Minecraft:McRegion

Template:Wip McRegion is a Minecraft:mod created by Ryan 'Scaevolus' Hitchman in 2010 that adds a new file format for storing chunks in Minecraft:Minecraft. McRegion was integrated into vanilla Minecraft as the Minecraft:region file format, and Ryan Hitchman is credited in the Minecraft:credit sequence as "additional programming".<ref>http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding/minecraft-mods/mods-discussion/1346703-mod-mcregion-v5-optimized-saves-1-2_02#p2619453</ref>

Features

The mod's new file format functions the same way as the region file format. This is the binary file format for storing Java Edition Minecraft:chunks from Beta 1.3 to 1.1. Each file stores a group of 32×32 chunks called a region. The format took the place of the Alpha level format, which had been in use since the Minecraft:Infdev development phase, where chunks were stored in individual files on the file system. The file does not begin with a magic number, unlike other file formats, and begins directly with the header. The format has been superseded by the Minecraft:Anvil file format; however, the Anvil file format made changes only to the Minecraft:chunk format and changed the region file extensions from ".mcr" to ".mca".

The McRegion format was adopted nearly unchanged, except for the addition of a table of chunk update timestamps. Minecraft:JahKob has claimed that this format is up to 7 times faster than the previous system.<ref>http://www.pcgamer.com/minecraft-dev-diary-new-block-magic-fiddles/</ref> The difference in a world's total file size between the Region file format and the Alpha level format is negligible.