Known formally as version 2011-01-13, which I have decided to call version 0.3a (3rd version released, no additional patching, still a WIP base engine rather than a full game)
I tested this as soon as I got my hands on it and found that through some rudimentary benchmarking tests it was about 3x faster!!! and that's not just a 3x faster in one area of the game, it was 3x faster on the overall 'speed' at which the game ran. I bumped into exe late yesterday night, and he informed me that the optimisations go even further, If a user chooses a 'fog' distance' of under 256 blocks (which is the default standard at which I tested the game) the optimisations in the rendering should push the game to an effective 5x or 8x faster than previous the previous version! (version 2010-08-19 or in my new format... Ver 0.2b)
It'll be uploaded here just as soon as it gets through 'authorisation' but it can already be downloaded via a link on the Manic Digger blog which can be found via this link:
Cool maybe now I can play with 256
depending on your computer you might even get more out of it!!! we've tested the new client on an atom based netbook with no dedicated graphics and even that little thing would run at 512, even if it was a little slower at that fog distance.