Luanti 5.15.1

[Krock]

Luanti 5.15.1 has been released! (bugfix release for 5.15.0)

Blog post: https://blog.luanti.org/2026/01/24/5.15.0-released/ (5.15.0)

Highlights

• Attempt to work around rendering issues related to array textures.
  Due to lack of input from affected people, the root cause is yet unknown.
  If you were (or still are) affected by this bug, please submit a full report on GitHub, Issue 16896. Also include your hardware details and known working array_texture_max setting values.
• Shadow shaders are again available on macOS

Changelog: https://docs.luanti.org/about/changelog/#5150--5151
Source code: https://github.com/luanti-org/luanti/tree/5.15.1

Downloads

Refer to the Assets section on the GitHub release page.

Which file do I need to download?

• Windows: EXE file (for 64-bit systems) or the portable builds named win64, win32
• MacOS: macos*_arm64 (Apple Silicon), macos*_x86_64 (Intel-based)
• Android: arm64-v8a (common), armabi-v7a (old devices), x86 or x86_64 (ChromeOS, budget)
• Linux: check for updates in your package manager or use Flatpack

For Windows: If you're using the self-extracting launcher for the first time, see how to copy your data.

Please note that it might take a few days for the new release to become available.

[Wuzzy]

Friendly reminder: Please credit me as "Wuzzy" in the changelog (and elsewhere), not "Wuzzy2". "Wuzzy2" is only my legacy name on GitHub.

[Linuxdirk]

Thanks for the update and changelog. I still wish the changelog entries would be linked to the issues/PRs that discussend/implemented them. (And no, the Git history is not a proper, user-facing, changelog.)

[ArceusI]

I'm waiting for an F-Droid release.

[ROllerozxa]

I'm waiting for an F-Droid release.

It was built in the most recent F-Droid build cycle that finished 8 hours ago and seems to be live now.

[ArceusI]

I'm waiting for an F-Droid release.

It was built in the most recent F-Droid build cycle that finished 8 hours ago and seems to be live now.

Just tested it, looks like the graphical glitch was resolved! I'm going to jump from 5.14.0 to 5.15.1, skipping 5.15.0.

Further tested it: MineClonia's performance seems to have also improved, so it looks like MineClonia could get an opportunity, but they better not destroy 5.15.1 with unnecessary (And inefficient) updates.

[ShallowDweller]

I'm waiting for an F-Droid release.

It was built in the most recent F-Droid build cycle that finished 8 hours ago and seems to be live now.

Just out of curiosity, how long does it normaly take for the update to reach flathub?
i'm yet to experience the bugs fixed in this patch, so i'm not in a hurry.

[ArceusI]

I'm waiting for an F-Droid release.

It was built in the most recent F-Droid build cycle that finished 8 hours ago and seems to be live now.

Just out of curiosity, how long does it normaly take for the update to reach flathub?
i'm yet to experience the bugs fixed in this patch, so i'm not in a hurry.

It varies. It depends on when they update their list.

[ChrisZ]

Still waiting for Visual Effects Vol. 2 to be merged...

[ArceusI]

Still waiting for Visual Effects Vol. 2 to be merged...

That very likely will break compatibility with a lot of games & mods...Destroying much of Luanti's history. It should be abandoned.

[ChrisZ]

That very likely will break compatibility with a lot of games & mods...Destroying much of Luanti's history. It should be abandoned.

What compatibility is broken by this patch?

[ArceusI]

That very likely will break compatibility with a lot of games & mods...Destroying much of Luanti's history. It should be abandoned.

What compatibility is broken by this patch?

Remember the graphical glitch that happened with 5.15.0 (Which is corrected as of 5.15.1)? This could make it even worse, I don't trust such radical graphical changes.

[ChrisZ]

Remember the graphical glitch that happened with 5.15.0 (Which is corrected as of 5.15.1)? This could make it even worse, I don't trust such radical graphical changes.

So you don't have any examples of broken compatibility?

[ArceusI]

Remember the graphical glitch that happened with 5.15.0 (Which is corrected as of 5.15.1)? This could make it even worse, I don't trust such radical graphical changes.

So you don't have any examples of broken compatibility?

A graphical glitch is a form of broken texture compatibility, it won't crash Luanti or the games, but it will render them as really ugly hodgepodges of random textures & colors, which would really confuse players.

[user333_]

So you're saying "don't add new features in case they have bugs", basically.

[ArceusI]

So you're saying "don't add new features in case they have bugs", basically.

Yeah, don't just add them in until rigorous testing is done.

[Blockhead]

Still waiting for Visual Effects Vol. 2 to be merged...

That very likely will break compatibility with a lot of games & mods...Destroying much of Luanti's history. It should be abandoned.

You are paranoid because one change broke things. The graphics system is not meant to be related to the mod code; but bugs will manifest themselves under odd circumstances.

So you're saying "don't add new features in case they have bugs", basically.

Yeah, don't just add them in until rigorous testing is done.

The best thing you can do is help test things yourself. We've discussed this before: The core developers simply don't have all of the hardware out there, so I'm sure they would appreciate help in testing things.

[Wuzzy]

I think for some reason, the performance on old mobile devices has significantly improved over 5.14.0 as well.

In Luanti 5.14.0, my game Lazarr! loaded extremely slowly and was laggy overall, but it seems those performance problems are now mostly gone. Which means this game may actually become realistically playable.

I don’t know exactly what caused it but my guess is the switch to opengl3 and array textures?

[Linuxdirk]

I think for some reason, the performance on old mobile devices has significantly improved over 5.14.0 as well.

On Android, 5.15.x uses opengl3 by default now. Maybe this helps with performance?

[ShallowDweller]

That very likely will break compatibility with a lot of games & mods...Destroying much of Luanti's history. It should be abandoned.

What compatibility is broken by this patch?

Remember the graphical glitch that happened with 5.15.0 (Which is corrected as of 5.15.1)? This could make it even worse, I don't trust such radical graphical changes.

speaking of graphical glitches, is there any reason why most textures in this engine use indexed mode instead of RGB or another mode that allows saturation to be more easily adjusted? and will there be glitches if i change that to get the color tones i want?

[rudzik8]

speaking of graphical glitches, is there any reason why most textures in this engine use indexed mode instead of RGB or another mode that allows saturation to be more easily adjusted? and will there be glitches if i change that to get the color tones i want?

This is very off-topic now and you shouldn't ask these things in a news topic. If you have anything further on this, you should open a new topic either in General Discussion or Problems.
Indexed textures are used for better compression, though different projects will have different agreements on how to store image data and it's totally fine. It's also totally fine to switch from indexed mode to RGB, the only concern is that, as it is with any and all editing of textures, whatever you export via your image editor is going to be essentially uncompressed, and you'll have to run the image compression script before i.e. sending your texture changes to be reviewed and maybe merged into the engine.

[ArceusI]

I think for some reason, the performance on old mobile devices has significantly improved over 5.14.0 as well.

In Luanti 5.14.0, my game Lazarr! loaded extremely slowly and was laggy overall, but it seems those performance problems are now mostly gone. Which means this game may actually become realistically playable.

I don’t know exactly what caused it but my guess is the switch to opengl3 and array textures?

Probably only briefly though, as 5.16.0 plans to push the graphics too far for old devices, so 5.15.1 is in that special Goldilocks zone, really nothing needs to be done except for maintenance.

[Linuxdirk]

Yeah, we got it, you hate updates.

[ArceusI]

Yeah, we got it, you hate updates.

Well, there are cases where updates are good, but because of the general deterioration of services, it's making me begin to shift away from updates because something could go wrong again.

[freshreplicant]

Well, there are cases where updates are good, but because of the general deterioration of services, it's making me begin to shift away from updates because something could go wrong again.

Any advanced graphics features added are pretty much always optional and will not be enforced. They are usually also far outnumbered by general improvements to the engine that fix performance issues for all users, no matter how low powered or high powered their devices are.

The graphical issues you encountered and caused a huge stir about here and on the F-Droid forums were thankfully reported properly by other users who were willing to make a proper bug report with actual details about their setup, which allowed the devs to verify the bug. The bug was then resolved (at least in stopgap way) very quickly, resulting in this version.

I think you might still need to learn how to contextualise things and figure out how to express things less dramatically. Your wording above, "a general deterioration of services" also makes it sound like Luanti is something you pay for, like car insurance or a streaming service. It's a free, open source project created by volunteers that spend lots of their free time to make it the great project it is, without you giving anything at all in return. The least you could do is show some gratitude, patience and willingness to be a good community member.

You are of course welcome to stay on version 5.15.1 forever and never update again.