Nova's Minecraft Rentry

Minecraft Clients are Shitty.

Intro

We have all at one point, most likely tried a Minecraft client. It could have been today, it could have been tomorrow, it could have been literally any other day.

While some are okay, some do not contribute much to the Minecraft scene. Some are just very controversial, and others don't have enough information.
While this is a part rant, and I want change in this area, I still find myself sometimes using one of these clients. Usually because I want to look back on the unique features they very rarely offer, I'm stepping deep in for a friend who wants me to try it, or I'm just making fun of the damn thing for how unhelpful it is. While some are okay, some do not contribute much to the Minecraft scene. Some are just very controversial, and others don't have enough information.
While this is a part rant, and I want change in this area, I still find myself sometimes using one of these clients. Usually because I want to look back on the unique features they very rarely offer, I'm stepping deep in for a friend who wants me to try it, or I'm just making fun of the damn thing for how unhelpful it is.

Speaking of, my opinion on this? Well:

Clients are dumb.

They suck. They just suck more than they should.

Think of it this way.
Think of how you play Minecraft like how you like your desk. Some people find the way it already is, perfect. Some want to deck it out with mods, which is like attaching a bunch of accessories with it. Some like to add things others might not need. That's okay!

But Minecraft Clients are usually like getting a desk with a flashlight you can't remove. While for some people, that's great! They get what they come for, it has everything else they want, it's like a perfect mold.

But what if you don't need a stupid flashlight? What if you're always working at day and never using the desk at night? Then just remove the flashlight! Oh wait, you can't remove the flashlight, it's bundled with the desk!

You try to forcefully remove it, until you realize you don't know how.
That's what they're like.

They're usually pretty mediocre in quality and presentation, the design gets so sickening you eventually HATE looking at it, everybody's copying off each other, and it sucks.
I mean look at Salwyrr. Salwyrr pretty much allows you to play Minecraft without buying it. It's weird how the government hasn't sniped them, isn't it?

Well, let's see how the current market fares! Let's review all these clients and see what makes them unideal to me!

Lunar Client

Alright, this is where stuff really lights up.

Unfortunately, Lunar happened to be the first Client I ever touched. I also touched it before any other Mod loader. And GOD, I regret that.

While it used to fits my needs, it's a completely dumpster fire now and has implemented ZERO changes I use a mod loader for. It's just unnecessary features. Speaking of Unnecessary, Lunar+. 10 dollars a month, they claim to step up your game further. Let's see how much that adds up. When you look at the features, you see all this junk. Well, it's moreso like this:

  • Custom discord rank that not only doesn't make me better than others, but also gives me a channel I'm not going to talk in! Already LOVING these perks!
  • I can get Unlimited Friends on my Friends List? Now THAT is worth 10 bucks! Oh wait, nobody uses the friends feature! Even funnier, I could just add them on another website? Like I don't know, SpaceHey or Discord? Even fucking ROBLOX?
  • A pink Lunar logo with a green plus? God damn, now THAT will make me stand out to a crowd I should not be in!
  • 10% off over expensive cosmetics that don't do anything in game but serve as eye candy people will ignore anyway? Which is money I could throw into a new game, or my taxes? Or a present for a friend? Yeah, clearly!
  • A dance that is only visible to people who are using this shit client too? Wow!!! Dances should be free already!

Plus, they seem to have stole Sodium, Iris, Phosphor, and AppleSkin and integrated it into their client. I get it's Public Domain, but come on! What's the point of all this?!

You didn't even properly optimize your updating process. It takes years for the game to launch, even when fully updated.

Sources

  1. Lunar's Patch Notes (#20), documenting their addition of AppleSkin to the client
  2. Lunar's Patch Notes (#21), documenting their addition of Sodium, Iris, Phosphor, and "Forge and Fabric Modloaders"
  3. Don't believe the ridiculous perks Lunar+ has? Read the store page yourself here!

Verdict

Even Badlion can randomly give you Premium for free. And you get free dances, pretty sure!
Which reminds me, I almost forgot to bring up Badlion! Allow me to do that now...

Badlion Client

Oh, this piece of shit. Where the FUCK do I begin?

Well first off, I was actually considering this client, because of some of the features it had. But uh oh, some people worked for it dated 14 year old children and such! What a time to be alive, holy fuck!

That's the main thing that really does not make this client appealing. That sting alone already makes it concerning if the quality is worth it. Let alone the design, which doesn't looks too great to me. The modules they include is alright to me too, they definitely have a few things other clients don't have, which actually shocked me. Too bad other mods haven't tried to expand on them.

Sources

  1. This entry in recordedpixel's Podcast, formatted into text by acast.com, documents some of the controversy about Badlion. I cannot 100% confirm their truth though, so you'll have to take my word for it until I find further evidence.

Feather Launcher/Client

I had saw this one and thought I would consider using it. They had my hopes up, but it just gave me fucking cancer.
They claim to have a "add your own mods" button, but it does fucking nothing! What is the fucking point of the button if I can't add extra mods I need in the first place?!

Oh, don't get me fucking started on the shit between Sk1er and them, after they supposedly stole and re-used Patcher & Essential code, WITHOUT PERMISSION. Even though they have removed that code, it still makes me have a bitter taste in my mouth.
This is a JOKE. A launcher that claims to support mods like Modpacks, yet has only A VERY FUCKING SMALL PERCENTAGE of what mods people use. Like it's a joke!
Who the fuck are designing these? People who only use OptiFine?

Salwyrr Launcher

Ah, another piece of software I was unfortunate enough to experience. It's time to touch this shitstain and see once more how good it actually is. Will it hold up today?

Well first thing I notice, you can pretty much play the game for free. I'm not fucking kidding, they have their own account system, which basically allows you to play without a tradition Minecraft account. Yep, straight up piracy. Lovely.

Let's boil it down further. Singleplayer. Why yes, of course! Let's allow piracy, but allow an actual account to play Singleplayer! Jesus christ, who designed this?
They supposedly also have an Anticheat. I don't know how to find further information on it, or how to test it, so I'll just leave no comment on that for now. Although that already sounds kind of like a plus.

As always, you get the standard. Custom loading screens, custom Option menu, some alright animations. I think this launcher does design a bit better than other launchers, probably because of the options menu, I'll be honest. Otherwise, it's not that much different compared to other clients. The same standard mods, forced Discord Rich Presence, not much unique to offer, etc...

Woah, that was a mouthful!

Personal Opinion

The thing is, some clients are just ok.

I think this is mainly to lure in new users. It gets them some easy attention, they get a product to brag about, they can do anything to keep them there. Yet, they're still the same as everything else in the bag.

Although yet, most still aren't really the best. Some are in very deep rabbit holes of controversy, while others are just horribly designed. Occasionally, you get a really downright terrible one that sucks on all sides.

I don't really agree with these clients, although people are okay to enjoy these clients. It's the way they play at the end of the day, and not everybody's going to agree with me, or somebody who has a similar opinion.

If you want to fight back...

At the very least, PLEASE stop using Lunar or Badlion. Find another client that does the same things you need those two for, at the least. Something like Labymod, or SkyClient. Anything! Even just making your own modpacks to work for hypixel or another server, You could do that. Hell, some launchers let you download mods through the launcher! You might find some mods you like that you never knew they existed!

You never know, you might find a mod from an old Client you used! If you think you don't know how to find them, make your own! If you're used to Lunar, all you need to go to is Sk1er's site, and you can probably find some of your old mods there. Or better yet, try it yourself!
If not, you should reach out to your favorite client creator for better options, if you can.

What if these don't work for me?

Oh, don't worry so much about that! You can always:

SWITCH!

Why switching client/launcher is ideal

You get what other solutions give you, usually better, at full price. Find a solution that fits what other clients give you, perfectly. You can still use Snapshots with another launcher, you can use more versions than you're stuck with, and you get better coverage of all areas. You're better off with it.

Let's try it!

Hell, maybe you'll like something here!

Independant Clients

Remember: These clients can be used with the default launcher.

Labymod - LabyMod is 10x better than what Strictpacks have to offer. You can install resource packs via a mod Badlion uses, you can use the same old features, and you even have a mini-addon store provided by LabyMod. You can also add your own mods, provided you install LabyMod via the Forge method.
SkyClient - While by default, it can only install to the Original Launcher, you can always drag the mods into another launcher if needed. It also glides through some recommended settings, and actually ALLOWS you to pick what you want to enable or disable at the start. It can also allow you to remove mods you don't need or don't want, something that's already a bit better than Lunar.
Axolotl Client - Installed via Fabric, or a Legacy Fabric modpack if you want it for 1.8.9. It's pretty barebones, but is pretty much a Fabric attempt to make a LabyMod-like replacement. No bloating cosmetics, no obnoxious advertising, no ugly custom GUIs. It uses default Minecraft GUI, has key features featured in most clients, and allows you to add more via the Fabric modloader. It was tested in Prism Launcher and ATLauncher, although I was only able to get it to work through ATL.

Speaking of launchers...

Launchers

ATLauncher - It's AWESOME for quickly installing mods and creating simple server files. It also has Legacy Fabric support, some basic themes you can use, and the ability to add descriptions to your instances.
MultiMC - It's an alright solution. Memory Usage is very low, which is great for lower end systems. It's features are pretty lackluster and missing compared to launchers like ATLauncher and Prism, although it's great for starting out, if you can get around it's GUI.
Prism Launcher - Now Prism, is the fucking bomb. It's the successor to PolyMC, which was hijacked and near abandoned when it turned out the owner was very right wing and against LGBTQ rights. Prism is what PolyMC was, But better. While it doesnt contain much, and you can call me bias for saying a fork is better than the original, But some features were added to Prism.

My Minecraft Setup

Just so you know, my computer specs are
Windows 10 Home (Currently 22H2)
24GB DDR4 RAM (8 GB + 16 GB)
250 GB SSD (2TB External for storage)
Intel i5 12th Gen (mobile cpu)
NVidia GeForce GTX 1650 (mobile card)

Minecraft

Main Launcher: Prism (Clients)
Launcher #2: ATLauncher (Servers + Some Clients)
Launcher #3: minecraft.net (skins)
Java exclusively.

Minecraft (per-version)

1.7.10

Modloader: Forge
JVM Args: -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions -XX:+AlwaysActAsServerClassMachine -XX:+ParallelRefProcEnabled -XX:+DisableExplicitGC -XX:+AlwaysPreTouch -XX:+AggressiveOpts -XX:+UseFastAccessorMethods -XX:AllocatePrefetchStyle=2 -XX:ThreadPriorityPolicy=1 -XX:+UseNUMA -XX:+UseDynamicNumberOfGCThreads -XX:NmethodSweepActivity=1 -XX:-DontCompileHugeMethods -XX:MaxNodeLimit=240000 -XX:NodeLimitFudgeFactor=8000 -XX:+UseFPUForSpilling -XX:+EnableJVMCI -XX:+UseJVMCICompiler -XX:+EagerJVMCI -Dgraal.TuneInlinerExploration=1 -Dgraal.CompilerConfiguration=enterprise -Dgraal.UsePriorityInlining=true -Dgraal.Vectorization=true -Dgraal.OptDuplication=true -Dgraal.DetectInvertedLoopsAsCounted=true -Dgraal.LoopInversion=true -Dgraal.VectorizeHashes=true -Dgraal.EnterprisePartialUnroll=true -Dgraal.VectorizeSIMD=true -Dgraal.StripMineNonCountedLoops=true -Dgraal.SpeculativeGuardMovement=true -Dgraal.InfeasiblePathCorrelation=true -XX:GCTimeRatio=99 -XX:SoftRefLRUPolicyMSPerMB=1 -Dfml.ignorePatchDiscrepancies=true -Dfml.ignoreInvalidMinecraftCertificates=true -Dsun.rmi.dgc.server.gcInterval=2147483646 -XX:MaxGCPauseMillis=37 -XX:G1HeapRegionSize=16M -XX:G1NewSizePercent=23 -XX:G1ReservePercent=20 -XX:SurvivorRatio=32 -XX:G1MixedGCCountTarget=3 -XX:G1HeapWastePercent=20 -XX:InitiatingHeapOccupancyPercent=10 -XX:G1RSetUpdatingPauseTimePercent=0 -XX:MaxTenuringThreshold=1 -XX:G1SATBBufferEnqueueingThresholdPercent=30 -XX:G1ConcMarkStepDurationMillis=5.0 -XX:G1ConcRSHotCardLimit=16 -XX:G1ConcRefinementServiceIntervalMillis=150 -XX:GCTimeRatio=99 -XX:+AlignVector -XX:+OptoBundling -XX:+OptimizeFill -XX:+AlwaysCompileLoopMethods -XX:+OptoScheduling
Java JRE: GraalVM Enterprise Edition 21.3.4 for Java 8

Mods:
OptiFine HD U E7 - You know what this is right?
FPS Reducer - It sounds bad, but what it actually does is just minimize unnessecary game usage if you're focused on changing your music or focused on Discord.
Add more mods here? Consider more up-to-date Performance mods.
Xaero's Minimap - I use it for waypoints!
BugTorch - Backports a small amount of features, and fixes some bugs, the usual.
FlyingCullers - Flying Cullers dynamically adjusts the render distance of entities and tile entities based on your frame rate.

1.8.9

Add your config here!

1.12.2

Repeat the process.

1.18.1 or 1.18.2?

Repeat the process.

1.19.2 (Archive)

Repeat the process.

1.19.3

Repeat the process.

Dev note: Do NOT enter 1.19.4 here yet. No Chat Reports isn't out yet, so that version should be avoided for now.

That's all, folks!

END

Changelog

March 9th 2023:

  • Progress started on entry.

May 1st 2023:

  • Started working on this again.

Credits

Edit Report
Pub: 09 Mar 2023 20:19 UTC
Edit: 01 May 2023 22:46 UTC
Views: 263