MineCraft & ThinkPad W520's

      Minecraft & ThinkPad W520's (Updated to MC 1.1)

This is the best, sure to work, setup for you MC lovers like myself :) I'll help you get MC running smoothly, add your favorite texture pack and install any mods you hold dear.


First things first, lets update your graphics driver. For the W520's, get updated drivers HERE:

Secondly, lets get MineCraft (MC from here on in) customized  to run and look much better.

     For this you will need to download a custom MC launcher(MyCraft) and a mod(Optifine).

I highly recommend:

MyCraft: One of the best launchers out there by far. This launcher also acts as a fly mod and has its on built in mod loader to ease the pain of managing multiple mods.

Optifine: Is a mod that allows MC to run with HD texture packs. It also has a ton of video settings to fully customize your setup to allow for the best performance. (I use all default settings :} )

 OPTIFINE VERSIONS..
Optifine usually has 3 to 4 different versions. I try to use the "Multi-Core" first as it will provide the best performance but the "Standard" is the fail safe if you have any troubles.


Texture Packs: My favorite, all time pack is PhotoRealism:(Scroll down a few pages for the links)
    
You can find many many more with Google, like this page with many packs HERE:


      NOW we can put all this together and get MC running faster and looking better!


1. Extract MyCraft.zip to a folder of your choosing.(I use my "Desktop")
 Now go inside your newly create MyCraft folder and open "Launch Options.txt" and change from:
-Xmx####m
-Xms####m

Change To:
-Xmx4096m
-Xms512m

(Use an amount of RAM suitable for your computer. To do this, click on your "START BUTTON" and type "taskmgr". Click the "PERFORMANCE" tab at the top and now at the bottom left look for "Physical Memory(MB):" Total ####. Take the ####'s and subtract 2048. That is what you should use for the "Launch Options.txt)
*****BE SURE TO SAVE the text file before you close it!*****


2. Back in your "MyCraft Folder", go into the "mods" folder, this is were you will put ONE, I SAID ONE, of the OptiFine zips. If you downloaded all three, will need to find out which one you think works the best. 
            ***If you use other mods, place them here in a zip file***


3. Run MyCraft.exe and MC should start. CLICK ON "OPTIONS", then click on "BLUE" game location to open a folder showing the MC game files. You would be smart to remember this folders location, or even better, send a shortcut to your desktop for it :)

You should have a "texturepacks" folder, this is were you place your texture pack zip files. You can have more than one. Just remember, once MC starts, at the main menu to choose "Mods and Texture Packs" to select your new texture pack. ***MC will act like it froze when you click on a texture pack. Don't worry, its just decompressing and applying the pack so BE PATIENT.

BEFORE PLAYING - be sure to check out all the many new video options to make MC run more smoothly!


That should get you running and mining like never before.


I have an invite only server running 24/7. If you are a NU student, send me an email from your student account and I'll send you the IP.
As of this writing, the server is running bukkit 1.1 dev build 177. The server has a "Survival World", "Creative World" and a "Vanilla World". The names imply there game types so it can easily accommodate all types of players.


Again enjoy and hope this helped out some,


Patrick Hill

P.S.
A zip of my setup...HERE