How can get better FPS in Minecraft?
On Minecraft servers I only have around 5 FPS when I'm running around. This makes the game very hard to play. I have tried many things but nothing has worked. Optifine will not download, and I have watched many tutorials on how to install it. I also have smooth lighting off, fast graphics, and minimal render distance. Does anyone know of a way to get better FPS? I have a lenovo laptop running with windows 8.1. I also have 8 GB of RAM.
Solution 1:
There are many ways to increase FPS:
I recently discovered that turning off your sound effects in the options menu increases your frame rate significantly on low-end computers. Try this first, since it's such a simple solution. (Just drag the volume slider all the way down to 'OFF')
One solution is using add-ons which let you further customize Minecraft to increase frame rates. The one Justin B proposed is fine. However, Notch has mentioned including a lot of this frame rate improving code in his official releases, so it might not help as much as you want.
If you don't want to use add-ons, you can take advantage of the built in skinning functionality, and testing some low resolution skins, including ones that don't use animations. An example is here: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/113088-deloz-high-fps-texture-pack/ and here: http://evilmousestudios.com/tronic/. Some people report an improvement with these simple texture packs, others do not.
Compatibility Mode - Some people report improved game performance on windows 7 when they run in compatibility mode for older operating systems like Windows 2000.
Increase javaw.exe priority - in task manager, right click that process and increase it to just below 'realtime'. You might be surprised by other processes in here that are taking up resources and want to kill them, but I'm assuming you've shut down what you can.
There are some system settings you might want to play with. While playing the game, you might get the most out of it by going to System Properties (Right click on 'My Computer' and select 'Properties' > Advanced > Performance, and choosing to optimize for best performance. This will automatically turn of things like windows transparency and styles that can be sucking cycles out of your graphics card.
You can also try killing explorer entirely. A lot of games recommend this when graphics are running slow. Kill Explorer.exe in task manager and when you're done playing, you can start it back up using the same (Ctrl+Shift+Esc > File > Run... > "explorer.exe")
You can download this tool to verify whether you're running the best version of OpenGL available for your machine.