Minecraft slow to load terrain
I have a minecraft server hired from Multiplay and when I play on it, I always get issues where the terrain loads very very slowly. As I start to run from the area I start in, it can take me being 10-15 blocks away until new terrain is redrawn.
Might be a separate issue, but I often see dungeons and underground locations before the ground is properly rendered.
What can I do to fix this?
Rendering distance on the client is set to max, computer is very good. I played Crysis 3 on max settings, so it should handle MC I think :)
So naturally I'm assuming this is an server issue, but there is nothing to indicate an issue. CPU load has had a max at 33%, Memory usage at max 340 Mb (of 1 GB), most of the times no players. No mods activated at all. Server has bukkit, but I'm currently not using it. Had this issue before aswell.
Are there some settings I can set, either on client or server.
Minecraft is a very popular game that can behave very differently from computer to computer. The symptoms you describe can have one of a few sources and resolutions so I will attempt to go through them.
The generation of the world is done both on the server and the client. When you are hanging and twitching around it is because the world on the client and the server have become desynced. A reconnect is -required- to fix this issue. If you are seeing entire chunks that are simply not there (you look down and see nothing but air in the area) then you will need to reconnect as the server and the client are -very- out of sync. This is often called a chunk error within the community.
If you can look down through the ground and see tunnels and dungeons and such below you then this is just a graphical rendering bug. You can tell this is the case by the terrain actually rendering once you try to step on to it. A cycling of your render distance can force it to redraw things from your location and can often fix these up. If this happens consistently though then a restart of the client is recommended. Graphic driver updates can help with this as can updating some of the OpenGL libraries that come with Minecraft. Those resolutions however I leave up to you as they are unique to the hardware you are running. (A simple google search can often help you out along these paths though).
A server can be told to only send you chunks within an X radius of you, regardless of what your client is expecting. I am not sure this is what you are seeing as the two above issues seem more likely but this is a possibility if you have your render distance set to far but can only see around 3-4 chunks beyond where you are. Servers do this in order to track less data per user on them (You only load a 4x4 area of chunks instead of an 8x8.. 16 vs 64 is significant :)).
Hope this helps.
I would get the mod "Optifine" it makes your minecraft run smoother, terrain loads fast and supports HD texture packs :D