[helterskelter]

The 4 bit stuff is a hangover from Mojang having to squeeze every bit of perf from their Java based engine that they could. Their original sound engine was so sketchy that C418's (music composer) minimalist sound is partly because it really couldn't handle much more than what got released.

MS has been loosening up on the 4 bits limit and have created a CPP variant of Minecraft which performs better, but they've also introduced their unified login garbage that has almost made me give up Minecraft completely.

[Pannoniae]

Hey, this isn't entirely accurate!

The 4-bit stuff is a hangover from Notch doing this (I'd maybe even say a similar-calibre programmer to Chris Sawyer...). The sound has nothing to do with technical limits, that's a post-facto rationalisation.

The game never played midi samples, it was always playing "real" audio. The style was an artistic choice, many similar retro-looking games were using chiptune and the sorts. It's a deliberate juxtaposition...

The CPP variant doesn't really perform better anymore either.

[helterskelter]

Fair enough, I mostly meant to point out some of those design decisions predate MS, as much as I love to hate on them. The music was just an interesting bit of trivia I read the other day.

[Pannoniae]

Yeah, 100% :) Ironically, the design constraints are one of the big things which made it work so much! If it was designed in a "traditional" way, it would have been much less ambitious.

[imtringued]

Bedrock Edition has a smaller simulation distance, which is kind of the opposite you'd expect from the more "optimized" version.