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Minecraft: Java Edition

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Revision as of 15:14, 7 May 2021 by Aemony (talk | contribs) (updated macos app notes)
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Although this product has been released, it remains under active development - information may change frequently and could be outdated or irrelevant.

This page is for the Java Edition. For the Windows 10 version, see Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition.

Minecraft: Java Edition
Cover image missing, please upload it
Developers
Mojang
Engines
LWJGL
Release dates
Windows November 18, 2011
macOS (OS X) November 18, 2011
Linux November 18, 2011
Reception
Metacritic 93
IGDB 84
Minecraft: Java Edition on IGDB
Minecraft: Java Edition guide on StrategyWiki
Minecraft: Java Edition on MobyGames
Minecraft: Java Edition on Wikipedia
Minecraft
Minecraft: Java Edition 2011
Minecraft: Pi Edition 2013
Minecraft: Story Mode (series)
Minecraft: Education Edition 2016
Minecraft: Bedrock Edition 2016
Minecraft Dungeons 2020
Minecraft Legends 2023

Minecraft is a first-person survival sandbox game developed by Mojang and published by Microsoft.

In 2021, users will be required to migrate their Mojang account to a Microsoft account.[1]

Key points

Active and dedicated modding scene, responsible for many fixes, tools and additional content.
Likely to perform worse than the Windows 10 Edition on low-end hardware.[2]

General information

Official Bug Tracker
Official Wiki
Mojang's Support Center

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Official website
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
All versions require a Mojang Account or Minecraft Account.[3]
Purchase no longer includes access to Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition as of October 19, 2018.[4]
A demo is available.

Essential improvements

Utilities

  • MultiMC - a custom open source launcher. It allows you to have multiple, separate instances of Minecraft, each with their own mods, texture packs, saves, etc.

Mods

  • Forge is required by most mods, and is the standard for a modded setup. Can be automatically installed with the 'Install Forge' option in MultiMC. Incompatible with Fabric.
  • OptiFine adds support for HD textures and a lot of options for better looks and performance. As of 12/17/2015, OptiFine now also supports shader packs. Compatible with Forge natively and Fabric through OptiFabric. Incompatble with Sodium.
  • Performant is a general-purpose optimization mod for Forge that focuses on optimizing entities and block updates along with adding mechanisms to handle and reduce lag. Requires Forge on 1.14.4+.
  • Fabric is required for many mods for Minecraft 1.14 and above. Can be automatically installed with the 'Install Fabric' option in MultiMC. Incompatible with Forge.
  • Sodium is an alternative rendering engine that improves performance even more so than OptiFine but only works with 1.16+. Unfortunately, it doesn't have as much functionality as OptiFine, but you can use this list of mods to get closer to OptiFine's feature-set. Requires Fabric, incompatible with OptiFine.
  • Lithium is a general-purpose optimization mod meant to optimize as much as possible without altering gameplay. Requires Fabric on 1.15.2+.
  • Phosphor is an optimization mod which improves the performance of the lighting engine, decreasing chunk generation times and increasing TPS. Requires Fabric on 1.15.2+.
  • Hydrogen is an optimization mod that decreases Minecraft's memory usage. Requires Fabric on 1.16.3+.

Java version

The Windows version of Minecraft includes Java (used for Minecraft only). Installing Java manually is not necessary.
Minecraft benefits from using the latest version of Java. Using 64-bit Java on 64-bit operating systems is strongly recommended.[5]

RAM allocation

The official launcher allows you to easily allocate RAM and set other Java arguments. The manual methods are detailed below.
OS X memory allocation[citation needed]
  1. Right-click on Minecraft.app in Finder and choose Show Package Contents.
  2. Go to Contents and open info.plist using TextEdit.
  3. Modify -Xms ### MB - replace ### with the minimum amount of memory Minecraft can use (in megabytes).
  4. Modify -Xmx $$$ MB - replace $$$ with the maximum amount of memory Minecraft can use (in megabytes).
Linux memory allocation[citation needed]
  1. Go to the location of Minecraft.jar.
  2. Run the command java -jar Xms###MB -Xmx$$$MB Minecraft.jar
    • Replace ### with the minimum amount of memory Minecraft can use (in megabytes).
    • Replace $$$ with the maximum amount of memory Minecraft can use (in megabytes).

Make a portable version or install on a different drive

Installing to a different/portable location[citation needed]
Making the Minecraft install portable allows putting the game files on the drive of your choosing, e.g. storing them on an SSD for faster loading, as well as easily using it across multiple computers.
This method is only available on Windows.
  1. Make a folder where you want to store Minecraft game data.
  2. Move the .minecraft folder from %APPDATA% to the folder you made.
  3. Download the latest Minecraft version and save it into the folder you made.
  4. Open Notepad
  5. Paste in the following text:
    set APPDATA=%CD%
    Java -jar Minecraft.exe
  6. Choose File>Save and choose the folder you made in step 1.
  7. Save the file as Minecraft.bat (or similar).

You can now launch Minecraft from Minecraft.bat and everything will be saved in the folder you made. This folder is fully portable so you can move it wherever you like and even put it on external storage to use it on other computers as long as they have Java installed (see Java version). You can make a shortcut to Minecraft.bat on the desktop and so forth to launch it more conveniently.

Game data

300px
In-game general settings.

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %APPDATA%\.minecraft\options.txt
macOS (OS X) ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft/options.txt
Linux ~/.minecraft/options.txt
launcher_profiles.json contains stored user profiles.
This game does not follow the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux.

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %APPDATA%\.minecraft\saves
macOS (OS X) ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft/saves
Linux ~/.minecraft/saves
The server save is stored in world in the root directory of the server.
Saves are not compatible with Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition.[6]

Video

300px
In-game video settings.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Can be stretched to any window size.
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
30-110°. See Field of view (FOV).
Windowed
Set in options or toggle with F11.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Use Borderless Gaming with regex: Minecraft (\d+\.\d+\.\d+|\d+w\d+\w).[7] 1.13+ has native support.[8]
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Custom resource packs can be used when Fabulous graphics is enabled. Alternatively, see OptiFine.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
Frame rate cap is fully configurable.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.
Ray tracing (RT)
Requires shader mods.
Color blind mode
Custom resource packs can be used

Field of view (FOV)

Dynamic FOV can be disabled in Minecraft 1.16+ in Accessibility Settings.
Set custom FOV[citation needed]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Edit options.txt.
  3. Find fov and modify its value.

Notes

1.0 = 110° FOV, 1.25 = 120°, 1.5 = 130°, 1.75 = 140°, 2.0 = 150°.

Input

In-game controls settings.
In-game controls settings.

Mouse acceleration

Disable Windows mouse acceleration[10]
Minecraft uses a Windows function to control mouse movement, which can be modified.
Modifying the function affects any software that relies on it (not just Minecraft).
  1. Download the MarkC Mouse Acceleration Fix. Extract its contents to a new folder.
  2. Open the Start menu and open the Control panel. Select Display from the list.
  3. Check your PC's text size (100%, 125%, 150%) in the display settings.
  4. Open the folder you created in step 1. Open the sub-folder that fits your operating system.
  5. Double-click the .reg file that corresponds with your text display percentage. Confirm the changes to registry.
  6. Reboot your PC.

Audio

300px
In-game audio settings.

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Detailed separate volume sliders
Surround sound
Up to 7.0 output.[11]
Subtitles
No spoken dialog in game. Subtitles do show sounds.
Closed captions
Most sounds have their own individual subtitles.
Mute on focus lost
Automatically pauses on focus lost, except in multiplayer.

Localizations

Localization is done by the community via Crowdin. An up-to-date page of all supported languages can be found here
A few joke "languages" are available as well, such as Pirate Speak, Shakespearean English, Klingon etc.
Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Includes localizations for Australia, Canada, UK, USA and New Zealand
Afrikaans
Albanian
Arabic
Asturian
Belarusian
Bulgarian
Catalan
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Cornish
Croatian
Czech
Dutch
Includes localizations for Netherlands and Belgium
Estonian
Filipino
Finnish
French
Includes localizations for France and Canada
Galician
Georgian
German
Includes localizations for Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Bavaria, Upper Saxon, and northern Germany (Low German)
Greek
Hebrew
Hindi
Hungarian
Icelandic
Indonesian
Irish
Italian
Korean
Japanese
Latin
Latvian
Lithuanian
Luxembourgish
Macedonian
Malay
Norwegian
Available in variants: Non-descript (i.e. Bokmål) and Nynorsk
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Ripuarian
Romanian
Russian
Vietnamese
Scottish Gaelic
Serbian
Cyrillic orthography
Slovak
Slovenian
Spanish
Latin American Spanish
Includes localizations for Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Uruguay and Venezuela
Polish
Regular Polish and Silesian
Swedish
Regular Swedish and Elfdalian
Tagalog
Tatar
Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian
Valencian
Vietnamese
Welsh

Network

300px
In-game chat settings.
Requires a Mojang Account or Minecraft Account.[3]
Multiplayer is not compatible with Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition.[9]

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
Local play
2147483647 Usable with the Joypad mod.
Max players is capped to the max integer size in Java.[12]
LAN play
8 Maximum 8 players
Online play
2147483647 Max players is capped to the max integer size in Java.[12]

Connection types

Ports

Protocol Port(s) and/or port range(s)
TCP 25565
UDP 25565
Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) support status is unknown.

VR support

Issues fixed

Mojang has created an Official Bug Tracker that you can use to find or report bugs. Please search for your problem before reporting it, as it may have already been fixed for the next update or reported previously. Reporting bugs multiple times does NOT help the developer fix them faster.

General fixes

Some problems can be solved by simply restarting the client.
Cannot update the game[citation needed]
  1. Check the status of Minecraft services. If all servers are online, continue reading the instructions.
  2. Add Minecraft as an exception to any firewall software you use (including Windows Firewall).
  3. For OS X and Linux uninstall all versions of Java on your computer and install the latest version. Restart your computer.

Graphical issues

Black screen / broken textures[citation needed]
Uninstall any mods and texture packs that are incompatible (or of questionable compatibility) to the version of Minecraft you are using.

Crashes

Some crashes are caused by the game's rendering distance. Try setting it to 8 chunks or lower.
Crashes on a 64-bit operating system[citation needed]
Make sure you have the latest version of Java in its 64-bit variant.

Notes

This fix does not apply to the latest Windows version of Minecraft.
Game crashes with a GPU-related error[citation needed]
Install the latest driver for your graphics card (Intel drivers, Nvidia drivers, AMD drivers).
If you're using a Toshiba laptop with an Intel GPU, uninstall any AMD/ATI driver.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
OpenGL 4.4, 4.5
ExecutablePPC 32-bit 64-bitARM Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
PowerPC is only known to support up to 1.5.2, due to Java ≥6 not having PowerPC versions.[13] ARM requires m1-multimc-hack and the MultiMC launcher.
Linux
PowerPC support for recent Minecraft versions require the MultiMC launcher.[14]

Feed The Beast

Feed The Beast (or FTB) is a massive mod pack, combining the more popular Minecraft mods into a complete and easy to use package. All the mods included use the Minecraft Forge API.

Multiple variations of FTB are available to suit different playstyles and needs.

Full details and download links can be found on the official website.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum[15] Recommended
Operating system (OS) Java-compatible (JRE 1.8+)
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium D 2.6 GHz
AMD Athlon 64 (K8) 2.6 GHz
System memory (RAM) 2 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 200 MB
Video card (GPU) Intel HD Graphics
AMD Radeon HD
OpenGL 2.1 compatible
Other
Previously supported PowerPC processors on OS X until 1.5.2, after which support was dropped with the requirement of JRE 1.6 starting in Minecraft 1.6. Linux PowerPC still functions, however.[citation needed]
Also previously supported OS X 10.6.8 until 1.12, when JRE 1.8 was required.


References

  1. Mojang games to require Microsoft account - last accessed on 2020-10-22
    "Users will need a Microsoft account to play Mojang games going forward, the Minecraft developer announced. The change will also impact Minecraft Java Edition, the studio clarified, and is mandatory for everyone who's been using a Mojang account or a legacy Minecraft account to play. Players failing to comply will be unable to log in later down the line. The migration will start in early 2021, while new players will be required to create a Microsoft account rather than a Mojang one from this fall."
  2. Minecraft: Java Edition vs Windows 10 | PC Gamer
  3. 3.0 3.1 Mojang | Do I log in with my email or username?
  4. Mojang | Minecraft for Windows 10
  5. http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/269042-java-7-massive-minecraft-performance-boost/
  6. Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta - Microsoft Store
  7. Post your feature request here :: Borderless Gaming General Discussions
  8. New borderless fullscreen feature is not borderless fullscreen - last accessed on 2020-04-26
    "Possible issues"
  9. 9.0 9.1 9.2 Announcing: Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta
  10. http://donewmouseaccel.blogspot.com/2010/03/markc-windows-7-mouse-acceleration-fix.html
  11. PC Gaming Surround Sound Round-up
  12. 12.0 12.1 Arqade - What is the maximum number of players on a Minecraft/Bukkit server? - last accessed on 2019-03-02
  13. Minecraft 1.2.5 and 1.5.2 for PowerPC - last accessed on 2020-11-28
  14. Minecraft Java Edition (LWJGL being ported) - last accessed on 2020-11-28
  15. Mojang | Minecraft: Java Edition system requirements