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Minecraft: Java Edition now uses SDL3

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Re: Minecraft: Java Edition now uses SDL3

#11
post #2

> 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...

Well that's why it's a snapshot. It will probably be fixed in the next snapshot.

Re: Minecraft: Java Edition now uses SDL3

#12
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure minecraft has used borderless full screen for a long time unless you go out of your way to tell it not to. Lots of platforms, services, and applications have been deprecating exclusive full screen over the past decade or so.

in this same release Minecraft removed exclusive fullscreen on MacOS, i wonder why they haven't done the same on Windows & Linux - maybe people still have uses for that stuff on those operating systems? in my experience exclusive fullscreen is Awful on MacOS

I consider this the fault of macOS. The way macOS handles full screen makes it a nonstarter as a gaming platform even if it had a huge gaming library.

Still, I’ll admit that Minecraft full screen on Mac is even worse than almost all other games.

Re: Minecraft: Java Edition now uses SDL3

#13

I kind of don't see the benefit, as it's still going to use only the window, input and platform integrations features, while SDL3 has a whole software renderer built-in and much more.

This fixed a lot of bugs related to input. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you can see all the bug fixes from this snapshot, there are a lot related to input.

Re: Minecraft: Java Edition now uses SDL3

#16
post #2

> 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...

Delay a release? Sure. But delay a snapshot? Why? By releasing the snapshot in this state, they learn both 1) how big of a problem those known issues are (how often does entering exclusive fullscreen crash the game on Windows? They presumably have telemetry for this), and 2) if there are other, as of yet unknown issues they need to fix before release. The earlier you learn these things, the better.

There hasn't ever been a promise that snapshots are bug free; the expectation is rather the opposite.

Re: Minecraft: Java Edition now uses SDL3

#17

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.

https://pufferfish.host/ they have the most powerful and easy to use panel.

Re: Minecraft: Java Edition now uses SDL3

#18
post #3

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.

On Linux, often times you will be using SDL3 regardless, as sdl2-compat and sdl12-compat are the default implementations of SDL2 and 1.2 on some distros. This has a lot of benefits, from more apps working natively on Wayland (which gives lower latency than XWayland) to better controller support. Not sure what this meant for osu but I wouldn't be surprised if it made the actual switch less impactful for some users.

I was, however, somewhat surprised to learn Ubuntu 24.04 didn't even ship SDL3 to begin with. Turns out SDL3 is newer than I remember. This is likely part of the explanation why SDL3 adoption is lower than expected.

Re: Minecraft: Java Edition now uses SDL3

#19

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.

The edition of Minecraft on phones/tablets/etc is more locked down and limited than Java, so unfortunately your options might be somewhat limited (though not impossible).

I have run a Docker Minecraft Server (itzg/docker-minecraft-server) for years and it's been rock solid. Best part is not having to install a lot of dependencies, the image just does it all. I think they also have a Bedrock Edition server but I never got it working right (see above).

You'd need everyone to run the Java Edition on Windows/Mac/Linux systems if you want to do it with the least amount of pain. Otherwise, people are just paying for "Realms" which are hosted servers.

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