Universal Cable (UE) question

[Golrith]

I see on these forums comments about the Universal Cable being "not good" and "bad for servers", but there are no details as to actually what is wrong with these using these cables.

Could anyone explain what is wrong with the UE cable, what should/shouldn't you do with it?

 

[Riuga]

I see on these forums comments about the Universal Cable being "not good" and "bad for servers", but there are no details as to actually what is wrong with these using these cables.

Could anyone explain what is wrong with the UE cable, what should/shouldn't you do with it?

Because its really just a cheaper version of power converters (which are OP to some people incl me)?

 

[Golrith]

So, just a "balance" issue, not a performance issue?

Not too bad then, as my pack excludes IC2, so power is just from MJ and UE. Passive power gen from UE is heavy on resources, and that passive gen isn't a massive influx.

 

[Staxed]

I've read in a few places that it caused massive lag when used a lot due to the way the texture was create (the animated part of it I believe). I haven't really looked that much into it yet...was this something that's been fixed in recent versions?

 

[Poppycocks]

I've read in a few places that it caused massive lag when used a lot due to the way the texture was create (the animated part of it I believe). I haven't really looked that much into it yet...was this something that's been fixed in recent versions?

Completely right on all accounts. And yes. As in, the animating was removed, there have been other optimizations as well.

 

[Golrith]

Ah, must be in 1.6 version then. I believe I'm using the latest 1.5.2 versions.
Looking at the texture folders, the green bit of the cable must be generated via code, as there is no texture file for that animation. If there was, then it could be easily resized to a lower res to help performance.

 

[SonOfABirch]

There's also the issue of the memory leak associated with the cables. You have to keep the cables chunk loaded at all times, else your server will grind to a halt
Great concept, terrible execution.

 

[Greylocke]

The lag problem was a lighting/animation issue that was fixed months ago. I've never heard anything about a memory leak/chunk loading issue, and I'm in the Mek git and UE IRC all the time. I can say that I've had UniCables running on my server for months with no "grinding to a halt". The Mek hydrogen generators, however... that's another issue.

 

[zilvarwolf]

The lag problem was a lighting/animation issue that was fixed months ago. I've never heard anything about a memory leak/chunk loading issue, and I'm in the Mek git and UE IRC all the time. I can say that I've had UniCables running on my server for months with no "grinding to a halt". The Mek hydrogen generators, however... that's another issue.

what issue would that be? I love those things!

 

[Greylocke]

The Hydrogen Generators DO create a lot of lag on the servers. Again, probably due to the same lighting effects that the UniCable used to have. I love the H2 Gens, too, but they drop my fps from about 50ish to 20ish

It is client-side, though. I haven't seen any server impact

 

[zilvarwolf]

The Hydrogen Generators DO create a lot of lag on the servers. Again, probably due to the same lighting effects that the UniCable used to have. I love the H2 Gens, too, but they drop my fps from about 50ish to 20ish

It is client-side, though. I haven't seen any server impact

Ah. Thanks for the info.

 

[KirinDave]

I see on these forums comments about the Universal Cable being "not good" and "bad for servers", but there are no details as to actually what is wrong with these using these cables.

Could anyone explain what is wrong with the UE cable, what should/shouldn't you do with it?

Here's the lowdown:

1. For medium-to-small builds, UE cable is more performant than any cable but perhaps Thermal Expansions conduit. The actual performance difference in small networks (5-10 clients, a handfull of producers) between TE and UE is minimal. It's much more efficient for servers than buildcraft pipes or IC2 wires (especially IC2 wires, see below). For larger networks, prefer TE conduits.
2. In MC1.5, almost everyone has implemented the IC2 power protocol incorrectly. Even GT and MFR did it wrong. This is not because they are bad, but because IC2 changed stuff and didn't make those changes clear to developers. In mixed modpack games, IC2 cables introduce huge problems as a result. Don't use them, prefer UE cables for everything.
3. There is a very odd memory leak bug in Mekanism for very large cable installs. It's gotten better, but make sure to get the bugfix2 build (easiest way to get it is to download a recent distro of 1.5 Resonant Rise and poach our jars, afaik we are the ONLY public modpack to use it right now). Also, never let a UE cable cross a chunkloaded boundary. Keep every piece of every network chunkloaded.
4. Mekanism has a few bugs in 1.5 that will never be fixed. Disable Robits and dynamic if you can. Both are pretty useless, anyways. Be wary of mechanical pipes, we think there are dragons lurking in there (reports of circular networks killing server tps).

All in all, Mekanism is a great mod and it challenges a lot of the traditional assumptions about factory mods. It will happily let you miniaturize a huge factory at the cost of pretty absurd power draw (mekanism's ore tripling is the most expensive in terms of both power and materials, but relatively quite easy in terms of automation and can handle very high throughput very quickly if you can power it). Some people find this OP, but I think it's an interesting mechanic. Usually what happens with UE ore factories is that you have a space-intensive reactor complex feeding power into a very, VERY space-efficient Mekanism 4 box factory with top buffer.
In 1.6, these mechanics change a lot with the addition of Resonant Induction. The mod is too new yet to really tell you how it changes things, but it sure does.

Addendum: late 1.5 and early 1.6, a bunch of performance problems with generators got resolved. Early in the 1.5 branches we had situations where windmills could crash the server or nuke TPS.

 

[Golrith]

In the Omega Dawn mod pack, there is no IC2, so don't need to worry about that side of things.

I was just concerned about the comments about UE cabling, without any hard facts to back up those comments. The posts above prove that these comments about UE cable are now invalid as have been fixed in one version or another.
I see the most current version is #124, and I'm using the recommended #121. Better update the server, as the comment for #124 indicates fixing memory leaks.

 

[KirinDave]

In the Omega Dawn mod pack, there is no IC2, so don't need to worry about that side of things.

I was just concerned about the comments about UE cabling, without any hard facts to back up those comments. The posts above prove that these comments about UE cable are now invalid as have been fixed in one version or another.
I see the most current version is #124, and I'm using the recommended #121. Better update the server, as the comment for #124 indicates fixing memory leaks.

Download Resonant Rise and get bugfix two or read the closed tickets. The epic memory leak fixes are VERY important.