Minecraft Java Edition Switches from GLFW to SDL3 for Better Performance
Minecraft: Java Edition now uses SDL3
We are thrilled to announce that Minecraft Java Edition now uses SDL3 instead of GLFW for window management and input. This snapshot also introduces new item components for custom furnace fuels, improves sign mechanics, and updates world generation logic. While we've made significant technical strides, please note that exclusive fullscreen mode may cause crashes on Windows and Wayland systems.
Happy Snapshot Tues... Thursday? Yes, you read that right! As we've entered peak vacation season here in Sweden, snapshots might not come out on their usual schedule.
- malteeez
The lwjgl bindings for this were written by a member of the GTNH modpack team, thereby completing the chain of vanilla->modded->vanilla once more https://github.com/LWJGL/lwjgl3/pull/1033
- shakna
> Known Issues
> Exclusive fullscreen mode on Windows may cause the game to crash in certain situations, especially when using multiple monitors
> Entering Exclusive fullscreen mode crashes the game on Wayland
Those, together, kinda seem like the kind of blocking bug that would usually delay a snapshot... Lets hoping it gets fixed before release lands...
- bondolo
I recently converted a game, Tribal Trouble (https://github.com/bondolo/tribaltrouble) from GLFW to SDL3. It was mostly a painless refactor though I did have some issues with full screen exclusive modes and desktop
full screen but was eventually able to resolve those.
I ended writing a demo for screen mode handling to test and document the fiddly bits.
https://github.com/bondolo/SDL3-Fullscreen-Demo
The game is Java, like Minecraft, the demo is C because I wanted to keep it as simple as possible.
- velcrovan
Anyone got any advice for a techy dad with no (zero) Minecraft experience who wants to set up a Minecraft server for the family in 2026? Kids right now are playing on their iPads, and (sometimes) old macbooks/windows PCs.
- hiccuphippo
Icculus has some great videos of porting games from SDL2 to 3, here's the one porting Doom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixdeGhsoxy8
- LelouBil
It's really amazing how much Minecraft is becoming more and more a game engine on it's own rather than just a game.
- mort96
Is the rationale for switching away from GLFW documented anywhere? I'd love to read about it, I have some projects which use GLFW myself and I'm always wondering whether or not SDL would be better
- nekiwo
osu (the rhythm game) also recently switched to SDL3, from SDL2, and it came with significant performance/latency improvements. SDL3 adoption is a bit slow it seems. Though, I'm surprised Minecraft used GLFW all this time.
One notable thing is that switching to SDL3 eliminated lag from having Discord client open while playing osu. Pretty sure this was from their devlog on YouTube.