Redstone making for extreme lag

Hey there, everyone!

I recently built a new city with some friends, so we can launch 1.2 on our server.

Here's a picture:



See those redstone lamps all over the street? We made them so there's a central switch which can enable and disable ALL of them. Sadly, touching that lever leads to extreme client lag (up to 15 seconds without a new frame).
At the same time, the server's CPU usage goes through the roof.
I'd sure like to be able to flick that lever without everyone complaining about lag
And one can't admire the view of all the lights sequentially switching on and off either.


Did anyone else experience this?


I'm on CraftBukkit 2034 btw.

 

Did you use repeaters? Or using the old school style of repeating the redstone circuit? I've found (in 1.1) that using repeaters will lag the hell out of the server. Also when the lamps go on it also has to recalculate the lights. So maybe have one light, then 4 non lights and repeat that again. So my advise:

• Don't use repeaters
• Use less lights

 

I had to use repeaters, all other designs weren't compact enough.
I guess it's mostly the lights. It's odd how it lags less when turning them on, compared to turning them off, though.

 

You can make a test. One with only redstone and not the lanterns. Check if it lags then. Then you know what part is lagging (the lights or the redstone.)

 

Yeah, I had that idea too.
As expected, it's the lights. Flicking the switch like crazy without the lamps doesn't lag at all.