Currently, you cannot use Java 17 or 18 EA with 1.17 and newer. Minecraft is written in Java, and uses it for game logic, rendering, and networking.Īs of October 22, 2021, the latest stable Java versions are 1.8.0_311 (Oracle JDK) / 1.8.0_312 (OpenJDK) (Long-Term Support or LTS), 11.0.12 (LTS) and 17.0.1 (LTS), while the latest development build is version 18 early-access build 20. Unlike many other languages, Java does not run directly on the hardware, but in a virtual machine, called the JVM (Java Virtual Machine). Java is a programming language and computing platform.
