Minetest 5.7.0

Features

Players

Choose from Multiple Games

• There are many games to choose from. You could survive in a harsh environment, build creatively, or fight other players. Just download a game or connect to a server.

Enormous Maps

• With 62,000 × 62,000 × 62,000 blocks, there's no running out of space. You can mine 31,000 blocks down, or build 31,000 blocks up.

Multiplayer Support

• Play by yourself, locally with your friends, or online with dozens of players on a server.

Texture Packs

• Not happy with the look of the textures? Change them!

Beautiful Map Generators

• Choose from many different fast map generators included in the engine, or install one as a mod.

Developers

Make a Game

• Create your own voxel game using our Lua API. No need to worry about tricky voxel rendering or networking; instead, write scripts to add items and control game play.

Modding API

• Use the same Lua API to make mods for any Minetest-based game. Publish your mods on the forums, and contribute to others' mods.

Large Collection of Existing Mods

• There are over 1,000 open source mods on our forums which are ready to be used, adapted or learned from.

Friendly Community

• You can find help with any problems on our forums or IRC channels.

Open Source

• The engine is open source and transparently developed. Submit an issue for anything you're missing, or get the source code and dig into it yourself.

Installation:

Extract the zip package somewhere. Run the executable found in the bin/ folder.

What's New

Highlights

• Post-processing: Bloom and Dynamic Exposure
• Improved Long-range Performance on Modern Gaming Hardware
• Rotating Entity Selection/Hit Boxes
• Android Fixed Crosshair

Graphics and Performance

Post-processing: Bloom and Dynamic Exposure

Minetest now has a post-processing pipeline, with support for Bloom and Dynamic Exposure. This pipeline will allow for new effects to be implemented in the future, such as depth-of-field and volumetric lighting (god rays). Post-processing also improves the performance of tone mapping and allows for settings like saturation adjustment.

Mods and games have control over whether these effects can be enabled on the client. Part of Minetest's design philosophy is to give more control to game creators, this includes giving games more control over graphics.

Dynamic Exposure is a feature that simulates eyes adjusting when going from a well-lit area into a cave, allowing for high dynamic range (HDR).

Improved Long-range Performance on Modern Gaming Hardware

Minetest is well-known for supporting old hardware, but has often not made the best use of modern and high-end hardware. In 5.7.0, Minetest has a setting that allows better use of the GPU when uploading world data. This results in vastly improved performance on modern gaming hardware at 500+ view ranges.

In the future, this optimization is likely to be enabled automatically when Minetest detects that the hardware supports it. But for now, those with modern GPUs will need to change the "Client Mesh Chunksize" (client_mesh_chunk) setting to 4 or 8.

You'll also need to change some settings to load more of the map, here's a guide on how to get a larger view range. With these changes, the bottleneck for getting a large view range is how quickly the server can send the map data; it can take a while to fully load a 1000 view range - that is 258,048 nodes in total. Map loading performance is likely to be improved in the future.

Other Performance Improvements

Performance improvements aren't just limited to modern gaming hardware. The occlusion culler has been improved, which provides better performance by not rendering areas that cannot be seen. The culler is faster, too.

To display the world, the client needs to turn blocks into 3d geometry called meshes. The mesh generator is now multithreaded, which will improve performance especially at large view ranges.

Rotating Entity Selection/Hit Boxes

There's now support for rotating selection and hitboxes. which will allow mobs and players to have more accurate hitboxes. This will make combat much nicer, especially with larger monsters. Unfortunately, this is just for selection/hitboxes, it doesn't change collision.

Android Fixed Crosshair

Crosshair support for Android has been merged. Unlike desktop, Android defaults to punching/placing/digging where you tap. With this new feature, users can enable the crosshair to have an experience closer to desktop.

Minetest 5.7.0 complete release notes.

Previous release notes

General

• Make 'place' and 'dig' keys freely configurable (only via minetest.conf for now: keymap_place and keymap_dig) (ANAND, Markus Koch)
• Freely bindable mouse buttons (only via minetest.conf for now: KEY_LBUTTON, KEY_MBUTTON, KEY_RBUTTON) (ANAND, Markus Koch)
• Add 'ores' global mapgen flag (Paramat)
• Mapgen Flat: Add caverns, disabled by default (Paramat)
• Semi-transparent background for nametags (Zughy, rubenwardy)
• Disable object selectionboxes by default (LoneWolfHT)
• Change crosshair when pointing to objects ("X" shape by default) (LoneWolfHT)
• Shaders for Android (GLES 2) (Vitaliy)
• Load media from subfolders (DS)
• Allow configuring block disk and net compression. Change default disk level. (Lars)

Main menu and ContentDB

• ContentDB: Add dependency resolution, update all, and download queues (rubenwardy)
• ContentDB: Add overwrite dialog when content is already installed (rubenwardy)
• ContentDB: Use icons for buttons (Zughy)
• Add open user data button to main menu (rubenwardy)
• Main menu: Add clear button and icon for search input (Andrey)
• Improve layout of main menu 'local' tab (Paramat)

Modding: GUI (Formspecs) / HUD

• Add sound effect style option (Pierre-Yves Rollo)
• Add 3d model formspec element (Jean-Patrick Guerrero, SmallJoker, Thomas--S)
• Add minimap and compass HUD elements (Pierre-Yves Rollo, Jean-Patrick Guerrero)
• Make bgcolor tint button background images (Hugues Ross)
• Add gradients and borders to FormSpec boxes (v-rob)
• Add font styling options (v-rob)
• Add set_focus[] to initially focus elements (v-rob)
• Make dropdowns optionally return event based on index, not value (v-rob)
• Avoid drawing clipped out formspec elements (EvidenceB)
• Darken tabheader background color (Kezi)
• Add inventory list styling: spacing, slot size, and noclip (v-rob)
• Add support for custom object crosshair image: object_crosshair.png (LoneWolfHT)

Modding: Other

• Add support for showing attached objects whilst in first person mode (Jordach)
• Add ability to cancel a minetest.after call after it was started (tenplus1)
• Add on_rightclickplayer callback (sorcerykid)
• Add on_deactivate callback for luaentities (hecks)
• Add minetest.get_objects_in_area (Elias Fleckenstein)
• Add ObjectRef:get_children() (Zughy)
• Add a short_description to be used by mods (DS)
• Add minetest.get_artificial_light and minetest.get_natural_light (HybridDog)
• Add register_on_chatcommand to SSM and CSM (Elijah Duffy)
• Add vector.offset (DS)
• Register missing get_texture_mod function (karamel59)
• content_cao: Support texture animation for upright_sprite (sfan5)
• Add PUT and DELETE request + specific method value to HTTP API (Lejo)
• Nodes are now allowed to have the "liquid" or "flowingliquid" drawtype for non-liquids (liquidtype=none) (Wuzzy)
• Play 'place_failed' sound if trying to place a node into an occupied space or it was an "attachable" node that failed to attach (Wuzzy)
• Implement grouped mode for find_nodes_in_area (sfan5)
• Clean up sound_fade (hecks)
• Chat commands: Show help message if func returns false without message (HybridDog)
• Node use_texture_alpha field supports now 3 modes "blend", "clip" and "opaque" (deprecated true/false values)
• Other enhancements and maintenance
• Cross-reference the node level manipulation functions (Oblomov)
• Update fallback fonts and mark additional locales as broken (sfan5)
• Clean up l_object.cpp (Zughy)
• Devtest: Improve various things (Paramat, HybridDog, Wuzzy)
• Android: Add CI with saving artifacts (Maksim)
• Add NetBSD cpu affinity support code (David CARLIER)
• Android: drop simple MainMenu (Maksim)
• Add support for Haiku OS (David CARLIER)

Bug fixes

Security

• Prevent players accessing inventories of other players (Lars Müller)
• Inventory: Protect Craft and Drop actions (SmallJoker)
• Prevent interacting with items out of the hotbar (Lejo)
• Fix inventory swapping not calling all callbacks (Lars Müller)
• Patch fast/teleport vulnerability when attached to an entity (Elias Fleckenstein)
• Prevent games from setting secure settings (rubenwardy)
• Prevent players from being able to modify ItemStack meta (luk3yx, rubenwardy)

Other

• Fix dropped craftitems/tools not using light_source values (LoneWolfHT)
• Fix when on_player_hpchange is called (SmallJoker)
• Use JSON for favorites list, fixing many bugs (rubenwardy)
• Fix hypertext and textarea elementing consuming scroll events (v-rob)
• Fix ESC in error dialog from closing Minetest (Yaman Qalieh)
• Remove null bytes from TOCLIENT_BLOCKDATA (luk3yx)
• Load system-wide texture packs too (Zughy)
• Fix Android support in bump version script (rubenwardy)
• ContentDB: Ignore content not installed from ContentDB (rubenwardy)
• Sanitize server IP field in mainmenu (Zughy)
• Fix item tooltip background color not working (Lars Mueller)
• Display Minetest header when menu_last_game value isn't available anymore (Zughy)
• Fix minetest.is_nan (Lars Mueller)
• Fix some minor code issues all over the place (sfan5)
• Minor profiler fixes. (Lars)
• Fix fallnode rotation of wallmounted nodebox/mesh (Wuzzy)
• Make installer create its own Minetest folder (LoneWolfHT)
• Implement mapblock camera offset correctly (hecks)
• Fix MSAA stripes (HybridDog)
• Fix certain connected nodeboxes crashing when falling (sfan5)
• Avoid generating the same chunk more than once with multiple emerge threads. (Lars)
• Fixed various issues with stars, sky, and clouds (numzero)
• Fix falling image of torchlike if paramtype2="none" (Wuzzy)
• Fix player sprite visibility in first person (sfan5)
• Fix object interaction distance not being checked (rubenwardy)
• Block attempts to connect to the client (red-001)
• Fix segfault in deprecation logging due to tail call, log by default (rubenwardy, SmallJoker)
• Player physics: Ensure larger dtime simulation steps (Lars Müller)
• Avoid resending near blocks unnecessarily. (Lars)
• Fix CSMs on arm64 (luk3yx)
• Fix Media... 0% on loading screen (Maksim)
• Implement unloading of static_save=false objects according to existing docs (sfan5)
• Decouple entity minimap markers from nametags replacing with show_on_minimap property (sfan5)
• Periodically release all mesh HW buffers to avoid an Irrlicht bottleneck. (Lars)
• Fix float argument check in minetest.set_timeofday() (Zughy)
• Avoid drawing invisible blocks on the client. (Lars)
• Fix scroll bar overlapping text (again) (random-geek)
• Reduce the FPS when the window is unfocused (HybridDog)
• Android: replace InputDialogActivity on simple dialog window (Maksim)
• Correct erroneous reported max lag with prometheus (Buckaroo Banzai)
• Fix horizontal/vertical merging bug of hardware-colored framed glass (Paramat)
• Fix chat/infotext overlap if many chat lines (Wuzzy)
• Settings: Fix crash on exit (SmallJoker)
• Record player existence in dummy database. (Lars)
• Darwin platform build fix (David CARLIER)
• Scale inventory image for scaled allfaces nodes (Wuzzy)
• Fix NetBSD build (David CARLIER)
• shaders: Fix transparency on GC7000L (mntmn)
• Fix MSVC compiler warnings (adrido)
• Fix light overflow of u8 if light is saturated at 255 (BenjaminRi)
• Fix missing translation call in hypertext (Pierre-Yves Rollo)
• Render nodeboxes with opaque material if possible (sfan5)
• Fix precision not working in hud_change (Lars Müller)
• Fix build for Visual Studio (explicitly cast pointers) (Seeker)
• Fix GCC class-memaccess warnings (Paul Ouellette)
• Falling: Fix error caused by missing param2 (SmallJoker)
• Allow starting local server using --go again (SmallJoker)
• decode_base64: Allow '=' padding character (SmallJoker)
• Sanitize world directory names on create. Keep original name separate (Hugues Ross)
• Improve bad/missing default inventory+wield images of node drawtypes, affecting: airlike, signlike, torchlike, raillike, plantlike, plantlike_rooted, firelike, flowingliquid (Wuzzy)
• Android: Fix ConfirmRegistration and PasswordChange input and scale size (Maksim)
• Formspecs: volume and key settings windows can now be closed by doubleclicking/tapping (Zughy)

Minetest Game

• Add crafting guide (Paul Ouellette)
• Added 5 wood variants of Mese Post Light (An0n3m0us)
• Add environment sounds for lava and active furnace (An0n3m0us)
• Change several block sounds (An0n3m0us)
• Fix players sleeping in an occupied bed (An0n3m0us, Wuzzy)
• Fix 'sleepwalking' in bed (An0n3m0us, Wuzzy)
• Fix sleeping player flying off the bed when damaged and flying far away from the bed after death (An0n3m0us)
• Fix sleeping player being immobilized and bed undiggable after death (An0n3m0us)
• Fix furnace infotext not always updating when removing item (orbea)
• New translation: Slovak (Daretmavi)
• New translation: Brazilian Portuguese (ronaldo)
• New translation: Lojban (admittedly not a very good translation) (robintown, Wuzzy and others)
• Update existing translations (various people)