and branching out into either programming or electronic/logic design is a wonderful fit.
I admit to being curious and confused on the history lessons being better in Minecraft, but if someone with more teaching skills than I have wishes to give it a try at making it work, more power to them!
Disclaimer, I'm a part time Minecraft mod developer. My understanding of this topic may have been unfairly tainted with unpalatable things like experience and and actual test cases.
I was able to load up the Monster modpack from Feed the Beast in about 6 minutes...and that included download the launcher, setting up authentication, and letting the launcher download all the mod files. Second run took 57 seconds to get to the main game screen.
I'm running with the default 2gb of RAM. Per the wiki, FTB Monster "currently also holds the record of being the overall largest Feed The Beast modpack, with over 200 mods included."
To put that in context, most "lite" modpacks end up with around 40-60 mods, and a "middle of the road" modpack has 100-150ish mods.
When running a "test" modpack that I've put together, it loads up in about 20-30 seconds, depending on how much debugging stuff I've enabled.
If you've been playing for hundreds of hours, and have fully automated the processing, assembly, sorting, and storage of every block, item, and resource in the game, I'm guessing there will be parts of your game world that are so computationally heavy that it'll bring almost any computer to its knees. Granted, I've never seen this, and I ran a top 5 server back when Tekkit was the end-all and be-all of Minecraft Modpacks (there have been some huge performance enhancements since then), but I'm willing to admit that this could happen, however...citation needed on this.
Well, how about it? Loading up the currently-latest-version of 1.8.7 takes a whopping 6.45 seconds to load, and runs at a nice stable 75 FPS without any tweaking of the video settings.
Not really. Minecraft does have some constraints, namely the lack of a multithreaded server and heavy dependence on your CPU, but it's nowhere near "the joke" that you'd like to present it as.
All the tests I did were on a laptop running an i7-4870HQ CPU @ 2.50GHz with 16gb of RAM. Fairly beefy as far as a laptop goes, but nowhere near the specs dissy is claiming. If I'm desperate (or on a long airplane trip) I can get modded Minecraft running on my netbook, which is running a 1.6ghz atom processor and rocking 1gb of RAM. It's not pretty, but it'll give me 15ish FPS.
My only conclusions are that you're either you're doing it (somehow) very, very wrong...or you're intentionally spreading FUD.
Bits of code, random ramblings: jakimfett.com
But seriously, when modded minecraft takes 6+ gigs
Yawn. Firefox alone accounts for anywhere between 1-3 GB with all my tabs.
This is on an i7-5820k and Nvidia GTX 970 with 32GB ram - a PC that ranks 97% world wide in 3dmark.
The plural of anecdote is not data. For example, on my setup, an FX-8320 with 8GB RAM,a GTX760, and not an SSD in sight runs Minecraft just fine with a couple of mods.
Last but not least, while I understand popularity and ubiquity inspire varying levels of contempt (I'm certainly not innocent on the issue), I've never really understood technical arguments against games. Sure, you have your Arkham Knights, which provided insurmountable problems for a not-insignificant percentage of buyers and deserve a critical look at the code.
Then you've got Minecraft, played by literally hundreds of millions of people with little to no problems, including my 8 year old niece on her potato PC.
There are many things which could be improved in Minecraft. Whether it's going to gobble up 2GB of Ram versus 3 or 4 or 6 isn't that high up on the list.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Allow me to summarize a reply.
As for the modpack, these days I mainly use the direwolf20 pack from FTB launcher. I think it's only just over 100 mods.
I also used to play the TolkenCraft pack (no idea how many mods it used)
As for my world age, it was generated this year so ~6 months old. I couldn't tell you play time, but I'm not really near the god-tier you describe. I do have a small-to-medium AE setup if that counts :P
Also upon generating a new world I see similar results, although in that case the client is being pretty busy generating the new world, so I'm not sure if that counts.
But how long should initial world gen take? Shouldn't the lag be mostly gone in 10-15 minutes?
Yes it certainly has less lag after those 10 minutes, but it is still pretty bad as previously described.
Back in the 1.2.5 days and Tekkit, I recall seeing insane FPS rates in the f3 debug screen. Like on the scale of 400 (I'm pretty sure that was on my gtx275 but I don't remember)
Granted plenty of other problems back then, but still...
Now for the bits that stand out above the rest from your post:
...you have no clue how java garbage collection works, do you. Please go educate yourself [vazkii.us] and then fix your settings. Better yet, just re-create the default profile, because it's already optimized for most use cases. The default "profile" that Minecraft runs under gives you 1gb of RAM, which is about perfect.
First, thank you for the link.
Second, NO, of course I don't have any Java clues, I'm no Java developer. Why would you even assume I would?
I only use Java because another program I desire to run needs it.
I can't really be expected to customize my Java settings when no one has said that is needed.
So I naturally left everything default.
And yes, it is 64 bit Java JRE
My only conclusions are that you're either you're doing it (somehow) very, very wrong...or you're intentionally spreading FUD.
Yea thanks for suggesting I'm spreading FUD.
Let me guess: "Can not reproduce, didn't try or listen to explanation. Closing ticket as NOFIX"
Seriously.. I was/am sitting here offering to run any and whatever actual tests, benchmarks, debugging, and anything else I could do to show the results of these problems to your own levels of expectation... so clearly FUD is a worth mentioning option.
I already and once again grant I could be doing something wrong.
So what the fuck do I do to do it right?!
A fresh install of FTB, fresh download of modpack, on an updated Java with default settings...
On a 6-7 month old Win7 Pro install.
I did run IE once to download Steam and a package from microsoft. All minecraft related files came from my main PC (although all came directly from Oracle, Mojang, and FTB)
In-client downloads, windows updates, and a MS security essentials DL from microsoft, are the only other internet usage that PC sees. No other web browsing is done from there.
(As nice as MSSE is on system resources, I can't say I trust it completely)
But despite all that, and not that I'm trying to force you to help me, but if there is nothing that will convince you of what I'm saying (as seems to be the case) then you have no justification for calling me a liar.
That's my favorite non-fiction history movie.
Noob suggestion that worked for me having similar problems. Went through and removed any and all 32 bit java versions. Then for good measure, took 64 bit out and reinstalled fresh 64. Fixed. No 32 bit on machine. All good.
I had a science class in 4th grade teach architecture with pencil and paper. Why would teaching it in Minecraft be any more or less valid?
Learn to love Alaska
I can't really be expected to customize my Java settings when no one has said that is needed.
So I naturally left everything default.
If someone is producing a modpack with 100+ mods and not giving you instructions on how to make MC use more memory, then they are an asshat. Now go forth and google for how to make MC use more memory with your 64 bit Java.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I've wanted to use minecraft in classrooms before, but have yet to find a reasonable method of preventing connections to multi-player servers. Granted I haven't looked in a year or so, but until there is a way to do easily accomplish that I'll take a pass. There is no way I'm opening myself up to that level of liability.
Hahahahaha heheheh lol hahahahahahaha lolololololol hahahahahah. I'm sure the kids will learn tons from this.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Don't know what is wrong with your system. I also have a beefy rig, i7, GTX 980, 16GB RAM, and I get consistent 60 FPS running Minecraft, except for the slight lagging when there is world loading going on of course.
The graphics card is not even trying hard, staying in the 50Â's at about 30-40% capacity, and I'm also running 20 mods.
In fact, Java is so shitty that thousands of kids are able to create Minecraft mods by learning some Java, decompiling the code and making their own visions reality.
Then you've got Minecraft, played by literally hundreds of millions of people with little to no problems, including my 8 year old niece on her potato PC.
Exactly. if Minecraft was as ridiculously slow and unusable as suggested above, no one would be playing it at all.
I've only ever seen my kids play it a bit, and I can't see the attraction, but they manage perfectly well on a low cost family laptop.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Hmm...default configs for those packs on a system with your specs should have it running as smooth as butter.
Sounds like a halfway decent world, but nothing that should be killing your computer. AE shouldn't be a problem.
Now, *this* is abnormal. Once the world loads (eg you have a charactor ingame, you're not looking at the "generating world" screen anymore) there will be a few seconds of lag as chunks get generated at the edge of the load distance. This should disappear within the first 20-30 seconds max, for me it's normally less than 5.
I used to get over 1k FPS when I'd turn down the view distance to the minimum. Since then, the Mojang team has worked to equalize some things...I think by default they cap it at 75FPS, but it's much less likely to drop down into the teens...at least in theory.
I made a couple of assumptions here. They were possibly incorrect, and if so, I owe you an apology for being that abrupt. You stated that you were allocating 6+ gb of RAM to the game, so I assumed you'd messed with the defaults. I have a special dislike for people who mess with the defaults without educating themselves about what those defaults actually mean.
As a sidenote, if you're running with the defaults, how are you setting 6+ gb of RAM? Genuinely confused, wondering if we're saying different things here, as "changing the RAM" is part of the configs...
This...might actually be something to check on. Minecraft for Windows comes with its own internally packaged version of Java. Modded Minecraft doesn't use this though, and you need Java 7. It might be worth it to remove Java completely, then re-install just the latest Java 7 64 bit version using the full installer from the Oracle download page.
I said FUD is an option. If I had a buck for every time someone has done similar, with intent of spreading disinformation about a specific Minecraft mod or Minecraft itself, I could replace my desktop with a really really shiny one. I said that I saw two options, one of which involved you spreading misinformation. In hindsight, probably not my best closing point.
No need for that, I'm actually genuinely interested in helping. With a rig like what you've described, you should be able to run pretty much any modpack in buttery smooth FPS with max graphics settings.
I don't thing the slashdot comments section is the best way to get you some help. The easiest thing for me would be if you hopped on EsperNet IRC and poked me in the #minechem channel. If you're not IRC savvy, I have a web-based IRC interface on my website that should work. If IRC isn't an option, I'm also on Twitter, the Minecraft Forums, and CurseForge as this same username, you could drop me a private message and we can see if this can be sorted.
Bits of code, random ramblings: jakimfett.com
The FTB launcher sets sane defaults for most packs. Most of the other launchers do too.
Bits of code, random ramblings: jakimfett.com