Playing on a laptop; trying to manage lag/fps

[Larmonade]

So I'm playing on a laptop. It's a nice laptop, to be sure, but it's definitely a laptop. (A Sony Vaio VPCF1 something something). It's got a nice-ish non-integrated video card, and I've upgraded to 8gb or ram. I could run unleashed quite well, and I've been running TPPI with decent framerates, but inevitably, as a world grows larger and has more machines going things, stuff starts to slow down, sometimes badly. So I've got a few questions that folks with more experience may be able to answer for me.

1) EnderIO conduits are pretty fancy - 5 kinds of tubes in a single block! I've heard some folks say that "compressing" your tube/wire system into less space helps with lag, but I've seen other arguments that say the density of EnderIO conduits can cause problems on weaker systems. Should I be looking to avoid EnderIO? Or is it actually more worth my while to switch to Ender IO for all my tuby, wiry needs?

2) Void ages reduce lag a lot, don't they? If I set up my base in a mystcraft void age, would everyone pretty much agree that that will provide a nice boost to my performance? I noticed that playing Agrarian Skies, I almost never had lag or FPS issues except in a few isolated instances of stupidity.

3) Automated farming - Forestry or MFR? Assuming I set them up to be approximately the same amount of space, is one or the other of these going to save me FPS? What about bees; Industrial Apiary vs. an automated apiary? Are there any other "performance hog" blocks with friendlier alternatives that are good to know about? I'm not usually the type to spam large numbers of machines unless completely necessary, but sometimes it feels like my FPS takes a hit and it's difficult to pinpoint where from.

4) What about mods like factcraft or optifine? I know that these are sometimes controversial (I've seen a curiously high number of internet fights about optifine), but even if there's no consensus on which (if either) is better, are these at least worth looking into?

Edit: 5) I'm fond of building my bases vertically, and packing everything into a small cluster of chunks - usually a 2x2 or 3x3 square of chunks. Is this good for performance, or does it make more sense to spread things out more?

Sorry for the wall-o-questions, but after an unfortunate occurrence in one of my last worlds, I'm feeling a bit gun shy about starting a new world without knowing exactly what kinds of options I have regarding performance. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me out!

 

[ScottulusMaximus]

1: Just a guess but I would imagine they would produce an fps hit, more to render at once. Spreading things out as far as possible is best for fps, separate ages work well.
2: Yes
3: It's the leaves breaking that eat fps so doubtful either will be better performance wise, doubt the different apiaries will be much different unless something was coded badly. Open blocks tanks, ME interfaces not being able to get the items you set, itemducts with too many routes(also use opaque), can't remember anything else, should all be avoided
4: Optifine more trouble than it's worth these days, Fastcraft seems a good bet if you're on 1.7.10

EDIT 5: Don't do that if ur pc struggles, spread out as much as possible

 

[ljfa]

1. I would guess that EnderIO conduits are the most "lag-efficient" when packed together rather than separately. I'm not sure.
2. Yes, this is because there's less terrain to render (duh) and less mobs.
3. Don't know. But MFR has an option to disable the harvester's sounds and particles
4. Optifine often produces graphical glitches and may not be compatible with some mods. Fastcraft is mainly for reducing world-gen and chunkloading lag IIRC
5. Spread out. It's best to build outposts which are at least one render distance away from each other.

 

[Celestialphoenix]

1) Never used them- compressing everything into 1 block cuts out a lot of the design and engineering challenges which make the game interesting.
Through in theory fewer tile-entities the better.

2)Yes- nothing to render= less load. Though mod modded bases use significantly more processing power than the terrain so you might not notice much difference in a developed world.

3)I've noticed less lag with forestry farms than MFR. (Especially if you use the MFR fertilizer on a large tree farm- FPS killer)
Though forestry farms also run slower (less resources/time)- so unsure which cause the most 'lag' per log.

4)Depends on which optifine version and which mods/modpack installed. Hence all the mixed results and punch ups. Worth trying several versions to see.
Fastcraft is also worth checking out.
As are the JVM arguments.

5)More spread out= more world loaded (if you chunkload)- so stacking vertical would help.

Otherwise more spread out= less stuff loaded/running, fewer tile entities being rendered ect..
Turning off farms ect when you dont need the resources is also pretty good.

 

[Larmonade]

I have to say until you tell us what version of MC you're playing your whole post is irrelevant.

EnderIO prior to 1.6 was a TPS killer should you put 4/5 conduits down the same block, on 1.7 it is not.

Sorry about that - I'm using TPPI (1.6), though I've disabled a handful of the mods that I don't use.

 

[netmc]

Optifine in AgS helped smooth out the little lag spikes I had and made walking around my base much smoother although it did introduce a few graphical glitches. It's worth a shot to see if it helps or hinders. If your lag is mainly due to render, Optifine will probably help. If it is TPS, it's not going to do much.

 

[Colensocon1]

My computer is really bad so I use a quantum link chamber and put all the laggy stuff far away then just link the chamber back and there is everything lag free

 

[chbachman]

So I'm playing on a laptop. It's a nice laptop, to be sure, but it's definitely a laptop. (A Sony Vaio VPCF1 something something). It's got a nice-ish non-integrated video card, and I've upgraded to 8gb or ram. I could run unleashed quite well, and I've been running TPPI with decent framerates, but inevitably, as a world grows larger and has more machines going things, stuff starts to slow down, sometimes badly. So I've got a few questions that folks with more experience may be able to answer for me.

1) EnderIO conduits are pretty fancy - 5 kinds of tubes in a single block! I've heard some folks say that "compressing" your tube/wire system into less space helps with lag, but I've seen other arguments that say the density of EnderIO conduits can cause problems on weaker systems. Should I be looking to avoid EnderIO? Or is it actually more worth my while to switch to Ender IO for all my tuby, wiry needs?

2) Void ages reduce lag a lot, don't they? If I set up my base in a mystcraft void age, would everyone pretty much agree that that will provide a nice boost to my performance? I noticed that playing Agrarian Skies, I almost never had lag or FPS issues except in a few isolated instances of stupidity.

3) Automated farming - Forestry or MFR? Assuming I set them up to be approximately the same amount of space, is one or the other of these going to save me FPS? What about bees; Industrial Apiary vs. an automated apiary? Are there any other "performance hog" blocks with friendlier alternatives that are good to know about? I'm not usually the type to spam large numbers of machines unless completely necessary, but sometimes it feels like my FPS takes a hit and it's difficult to pinpoint where from.

4) What about mods like factcraft or optifine? I know that these are sometimes controversial (I've seen a curiously high number of internet fights about optifine), but even if there's no consensus on which (if either) is better, are these at least worth looking into?

Edit: 5) I'm fond of building my bases vertically, and packing everything into a small cluster of chunks - usually a 2x2 or 3x3 square of chunks. Is this good for performance, or does it make more sense to spread things out more?

Sorry for the wall-o-questions, but after an unfortunate occurrence in one of my last worlds, I'm feeling a bit gun shy about starting a new world without knowing exactly what kinds of options I have regarding performance. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me out!

1. I have actually had lag issues with EnderIO Conduits, however they are the best current choice.

2. Yes they do.

3. MFR, but there is a config option to turn off leaf breaking animation.

4. Fastcraft = yes. Optifine = mabye, check to see if it helps

5. It depends. Building Vertically makes it so you have to load less chunks, which can help TPS. However, it also increases FPS lag. Building Horizontally makes it so you have to load more chunks, leading to more TPS lag but less FPS lag.

However, if you are not chunkloading your base, then build horizonally. Otherwise, build vertically.

 

[Larmonade]

5. It depends. Building Vertically makes it so you have to load less chunks, which can help TPS. However, it also increases FPS lag. Building Horizontally makes it so you have to load more chunks, leading to more TPS lag but less FPS lag.

However, if you are not chunkloading your base, then build horizonally. Otherwise, build vertically.

Thanks! That's actually the best explanation I've gotten for this so far, so I'll definitely keep this in mind. I figure that building my base within 9 chunks in a void age and chunk loading them should net me the best results - both the compact base design that I like as well as a minimal amount of stuf to load.