One of the most appealing aspects of Minecraft was its graphics: it wasn’t anything fancy but you still loved it anyway. In a world that was getting increasingly high tech, there was still this game that stuck with aesthetic standards of the past. Last year, the makers of the game announced a Super Duper Graphics Pack optional DLC that boasted of 4K HDR graphics.
MCPE/Minecraft PE Super Duper Graphics Pack, Brad Shuber and Cameron Egbert talk about some of the cool whizzy graphics contained in the upcoming Super Duper. The graphics pack has been pushed back to 2018, but that's not stopping Supergirl's Melissa Benoist from singing about it. Watch more trailers here!
Video credit: AntVenom
It wasn’t surprising then that the announcement not a unanimous cheer. Sure, the game looks great with improved graphics and all, but what about its essence? The beauty with Minecraft was that you could create something fancy from a simple set of tools.
However, just because Minecraft is being offered in a much more “visually attractive” package doesn’t spell the end for pixels. As the maker’s stated in a blog post, “…this is just one aesthetic vision for Minecraft – not THE vision for Minecraft.”
Super Duper Graphics Pack
This was made available for Xbox One and Windows 10. It’s part of an effort to “give Minecraft a new lick of paint.” Minecraft players who used the Java Edition have been able to do this and now other users can get the same chance.
Adobe to excel convert. A blog post on the official Minecraft site called the pack “full of excessive visual razzmatazz.” Among the features boasted include dynamic shadows, directional lighting, and edge highlighting.
While not many are enthused by this, the good news is that the version with pixels isn’t going anywhere. It has also been stressed that the Graphics Pack is optional. So it’s entirely up to you to get this or not. Then again, it still hasn’t dropped.
Better Together Update
This is an attempt to unify versions of the game under a single edition. With this update, players who use consoles, mobile devices or Windows 10 to play Minecraft will now be able to do so using just one version. In the past, users of different devices needed to get a version specific to what they own. This update changes that.
The update also allows cross-platform play. Meaning, players using different devices can come together and play a game they love. It’s a noble effort that will surely be appreciated.
Independent servers have always been a way for the Minecraft community to collaborate, play, and socialize. With the Better Together Update, a list of servers will be accessible from the start menu. Doing this makes it easier for players to find like-minded individuals who share a passion for the game.
Minecraft APK
Minecraft is available for the Android platform. You can also get it on your device through an APK, which is basically like an installer. If you’re a Windows user, an EXE file is the closest thing that can be likened to an APK. And you go through the same process in getting gone too!
All you have to do to get a Minecraft APK are the following:
- Since you’re already here, then all you need to do is download the APK file.
- On your device, make sure Unknown Sources is turned on. This allows you to install programs using methods other than the Play Store. You can check this by going to Settings then Security. Note that if you’re on Android 8 or 9, you will just be prompted about allowing an installation.
- Go to the Downloads folder on your device. Find the APK and tap on it to begin the installation process.
Wait for the process to complete and once it’s done, you’re ready to enjoy Minecraft on your device.
A little over two years ago, Minecraft developer Mojang announced that Minecraft would be receiving an awesome, amazing, incredible graphics update. The new Super Duper Graphics Pack (we didn’t name it) was supposed to introduce a swath of new graphics features, including 4K textures, rippling water, cleaner lines, a different lighting engine, dynamic shadows, edge highlighting, and directional lighting. The video showing off the improvements was a hit back at E3 2017, and questions about when the update would be released have popped up on the Minecraft subreddit from time to time ever since.
Today, Mojang declared the Super Duper Graphics Pack update is canceled, permanently. According to the company, “Super Duper was an ambitious initiative that brought a new look to Minecraft but, unfortunately, the pack proved too technically demanding to implement as planned.”
Minecraft Super Duper Graphics Pack. Image by Microsoft.
The only explanation the company has provided for why it won’t be bringing the update is that “we aren’t happy with how the pack performed across devices. For this reason, we’re stopping development on the pack, and looking into other ways for you to experience Minecraft with a new look.”
Minecraft Super Duper Graphics Pack Wiki
This is a pretty thin explanation. First of all, we would have expected this kind of work — specifically, the work of deciding which devices would be targets for Minecraft’s SDGP — would have been typified before that project had begun. Minecraft runs on a huge number of devices, but you don’t typically develop an expansion like this without targets in mind, because (presumably) you’ll be testing the updates on a variety of systems as you work through them. Discovering after two years that you can’t justify the update because some products can’t run it, if true, speaks to some rather odd development priorities. Why wouldn’t you finish the update or upgrade for the systems that can?
The SDGP required a complete rewrite of the Minecraft graphics engine. Such efforts are not trivial and it isn’t crazy for a total overhaul to take two years. But at the same time, what sense does it make to scrap the rewrite after two full years in development?
Not much makes sense about this. The Super Duper Graphics Pack wasn’t supposed to break Minecraft’s ability to run on older hardware; it was supposed to provide better image quality for machines capable of running it. The upcoming launch of a new console generation and the inevitable upgrade treadmill for mobile devices should have provided a more robust hardware platform for the game relative to 2017. Mojang and Microsoft jointly declared that Minecraft has sold 176 million copies as of May 2019. The original PC version has sold 30 million copies. Microsoft continues to invest in and augment Minecraft with spinoffs like the AR-focused Minecraft Earth. If any game could possibly justify the investment of a new graphics engine a decade after launch, it’d be a title like Minecraft.
The most logical implication here is that Mojang couldn’t find a way to build an engine that both delivered the capabilities they wanted at the top-end and still offered an acceptable level of performance on lower-end hardware. There might have also been fears about the impact of splitting the player base across multiple versions of the game and maintaining updates for both engines going forward. Killing off the engine update after more than two years is a fairly extreme step. Hopefully, there’ll still be a way for some of these optimizations and enhancements to be integrated into the base version. Otherwise, Mojang’s graphics team has just spent two years of work on a major engine rewrite, only to see their efforts basically flushed down the drain.
Minecraft Super Duper Graphics Pc
Now Read: