Afar

Afar

Afar is a faster, lighter chunk caching solution for minecraft, allowing you to see far beyond the server’s view distance.

How It Works

Instead of modifying the complex rendering engine, Afar operates at lower level. It works directly on the client’s network connection.

1. Cache (Save): It silently listens to and saves all the chunk data packets the server sends to your client into a local database.
2. Load (Read): When you move around and need chunks that are within your client’s view distance but beyond the server’s, Afar seamlessly loads that previously saved data from your cache instead of waiting for the server to send it.

Key Features

🚀 Performance

• Utilizes SQLite as the storage backend, offering significantly faster read/write speeds and smaller file sizes compared to serializing NBT data to files.

🔧 Compatibility

• Works purely at the network connection level, intercepting and forging packets. It makes zero changes to the game’s rendering code.
• This makes it theoretically 100% compatible with any rendering optimization mods like Optifine, Sodium, Iris, and any mod that affects chunk rendering or visual aesthetics.

Dependence

• Minecraft SQLite JDBC (modrinth)
• World ID Provider such as VoxelMap and JourneyMap ( Xaero’s Map compatibility is still in production.)

Usage

• You can find Afar config button in the settings menu or the mod list menu. All configuration items have corresponding explanations.
• Here are some client-side command you can use

/afar dataInfo    //Show database infomation
/afar runVacuum   //Run database vacuum, which will optimize the size and read/write speed of the database
/afar doDrop      //Delete all chunk data
/afar deleteOld <float:hours>  // Delete all records before the specified database running time. You can check the running time using /afar dataInfo

Disclaimer

• This mod simply re-uses data the server has already sent you. It does not hack the server to get more data. Your client’s performance when rendering a larger view distance is dependent on your own PC’s capabilities.