Mojang made a point to say that you will need more computer horsepower to run the latest Minecraft update, but how much do you really need? What's the difference in memory and frame speed? We compared Minecraft 1.2.5 and the Minecraft 1.3 Prerelease to find out.
| Minecraft 1.2.5 | Minecraft 1.3 | |
| Tiny distance | 82 FPS | 75 FPS |
| Short distance | 66 FPS | 73 FPS |
| Normal distance | 50 FPS | 60 FPS |
| Far distance | 38 FPS | 33 FPS |
| Memory (on Normal) | 70 MB | 150 MB |
This chart compares frames per second (FPS) and memory usage in both versions of Minecraft. Overall, the average frame drop in the upgrade is about 11 frames, give or take what you are doing in Minecraft. These tests were performed while standing still, with Performance Balanced, Fancy Graphics, 32-bit Java installation, and OptiFine was not used. The 11 frame drop might not seem that bad if you have a great gaming computer, but if you thought you could still play Minecraft on your netbook you're gonna have a bad time. Memory usage is a little over twice as heavy, meaning you might not want to leave Firefox open while you play Minecraft any more. Overall, if you are on the low end of computers it might be best for you to wait until Minecraft 1.4's scheduled performance improvements. If you have a high end computer, even if it's a few years old, you should be squared away.