Bobby Share

Bobby Share is a high-performance Fabric mod designed to collaboratively stream chunk data from the Minecraft server directly to clients to dynamically fill the rendering cache of the Bobby mod.

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🚀 How It Works

Bobby is a client-side mod that allows you to have a render distance greater than the server's limit by caching chunks locally on your computer. Normally, you have to visit the chunks yourself to cache them.

Bobby Share bridges this gap:

1. When you join the server or move into new areas, your client checks if it is missing chunk data in its local Bobby cache.
2. If the chunk is missing, the client sends a lightweight network request to the server.
3. The server loads the chunk data asynchronously (or serializes live active chunks directly from server RAM), optimizes it, and streams it back to you.
4. Your client saves the chunk locally, allowing you to instantly see far beyond the server's render distance.

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🔄 Real-Time Chunk Cache Invalidation (New in v1.3.0+)

Never worry about outdated distant view distances again!

• Instant Sync: Whenever a player breaks a block, places a block, or explodes terrain on the server, Bobby Share invalidates the modified chunk in real time.
• Zero Overhead: Sends a tiny 8-byte notification packet to connected clients.
• Seamless Updates: Clients bypass stale local disk cache for modified chunks and automatically stream the updated structures without requiring manual cache resets or re-joins!

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⚡ Performance & Safety Optimizations

Designed to scale smoothly from 3 players to 100+ concurrent players without causing TPS drops or clogging network channels:

• Live Server RAM Streaming: Actively loaded chunks near players are serialized directly from server RAM, ensuring you always see the latest world edits.
• Server-Side LRU Cache: Caches up to 4096 optimized chunk compounds in memory (~100MB of RAM) to serve popular regions instantly.
• Throttled Client Queue: Throttles outgoing client requests to 3 chunks per tick (60 chunks/sec), completely eliminating ping spikes in caves or dense terrain.
• Token Bucket Rate Limiting: Limits requests per player (Burst: 200 chunks, Refill: 80 chunks/second) to protect the server from being spammed.
• NBT Stripping (Bandwidth Optimization): Strips heavy, rendering-irrelevant data from chunks (structures, entity ticks, carving masks, block entities) before sending, reducing payload sizes by 50% to 80%.
• Main-Thread Safety: Fetches chunk data asynchronously on the server. On the client, file writing runs on background threads to keep the game completely lag-free.

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⚙️ Configuration & Commands (Server-Side)

You can configure Bobby Share's performance settings using the auto-generated config file at config/bobbyshare.json on your server:

• rateLimitBurst - Maximum chunks a player can request in a quick burst (default: 200).
• rateLimitRefill - Number of chunk requests restored to a player per second (default: 80).
• cacheCapacity - Maximum stripped chunks stored in server RAM (default: 4096).
• maxRequestDistance - Safety limit of how far from the player requested chunks can be (default: 34.0).
• blacklistedDimensions - List of dimension identifiers to disable chunk streaming for (default: ["minecraft:the_end"]).

Admin Commands (Requires OP level 2):

• /bobbyshare reload - Reloads the configuration file from disk and applies changes instantly.
• /bobbyshare clearcache - Clears the server-side RAM chunk cache.

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📥 Installation & Setup

To stream chunks successfully, Bobby Share must be installed on both the server and client:

• Client-Side: Place the bobbyshare-*.jar AND the original bobby-*.jar in your .minecraft/mods/ directory.
• Server-Side: Place ONLY the bobbyshare-*.jar in your server's mods/ directory. (WARNING: Do NOT put the original Bobby mod on the server, as it is client-side only and will crash the server on startup).