SMP Vanilla Chunk Loaders?

Question

Recently I learned about SimplySarc's vanilla (Non-command block) chunk loader. However, I realized that his video was not so recent and he was using it for SSP. I want to know, does SimplySarc's vanilla chunk loader still work, and if so, does it work for both SSP and SMP? Will it also work in the 1.8 snapshots?

For those of you who don't know of SimplySarc's chunk loader, here is his video.

He uses single hoppers pointing into air right across the chunk border, spreading out recursively from the spawn chunks. The chunks are able to process entities if there's a border of at least 2 chunks around them loaded.

@Mr Lemon: I like your explanation of Sarc's video, but my question was WILL it work in SMP and WILL it work in 1.8 snapshots? Sarc's video was in sept 5, which is around the time of 1.6.2. Game mechanics can change throughout updates, which is why I'm asking whether this will work in 1.8 snapshots or not.

Answer 1

Yes, it will work. There hasn't been a difference between "SSP" and "SMP" since the client and server were merged back in August 2012 with version 1.3.1. There is no longer any difference between playing single-player and playing on a server, as far as game mechanics are concerned.

Answer 2

Yes it will. Do note that entity loading is a bit strange, so avoid using it with a mob farm, for example.

Answer 3

Yes! It does work on 1.8

(Tested both on SSP and SMP in Vannila. Bukkit and Spigot not tested).

Haven't tested it on 1.8 up. I might do it and update this answer later. Need proof? I'll record a video about it working.

Answer 4

TL;DR: Yes, this works. Read on for details

This should work. Anything causing a block update in the next chunk should load the next chunk, including redstone, rails, falling sand etc.

However, keep in mind that every 15 seconds (45 seconds for versions prior to 1.8) and also in SSP, every time you enter the back to game screen, chunks not loaded by spawn chunks or a player (i.e. loaded this way) will unload when the game autosaves.

The hopper solves this problem since every 7 game ticks (.35 seconds) it tries to move the item in it and triggers a block update in front of it, re-loading the chunk. But there will be a brief moment between the chunk unloading and hopper reloading where the chunk is unloaded, so if you can't afford a few game ticks of unloading, for example when you are making a peaceful mob switch, then don't use hoppers.

You could also use redstone to load your chunks, and doing it this way allows you to better time your chunk loading or make it instant, since with hoppers it loads at imprecise times but use a clock if you want to keep it loaded and it will be laggier, especially if you use a lot of redstone dust, because each redstone dust causes 42 block updates. If you want to use redstone to load chunks, the same rules apply, where chunks will be lazy-loaded unless you form a 5x5 grid, then the center chunk can process entities. If you want to reduce lag, use more rails and pistons and less redstone dust.