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Kenilworth Castle rises from the ruins in Minecraft recreation

by Stone Marshall | Aug 24, 2018 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized | 0 comments

Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire is being recreated via Minecraft.
Photo: Press Association Images
Kenilworth Castle has been restored to its former glory with the help of the computer game Minecraft.

Expert virtual builders, Blockworks, have brought the popular game to the Warwickshire landmark which has stood in ruins for more than 300 years.

Visitors can rebuild two of its famous sites at Minecraft workshops hosted by English Heritage this summer.

Kenilworth Castle has been a royal castle for most of its history.
Kenilworth Castle has been a royal castle for most of its history. Credit: English Heritage
As part of the #LoveCastles season, the charity are hoping that the visualisation shows what Kenilworth may have looked like when Queen Elizabeth I visited many years ago.

Built in the 1120s Kenilworth has been a royal castle for most of its history but it was Queen Elizabeth I's suitor, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who spared no expense trying to woo her with structural improvements.

Kenilworth Castle was partly destroyed in a deliberate act of sabotage during the Civil War in 1642.
Kenilworth Castle was partly destroyed in a deliberate act of sabotage during the Civil War in 1642. Credit: English Heritage/PA
English Heritage head properties curator Jeremy Ashbee, said: “Awesome though it remains, an intact Kenilworth Castle isn’t that easy to visualise – there are huge gaps where walls have been demolished, roofs and floors stolen, and the contents sold off or destroyed.

He added: “This Minecraft model undoubtedly captures the essence of the castle that greeted Elizabeth I in 1575 – towering buildings, fashionable high Elizabethan windows, the huge lake surrounding it, and the magnificent privy garden. All this will help the public to imagine what the castle was like in its heyday.”

Minecraft workshops are taking place at Dover Castle on August 19 and Kenilworth Castle on August 26. YouTuber Amy Lee33 will be on hand to coach players in the art of virtual castle building.

For more information, visit http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/castles

Last updated Tue 14 Aug 2018

Minecraft convention Minefaire coming to Austin in September Nicole Villalpando

Minecraft fans rejoice! The largest convention for a single video game is coming to Austin Sept. 15-16. Minefaire is expected to bring 15,000 people to the Austin Convention Center to celebrate the game.

See a video of the convention:

Here are some of the things you can expect to see at Minefaire:

Minecraft Virtual Reality Experience: Play Minecraft with virtual reality.
Learning Lab: Learn from Minecraft Education Global Mentors who use Minecraft in the classroom.
Build Battles and Challenges: Compete in live gaming arenas, code within the game and learn to solve problems in creative ways.
Minecraft Costume Contest: Dress up, dance and have fun on stage as your favorite Minecraft characters.
YouTube Meet & Greets: Meet Minecraft YouTube superstars who will share their favorite tips and tricks.
Nonstop, Live Stage Shows: Multiple stages will show different Minecraft experiences for different skill levels.
World’s Largest Official Minecraft Merchandise: Of course, there will be shopping.
Tickets are $49-$69.50, but kids younger than 2 are free. Find them at Minefaire.com.

How to allocate more RAM in Minecraft

by Stone Marshall | Aug 23, 2018 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized | 0 comments

Minecraft is one of the most popular games of this generation, and is available for pretty much every platform, from PC to iOS and Android. It runs really well on most devices, but it could always be better – especially if you’ve got a PC with a lot of RAM to take advantage of. The issue is that, by default, Minecraft is only allocated 1GB of RAM – not great if you’ve got 8- or 16GB of RAM in your PC.

While it was once rather complex to allocate more RAM in Minecraft, the 2.0.0 update changed all that. Here’s how to allocate more RAM in Minecraft on PC and for those running Minecraft on a server.

If you want to play other Minecraft-esque games, be sure to check out our list of the best alternatives to Minecraft.

How to allocate more RAM in Minecraft (V2.0.0 or later)
While it was once a complex task to manually allocate more RAM in Minecraft, Microsoft changed all that with the release of version 2.0.0. Minecraft now offers the ability to adjust RAM in the Minecraft Launcher, with no need to edit text files and risk corrupting the game. Here’s how:

Make sure you’ve got the latest version of Minecraft installed (excluding the demo, which is capped at v1.5).
Check your computer’s total RAM by going to Start > Settings > System > About.
Open the Minecraft Launcher by double-clicking the Minecraft icon on your desktop.
Click the Launch Options tab in the top-right of the window.
Make sure Advanced Settings is enabled (green switch) and select the profile you’d like to edit. If there’s only a single profile, click it.
Toggle on the JVM arguments switch.
A line of text should appear, including the phrase -X1G. Change the 1 to the number of gigabytes of RAM that you’d like to allocate to Minecraft. You shouldn’t allow Minecraft to use more than two-thirds of your overall RAM, or you may run into other issues.
Click Save at the bottom of the window to save your changes.
And that’s it! The next time you load up Minecraft, it’ll use the specific amount of RAM you allocated.

How to allocate more RAM in a Minecraft Server
The process to adjust the amount of RAM Minecraft uses when hosted on a server is slightly different, as it’s not baked into the Launcher like the standard game. It’s not too complicated though:

Open your Minecraft server directory (the folder that contains the Minecraft_server.exe file you launch the Minecraft server with). If you’re unsure of the location, search “Minecraft_server” on your PC.
Click Home > New Item > Text Document on PC to create a text document in the server directory.
In the new text document, paste the following (if on PC):
java -Xmx####M -Xms####M -exe Minecraft_Server.exe -o true
PAUSE
Replace #### with the value, in MB, that you want to allocate (1GB = 1024MB). For example, if you want to allocate 2GB of RAM, you’d enter 2048.
Click File > Save As… and change Save as type to All Files. Name the file server launcher and change the extension from .txt to .bat.
The file you created will now be the new launcher for your Minecraft server – simply double-click it to run. Using the .bat file to launch the server will automatically allocate the specified amount of RAM.
See, easy right? Now go back to enjoying your voxel-based game with better performance than ever before!

Minecraft Players Of All Ages Build Creativity At ‘Minefaire’

DENVER (CBS4) – Thousand of families spent their weekend at “Minefaire,” an event in Denver that brought Minecraft players to meet in one expo hall.

Minecraft, a video game which allows players to create and play in their own world, attracted players of all ages.

“It is like I am making my own little world. And, it is my own little escape from reality,” said Gabriel Garcia, a Minecraft player.

Minefaire is one of was the largest gatherings for Minecraft players. Garcia’s family attended the event. All admitted to playing the game before, including parents.

“It is kind of like a new generation, next level, Legos,” said Adriana Garcia, the mother.

“It is like Lego, but unlimited inventory,” said Chris Danilo, Director of Operations for the event.

The Garcia children competed at Minefaire. Some were tasked with building their ideal campsite. They were only given a controller, and used their imagination to create the rest.

Adriana Garcia said she thought the game encouraged her children to be creative, while also understanding computer sciences.

“I think it is good for them,” Adriana Garcia said.

“They are able to create their own world. They can use their imagination,” Albert Garcia, the father, said.

“I think a lot of parents are worried about the screen time for their kids. Minecraft is probably the best thing you could do, as far as video games,” Danilo said. “Minefaire is a great opportunity for kids to show their parents, ‘Hey, look at this cool thing that I am in to.’ And, the parent gets to learn a little bit about their world, and their universe.”

Adriana Garcia said she hoped her children would see the event as a way not only to have fun, socialize, and be creative. But, she also hoped it would encourage them to consider a future in coding.

“With the coding side, I think that is the direction my kids are going,” Adriana Garcia said.

Dillon Thomas is a reporter at CBS4 and a Colorado native. He believes everyone has a story, and would love to share yours! You can find more of his stories by following him on Twitter, @DillonMThomas.

Kenilworth Castle rebuilt Minecraft-style

by Stone Marshall | Aug 22, 2018 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized | 0 comments

The ruins of Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire have been “rebuilt” using the computer game Minecraft.

English Heritage commissioned the project as part of its Love Castles season.

Samsung has a new Odyssey+ Mixed Reality headset on the way

A new FCC filing shows that Samsung may be prepping to release an updated version of the HMD Odyssey, its Windows Mixed Reality headset launched at the end of last year. The new headset will be called the HMD Odyssey+, and there doesn’t appear to be many changes, except for some cosmetic differences to make the headset more comfortable to wear.

The filing shows that the headset’s display size remains the same with dual 3.5-inch screens with a 1440 x 1600 resolution per eye, but now the eye box is wider to prevent fogging. The specs chart below does mention a new acronym we haven’t seen before with “AMOLED+SFS” listed as the display type, but it’s not yet clear what SFS is.

KCTL
Senior reporter Adi Robertson’s first impression of the HMD Odyssey was that the core VR experience was as good as the Rift or Vive, but that its design was pretty mediocre and navigating Windows desktop apps was an “exercise in pointless misery.” The Odyssey retailed for $500 at launch but has since been lowered to $400. It probably won’t be long until we can get more details on the upcoming Odyssey+.

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