Java Edition distance effects

This article is about the effects caused by the 32-bit and 64-bit float precision loss. For other uses, see Distance effects.
This bug is exclusive to Java Edition.
 

In Java Edition, certain game mechanics start to break down as the player's distance from the center of the world increases.

Vanilla bounds (X/Y/Z ±0–29,999,984)

Entities

  • Entities are immune to damage above 8,388,608 blocks on the Y axis.[1]

Rendering

  • Rain and snow appear stretched out at large heights (Y axis).[2]

World

  • The End's generation is completely absent in repeating concentric rings centered on the world.[3]
  • Temperature distribution breaks at high distances,[4] which can be easily noticed with the creation of snow and ice in mountains appearing blockier due to both world generation and subsequent regeneration from snowfall or freezing.

Vanilla Precision loss:

On the X/Z axis:

Coordinates Effects (Coordinate Slicing) Effect Marks (32 bit precision) Effect Marks (64 bit precision)
X/Z ±1 (±20)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 4,503,599,627,370,496 (1⁄4,503,599,627,370,496 blocks).
 MI0
X/Z ±1,024 (±210)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 4,398,046,511,104 (1⁄4,398,046,511,104 blocks).
 MI1 MI0
X/Z ±2,048 (±211)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 2,199,023,255,552 (1⁄2,199,023,255,552 blocks).
 MI1 MI0
X/Z ±4,096 (±212)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 1,099,511,627,776 (1⁄1,099,511,627,776 blocks).
 MI1 MI0
X/Z ±8,192 (±213)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 549,755,813,888 (1⁄549,755,813,888 blocks).
 MI1 MI0
X/Z ±370,720
  • The End's generation is completely absent in repeating concentric rings centered on the world.[3]
 MI3 Ml0
X/Z ±524,288 (±219)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 8,589,934,592 (1⁄8,589,934,592 blocks).
  • The End's generation restored until next integer overflow occur.
 MI4 MI0
X/Z ±1,048,576 (±220)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 4,294,967,296 (1⁄4,294,967,296 blocks).
 MJ1 MI0
X/Z ±2,097,152 (±221)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 2,147,483,648 (1⁄2,147,483,648 blocks).
 MJ1 MI0
X/Z ±4,194,304 (±222)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 1,073,741,824 (1⁄1,073,741,824 blocks).
 MJ1 MI0
X/Z ±8,388,608 (±223)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 536,870,912 (1⁄536,870,912 blocks).
 MJ1 MI0
X/Z ±16,777,216 (224)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 268,435,456 (1⁄268,435,456 blocks), comparable to multiples of 2 blocks in Bedrock Edition, equivalent to coordinate X/Z ±0.03125 in Bedrock Edition.
  • Temperature distribution breaks at high distances,[4] which can be easily noticed with the creation of snow and ice in mountains appearing blockier due to both world generation and subsequent regeneration from snowfall or freezing.
 MJ2 MI0

On the Y axis:

Coordinates Effects (Y axis)
X/Z ±2,048 (±211)
  • Lighting breaks down. All blocks appear completely black and are unaffected by sky and block light (light-emitting blocks may create a local area of light in their block space, but this effect cannot extend beyond their block space).[5] As a result, hostile mob spawning is extremely common, cave ambience sounds can play, and mushrooms can spawn naturally. By opening the debug screen in these areas, the reported light level is always 0. It is effectively mandatory to use the night vision effect to facilitate any reasonable exploration beyond this point. This issue can be resolved by updating the data type to 64-bit floats in the lighting engine's algorithms.
X/Z ±16,384 (±214)
  • Rain and snow start to jitter (slightly on this coordinate) beyond that point, getting worse the higher height are.
X/Z ±262,144 (±218)
  • Rain and snow start to distort at this point.
Y ±8,388,608 (223)
  • Entities are immune to damage beyond this point.[1]
  • The player can no longer stand on shulker.
X/Z ±16,777,216 (224)
  • Rain and snow appear very stretched at this coordinate.

Beyond the vanilla world boundary (X/Z ±29,999,984–2,147,483,647)

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32-bit precision loss

Horizontal distances far beyond 30 million blocks cannot be reached without modifying the game.

Coordinates Effects Effect Marks (32 bit precision) Effect Marks (64 bit precision) Image of Effect
X/Z ±33,554,432 (225)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 134,217,728 (1⁄134,217,728 blocks).
  • Lighting breaks down. All blocks appear completely black and are unaffected by sky and block light (light-emitting blocks may create a local area of light in their block space, but this effect cannot extend beyond their block space).[5] As a result, hostile mob spawning is extremely common, cave ambience sounds can play, and mushrooms can spawn naturally. By opening the debug screen in these areas, the reported light level is always 0. It is effectively mandatory to use the night vision effect to facilitate any reasonable exploration beyond this point. This issue can be resolved by updating the data type to 64-bit floats in the lighting engine's algorithms.
  • The game crashes if the player teleports a few blocks before this point, but the game still works when teleporting anywhere after that.[6]
  • This distance effect is absolutely be 32-bit precision loss, except the coordinate slicing.
 MJ2 MI0
X/Z ±67,108,864 (226)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 67,108,864 (1⁄67,108,864 blocks).
 MJ3 MI0
X/Z ±134,217,728 (±227)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 33,554,432 (1⁄33,554,432 blocks).
 MJ3 MI0
X/Z ±268,435,456 (228)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 16,777,216 (1⁄16,777,216 blocks).
  • Many sounds stop working 16 blocks beyond this point.
 MJ3 MI0
X/Z ±536,870,912 (±229)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 8,388,608 (1⁄8,388,608 blocks).
 MJ3 MI0
X/Z ±1,073,741,824 (230)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 4,194,304 (1⁄4,194,304 blocks).
  • Villages, Pillager Outposts, Ancient Cities, Bastion Remnants, Trial Chambers, and Trail Ruins stop generating correctly, the only part which generates is the center point, every other part is missing.[7] Some of these structures can also generate several blocks in the air or underground, or even in the wrong biomes.
  • The player can easily get stuck in the positive sides of blocks. This does not stop fall damage if the player gets stuck while falling. Almost all mobs can suffocate if pushed into the positive sides of blocks.
  • All entities including the player can easily go through the world border on the positive coordinates.
  • Loading a world saved at this distance can cause an extreme amount of mobs to spawn, which can lag, freeze, or crash the game.
  • This distance effect is very likely to be 32-bit precision loss, except the coordinate slicing.
 MJ3 MI0
X/Z ±2,147,483,647 (231 − 1)*
  • The game crashes if a chunk is loaded beyond this point without directly modifying the game to use 64-bit floats and/or long integers.
 Crash MI0

Beyond the 32-bit limit (X/Z ±2,147,483,648-9,223,372,036,854,775,807)

The contents of this section are not supported by Mojang Studios or the Minecraft Wiki.

The standard format for doubles dedicates 52 bits to the fraction, as opposed to the 23 bits used by the 32-bit float. As a result, beyond 2^30 or 1,073,741,824 blocks, the player would only be off by (2^30)/ (2^52) = 1/2^22 = 1/4194304 blocks, which is absolutely indistinguishable from the distance back at spawn. This is around equivalent to the precision of 2 to 4 blocks out on Bedrock Edition.

Each doubling, however, indeed halves the precision used, up to a point where every single element of the game ends up breaking down.

64-bit precision loss

Minecraft: Java Edition uses 64-bit floating point precision for entity positions and other calculations. Several mechanics which do not break down within vanilla bounds break down at very high distances similarly to Bedrock Edition.

Entity movement

This section is missing information about: whether or not the "Stripe Lands" occur in Java Edition
 
Please expand the section to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page.

On the X/Z axis:

Coordinates Effects (32 bit precision loss) Effect Marks (32 bit precision) Effect Marks (64 bit precision) Image of Effect
X/Z ±2,147,483,648 (231)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 2,097,152 (1⁄2,097,152 blocks).
  • It becomes impossible to swim in newer versions (1.13 and later).
 L32X MI0
X/Z ±34,359,738,368 (235)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 131,072 (1⁄131,072 blocks).
 MI0
Coordinates Effects (64 bit precision loss) Image of Effect
X/Z ±68,719,476,736 (236)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 65,536 (1⁄65,536 blocks).
  • The game loads the spawn chunk at this position, overwriting the terrain with the content of the spawn chunk. This also happened in Beta 1.7.3 at 219 or 524,288 blocks.
  • A tiny amount of jitter appears at this point, only noticeable if the player has slowness VI and uses a spyglass, which is the equivalent of 128 blocks in Bedrock Edition.
 L32X MI1
X/Z ±35,184,372,088,832 (245)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 128 (1⁄128 blocks).
  • Sneaking start to become jittery.
 MI2
X/Z ±281,474,970,710,656 (248)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 16 (1⁄16 blocks).
  • All entities are on the edges of block pixels.
  • Jitter is easily noticeable at this point, which is the equivalent of 524,288 blocks in Bedrock Edition.[8].
  • Beyond this point, in versions 1.14 and later, the skybox starts flashing between blue and purple colors when the player's camera moves. This effect becomes more intense at higher distances.
 MI4
X/Z ±2,251,799,813,685,248 (251)
  • Coordinates of all entities are slices of 2 (1⁄2 blocks).
  • It becomes impossible for the player to move along that axis by using normal walking speed.
 MJ1
X/Z ±4,503,599,627,370,496 (252)
  • Coordinates of all entities are integers (1 block).
  • The player and all entities that have a hitbox equal to or smaller than 1 block fall through the world.
 MJ1
X/Z ±9,007,199,254,740,992 (253)
  • Coordinates of all entities are multiples of 2.
  • The stripe Lands occur.
  • In versions 1.14 and later, the game freezes when the Stripe Lands are rendered, so a Stripe Lands rendering fix is required to traverse further.
  • After this point, at every power of two, water, vines and lava get more and more stretched.
 MJ2
X/Z ±18,014,398,509,481,984 (254)
  • Coordinates of all entities are multiples of 4.
  • In older versions, the world would render similarly to the Slice Lands of Bedrock Edition, in newer versions (starting from around 1.12, or even earlier), the world renders stripes with a larger distance between them instead.
 MJ2
X/Z ±53,905,378,846,979,754
  • The Far Lands start to generate roughly 53 quadrillion blocks in versions from 1.7 to 1.13.2 (57 quadrillion blocks in versions from Beta 1.8 to 1.6.4), but due to terrain generation changes in 1.14, the Far Lands now occur 500x further out, rendering them unreachable.[8] These Far Lands are caused by the same glitch that causes the normal Far Lands, but at its 64-bit respective distance.
  • The point where the Far Lands start can vary by billions of blocks due to the Far Lands being 64-bit compared to the 1 to 4 block variation in the 32-bit Far Lands.
 MJ3
X/Z ±72,057,594,037,927,936 (256)
  • Coordinates of all entities are multiples of 16, equivalent to one chunk section.
  • More precision is lost, resulting in bigger rendering slices.
  • All entities are on the edges of chunks.
 MJ3
X/Z ±144,115,188,075,855,872 (257)
  • Coordinates of all entities are multiples of 32.
  • Terrain flickering occurs in modern versions, similar to 2^28 blocks in versions before Beta 1.8.[8]
  • Around this point, the Far Lands start to repeat segments of the broken terrain that generates.[8]
 MJ3
X/Z ±4,312,430,308,754,701,300
  • The repeating patterns entirely stop and leave no variation in the strips that generate, possibly due to the 64-bit Farther Lands.[8]
 MJ3
X/Z ±9,223,372,036,854,775,807 (263 − 1)*
  • The game crashes if a chunk is loaded beyond this point.[8]
 L64

On the Y axis:

Coordinates Effects Image of Effect
Y ±2,147,483,648 (231)
  • The game crashes beyond this point if third person is enabled.
  • Rain/snow stop rendering beyond that point.
Y ±281,474,970,710,656 (248)
  • Beyond this point, in versions 1.14 and later, the skybox starts flashing between blue and purple colors when the player's camera moves. This effect becomes more intense at higher height.
Y ±4,503,599,627,370,496 (252)
  • Flying upwards or downwards in Creative becomes impossible.[9]
Y ±36,028,797,018,963,968 (255)
  • Falling downwards becomes impossible.[9]
  • In recent versions, the game crashes if the player points their camera at a 40 degree angle beyond this point.
Y ±36,893,488,147,419,103,232
  • The World border is completely vertical and in white stripes.
  • The 64-bit Far Lands.
    The 64-bit Far Lands.
  • With a Stripe Lands fix.
    With a Stripe Lands fix.
  • The 64-bit Corner Far Lands.
    The 64-bit Corner Far Lands.
  • A Village generating in the 64-bit Corner Far Lands.
    A Village generating in the 64-bit Corner Far Lands.

Stripe Lands

As 52 bits are dedicated to the fraction in the double format rather than 23 in the single format, after 253 or 9,007,199,254,740,992 blocks out, precision breaks to consider only every second block, and so on. The rendering breaks down in an effectively identical manner to Bedrock Edition and yields the famous Stripe Lands as a result.

Fluids break down differently from blocks; while block rendering breaks down to form the usual stripes, fluids instead stretch to the size of the precision loss, with the initiation of the Stripe Lands causing each liquid to become two blocks long, then four at the next doubling, and so on.

Beyond the 64-bit Limit (X/Z ±9,223,372,036,854,775,808-21024)

The contents of this section are not supported by Mojang Studios or the Minecraft Wiki.
This section is missing information about:
  • Distance Effects beyond 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 in Modern Versions
 
Please expand the section to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page.

Beyond the 64-bit integer limit, the precision loss becomes greater by every passing exponent of two that is passed.

On the X/Z axis:

Coordinates Effects Effect Marks (32 bit precision) Effect Marks (64 bit precision) Image of Effect
X/Z ±147,573,952,589,676,412,928 (267)
  • Coordinates of all entities are multiples of 32,768, equivalent to 2,048 chunks section.
  • Biome fill noise overflows in modern versions (Beta 1.8 and later).
 L32X L64X
  • Fringe Lands start to generate at roughly 8.175 quindecillion blocks out on the X axis, and breaks in stages (9.176 quindecillion for the second stage, 9.576 quindecillion for the third stage, 10.296 quindecillion for the 4th stage). They also start to generate at roughly 9.17 quindecillion blocks out on the Z axis.[10]
  • Terrain generation on the X axis stops completely at around 20.596 quindecillion blocks out leaving an empty ocean with a bedrock floor, though on the Z axis it just gradually breaks down, and around 560 quindecillion (probably further if you were lucky enough), it stops too.[10]
  • 21024 (179.77 uncentillion) is the limit for 64-bit floats, meaning that this limit cannot be surpassed without a rework of the entire coordinate system.

On the Y axis:

  • Entity positions lose precision when the player passes every exponent of two.
  • The skybox flashing continues until 21024 (179.77 uncentillion).
  • The player cannot surpass 21024 (179.77 uncentillion) on the Y axis as that is the position limit for 64-bit floats.[11]

Skygrid

The Skygrid is a theoretical distance effect that occurs in the corner Fringe Lands or after the Z Fringe Lands. This effect occurred on Bedrock Edition until the Far Lands' removal in the 1.17.30 bugfix update.

Analysis

Due to precision loss becoming more extreme at greater distances, features affected at it behave different depending on how far out they are.

Rain/snow rendering

First affected bracket:
First affected version: Unspecified Classic
Last affected version: Indev 2010-02-14 2

Second affected bracket:
First affected version: Alpha v1.0.4
Last affected version: Alpha v1.1.2_01

Third affected bracket:
First affected version: Beta 1.6.5
Still affects the current release (1.21.5)
Suspected to affect as far back as Beta 1.5, but cannot be reasonably tested due to crashes Note: This affects both rain and snow, but this can only be seen with rain in versions prior to 1.7 because temperature didn't change with height in these versions.

16,384 - 262,143 blocks on Y axis

Beyond this point on the Y axis one can start to see the first signs of snow/rain jittering. Up to 65,535 blocks. this can only be reasonably seen with snowflakes with a mainly horizontal trajectory, as vertical traveling snowflakes are moving at a speed where travel still appears mostly smooth. Beyond 65,536 and especially 131,072 blocks, the effect becomes very obvious for almost all snow.

262,144+ blocks on Y axis

The first signs of geometrical distortion in the snow itself can be seen - very little non-misshapen snow is present beyond here, and most of it has transformed into either lone rectangles, or the odd paired rectangles similar in shape to a pause button.

Deformity progresses after every power of two surpassed from this point. Past 16,777,216 blocks, snow becomes a near unrecognizable pattern of suspended vertical lines.

2,147,483,647+ blocks on Y axis

Beyond this point, snow stops rendering. The sky still remains fine. When the player goes below the 32 bit integer limit, rain appears for an unknown reason.


Sound positioning errors

Becomes very severe beyond 2^28 blocks, where many sounds are simply no longer audible at all. this might happen all the way at 33,554,432 sometimes it is because Minecraft's default sound range is usually around 64 blocks. However, sounds can be heard up to a maximum distance of 256 blocks in a sphere around the player.

Temperature distribution breakdown

First affected version: 16w02a
Still affects 1.21.5

16,777,216 - 33,554,431 blocks

As snowfall/rainfall is handled on a per-block basis, the effects of precision loss here can only be seen once precision itself can no longer represent blocks (integers) individually.

Beyond this point, while perhaps not immediately obvious (especially due to the vertical variation in almost all biomes where this effect can be seen), the patterns resulting from snow landing on surfaces become much more angular than before, being commonly composed of large rectangles, thin lines and lone dots which are either filled with snow or have it completely absent. This is similarly true of water, with ice corresponding to cold blocks and water to warmer blocks.

As temperature varies with height, in order to properly see the effects of this, it is strongly recommended to build a flat plane for snow to accumulate on instead, or to generate a Superflat world with snow/ice set to generate with it as it would naturally. A modified Tunneler's Dream preset set to generate 94 layers of black concrete (Looking At Block should say 93 for the top concrete layer) is ideal for this case, providing a roughly 50/50 density of snowy and clear blocks, with black providing maximum contrast.

Teleporting to 16,777,216 on both axes should show four quadrants - one with normal looking snow/ice generation, and three with far more angular features due to the precision loss exceeding a full block. During times of precipitation, it can be seen that the blocky patterns of snow/ice match up with the weather directly above - snowy areas have snowfall where areas with no snow cover have rain. This is obviously true anywhere and is unrelated to precision loss, but (especially in the case of already-generated worlds) this can be used to prove that the precision loss lies with temperature calculation and is not merely a world generation issue disjoint from it.

  • An example of snow generated correctly near the spawn point.
    An example of snow generated correctly near the spawn point.
  • An example of snow generated at high distances. Notice the differing consistency composed of squares and lines.
    An example of snow generated at high distances. Notice the differing consistency composed of squares and lines.
  • Snow generated in an extreme hills biome in 1.8, showing intended behavior.
    Snow generated in an extreme hills biome in 1.8, showing intended behavior.
  • The exact same area as generated in 1.9, showing the newly broken generation.
    The exact same area as generated in 1.9, showing the newly broken generation.
33,554,432+ blocks

Beyond this point, temperature calculation becomes very broken depending on the axes where this position has been exceeded. If beyond this point on one axis, the terrain has clearly visible "stripes" of snow in mountain biomes. If beyond this point on both axes, snowy areas have square shapes covering several blocks (especially beyond 67,108,864 blocks). These effects can only be seen on modded versions, since terrain doesn't generate beyond 30,000,000 blocks in vanilla.

Historical effects

Due to the incredibly large amount of documentation on effects in older versions of the game, all such content has been relocated to /Historical effects.

See also

References

  1. ↑ a b MC-278503 (solved as Won't Fix)
  2. ↑ MC-164352
  3. ↑ a b MC-159283
  4. ↑ a b MC-192718
  5. ↑ a b MC-194878
  6. ↑ MC-218504
  7. ↑ MC-201113
  8. ↑ a b c d e f https://youtu.be/F8cMZA8J2Hk?t=327
  9. ↑ a b https://youtu.be/SYuocMFOD6w
  10. ↑ a b https://youtu.be/nDYXg1W1lJk
  11. ↑ https://youtu.be/SYuocMFOD6w?t=234

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