What is LWJGL?
LWJGL is the LightWeight Java Game Library. Essentially, it is what Minecraft uses for graphics, sound, and input.
Why update?
- Minecraft will not ship with the latest version of LWJGL.
- Updating will fix some input bugs where keys seem to get stuck if you click at the same time. It also removes the "ghost" mouse pointer clicking.
- Some users report a performance increase upon updating.
- This can also potentially fix some issues regarding sound not working/cutting out.
- It has also been reported to fix intermittent crashes on Windows.
Where to download
Select the latest stable release and download the lwjgl-X.X.X.zip.
Note: some people reported that release 2.8.2 causes a bug in which you cannot exit the options screen; this appears to be fixed in 2.8.3 (released 1/23/2012).
Note: On MOST 64 bit computers, the lwjgl64.dll update will cause a black screen crash (as of stable release 2.8.1). Backup that file before updating it so you can rollback if there is a problem with it. Better yet, backup all files before updating. Stable Release 2.8.3 appears to fix the black screen issue
Note: Again on several 64 bit computers, the OpenAL64.dll update can cause a sound glitch that makes bursting sounds. Keep a backup in case you need to rollback.
What to replace
In the lwjgl-X.X.X.zip, there should be two folders, named jar and natives. You should replace the files in .minecraft/bin and .minecraft/bin/natives with the versions from the .zip.
For example, on GNU/Linux you would replace the following files (the process is identical for Windows users, the only difference being the native files have the .dll extension, rather than .so):
In .minecraft/bin/
- jinput.jar
- lwjgl.jar
- lwjgl_util.jar
In .minecraft/bin/natives/
- libjinput-linux.so
- libjinput-linux64.so
- liblwjgl.so
- liblwjgl64.so
- libopenal.so
- libopenal64.so
The .minecraft folder's location varies by operating system.
- Windows: %appdata%/.minecraft
- Mac OS X: ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft
- GNU/Linux: ~/.minecraft