v1.3.5

This update focuses on performance optimization and brings major improvements. IT RUNS MUCH MORE EFFICIENTLY!

For version-to-version comparison, an 8-ball break was tested in Minecraft 1.21.8 on a Ryzen 9 5900X processor in a clean singleplayer world, using a 6×10 table, default ball radius, 150% break power, 1 GB allocated RAM, PBO enabled, and no resource pack. Each version was tested five times, with load monitored over 10 seconds.

Performance Improvements

• Heavily optimized math functions and physics-engine logic to reduce unnecessary calculations.
• Restricted player-ball-table interaction checks to players within 50 blocks of the table center.
• Added a directional check to the quick-sorting logic to discard ball pairs that are moving away from each other.
  • Greatly reduces peak load in situations where many balls are close together.
• Normal shot processing can now run at as low as ~1 mspt.
• Bot simulation speed is significantly improved, reaching up to ~2× the previous speed.
  • Recommended bot performance settings have been adjusted accordingly.
• To further reduce lag spikes, the number of simulation steps per tick is now adjusted dynamically based on the number of moving balls on the table during simulation.
  • The setting controls the maximum value, which corresponds to the steps per tick when one ball is moving. During simulation, this value is internally reduced when more balls are moving, such as being halved when two balls are moving.
• Changed to lightweight item detection for various held items in Minecraft 1.20.5 and later.

Mechanism Changes

• Stopped balls no longer receive physics updates every tick.
  • Previously, all stopped balls were still processed each tick. This allowed force to propagate through tightly packed balls within the same tick after an active ball collided with them.
  • Now, a stopped ball begins receiving physics updates only after it is affected by a collision. As a result, force propagation through packed balls is more likely to take multiple ticks instead of occurring within a couple of ticks.
  • This change substantially reduces the processing cost of normal shots and also contributes significantly to faster bot simulations.
  • The practical impact is limited:
    • Normal tightly packed situations (i.e., break shots) can be handled by the NN break system, which is unaffected by this change.
    • In ordinary gameplay, the visual difference is very small.

Fixes

• Fixed an issue in UK 8-Ball where foul feedback could unintentionally appear after the break shot without any foul.
• Fixed an issue in practice mode where only one player is given cue ball.

Please see v1.3.5-mc1.21plus!

v1.3.5

This update focuses on performance optimization and brings major improvements. IT RUNS MUCH MORE EFFICIENTLY!

For version-to-version comparison, an 8-ball break was tested in Minecraft 1.21.8 on a Ryzen 9 5900X processor in a clean singleplayer world, using a 6×10 table, default ball radius, 150% break power, 1 GB allocated RAM, PBO enabled, and no resource pack. Each version was tested five times, with load monitored over 10 seconds.

Performance Improvements

• Heavily optimized math functions and physics-engine logic to reduce unnecessary calculations.
• Restricted player-ball-table interaction checks to players within 50 blocks of the table center.
• Added a directional check to the quick-sorting logic to discard ball pairs that are moving away from each other.
  • Greatly reduces peak load in situations where many balls are close together.
• Normal shot processing can now run at as low as ~1 mspt.
• Bot simulation speed is significantly improved, reaching up to ~2× the previous speed.
  • Recommended bot performance settings have been adjusted accordingly.
• To further reduce lag spikes, the number of simulation steps per tick is now adjusted dynamically based on the number of moving balls on the table during simulation.
  • The setting controls the maximum value, which corresponds to the steps per tick when one ball is moving. During simulation, this value is internally reduced when more balls are moving, such as being halved when two balls are moving.
• Changed to lightweight item detection for various held items in Minecraft 1.20.5 and later.

Mechanism Changes

• Stopped balls no longer receive physics updates every tick.
  • Previously, all stopped balls were still processed each tick. This allowed force to propagate through tightly packed balls within the same tick after an active ball collided with them.
  • Now, a stopped ball begins receiving physics updates only after it is affected by a collision. As a result, force propagation through packed balls is more likely to take multiple ticks instead of occurring within a couple of ticks.
  • This change substantially reduces the processing cost of normal shots and also contributes significantly to faster bot simulations.
  • The practical impact is limited:
    • Normal tightly packed situations (i.e., break shots) can be handled by the NN break system, which is unaffected by this change.
    • In ordinary gameplay, the visual difference is very small.

Fixes

• Fixed an issue in UK 8-Ball where foul feedback could unintentionally appear after the break shot without any foul.
• Fixed an issue in practice mode where only one player is given cue ball.

Please see v1.3.5-mc1.21plus!

1.3.4

This update focuses on a "distributed" bot thinking strategy, free ball rule for Snooker, and additional performance optimization and fixes.

Improvements

• Assigned fixed UUIDs to helper entities and the pool-table marker to make entity selection slightly faster.

  Helper entities rhp1–rhp3:

  UUID:[I;797665,435737,0,4-6] # swPool, helper, 0, #4-#6
  000c2be1-0006-a619-0000-00000000000[4-6]
  

  Pool-table marker:

  UUID:[I;797665,82253,0,0] # swPool, table, 0, 0
  000c2be1-0001-414d-0000-000000000000
  

• Reduced the frequency of OnGround NBT checks to once every 4 ticks.

• Reduced entity position reads after movement by accumulating position from the previously stored position and movement speed instead. Full position reads are now performed once every 10 ticks.

• For Minecraft 1.21+, reduced unnecessary calculations during spin rendering by normalizing quaternions less frequently, now once every 10 ticks.

These optimizations reduced active-gameplay MSPT by up to approximately 17% compared with v1.3.3 in a testing scenario outlined in README.

Changes / Additions

• Dynamic pool-table scaling now supports ball radii above 1250, up to 1500. Please use multiples of 250 for best results.

• If the ball-spinning feature is turned off, balls will no longer spin during the pocketing animation.

• The bot can now distribute its thinking time across multiple ticks. This helps prevent short lag spikes, and the maximum number of simulation steps per tick can be configured based on the processing power of the client or server.

• Fixed static ball-rendering issues when the bot is thinking.

• Added a slight penalty for shots that are too straight, as they often make positioning for the next shot harder.

• Added an [experimental] Snooker free ball mechanism

  • After a foul, the datapack can detect whether the incoming player is snookered and award a free ball when applicable.
  • The first ball hit is treated as the nominated free ball.
  • If the nominated free ball is potted, it scores the same value as the original ball on.
  • A free ball is not awarded when the incoming player already has ball in hand in the D-Zone.

• Revised Chinese language terminology: ball in hand (cue ball replacement) is now referred to as 手中球 in all games, while a Snooker free ball is referred to as 自由球.

• Shortened the name of release zip files and included version number.

Fixes

• Fixed a 9-ball rule issue where potting a lower-numbered ball after illegally hitting the next higher-numbered ball first was not correctly identified as a foul.
• Fixed a bug where players sometimes could not shoot when pressing Shift.

Please see the update log for mc1.21plus

1.3.4

This update focuses on a "distributed" bot thinking strategy, free ball rule for Snooker, and additional performance optimization and fixes.

Improvements

• Assigned fixed UUIDs to helper entities and the pool-table marker to make entity selection slightly faster.

  Helper entities rhp1–rhp3:

  UUID:[I;797665,435737,0,4-6] # swPool, helper, 0, #4-#6
  000c2be1-0006-a619-0000-00000000000[4-6]
  

  Pool-table marker:

  UUID:[I;797665,82253,0,0] # swPool, table, 0, 0
  000c2be1-0001-414d-0000-000000000000
  

• Reduced the frequency of OnGround NBT checks to once every 4 ticks.

• Reduced entity position reads after movement by accumulating position from the previously stored position and movement speed instead. Full position reads are now performed once every 10 ticks.

• For Minecraft 1.21+, reduced unnecessary calculations during spin rendering by normalizing quaternions less frequently, now once every 10 ticks.

These optimizations reduced active-gameplay MSPT by up to approximately 17% compared with v1.3.3 in a testing scenario outlined in README.

Changes / Additions

• Dynamic pool-table scaling now supports ball radii above 1250, up to 1500. Please use multiples of 250 for best results.

• If the ball-spinning feature is turned off, balls will no longer spin during the pocketing animation.

• The bot can now distribute its thinking time across multiple ticks. This helps prevent short lag spikes, and the maximum number of simulation steps per tick can be configured based on the processing power of the client or server.

• Fixed static ball-rendering issues when the bot is thinking.

• Added a slight penalty for shots that are too straight, as they often make positioning for the next shot harder.

• Added an [experimental] Snooker free ball mechanism

  • After a foul, the datapack can detect whether the incoming player is snookered and award a free ball when applicable.
  • The first ball hit is treated as the nominated free ball.
  • If the nominated free ball is potted, it scores the same value as the original ball on.
  • A free ball is not awarded when the incoming player already has ball in hand in the D-Zone.

• Revised Chinese language terminology: ball in hand (cue ball replacement) is now referred to as 手中球 in all games, while a Snooker free ball is referred to as 自由球.

• Shortened the name of release zip files and included version number.

Fixes

• Fixed a 9-ball rule issue where potting a lower-numbered ball after illegally hitting the next higher-numbered ball first was not correctly identified as a foul.
• Fixed a bug where players sometimes could not shoot when pressing Shift.

Please see the update log for mc1.21plus