Minecraft 1.9 Pre Release 5 is the last release before the final release comes out on the 18^th of November, 2011. With the feature freeze in full effect, there's not much 'new' in Minecraft 1.9 Pre Release 5. What there are is a host of little bug fixes, minor changes and most importantly FPS optimization. Some players are reporting jumps in Minecraft performance of up to 40 frames per second, so if you've been able to fry eggs on your computer case when playing the other pre-releases, I'd advise installing this one.

Here's a few other useful changes that might convince you to install this Minecraft pre-release:

Eyes of Ender now point in the right direction. Ender Eyes took some getting used to, especially when you realized you had to pick them up and throw them over and over to find a stronghold like some sort of mad failed boomerang champion. You'll still have to throw your eye all over the place to find a portal to the End, but on the bright side the Eye will no longer point you to a stairwell in a stronghold and then sit there smugly whilst you stumble around trying to find your way into the portal room.

New Camera Mechanics! Pressing F9 will give you access to a fixed camera angle (it enables to to stare straight ahead as if you're mining whilst also being in traction.) In other news, you can now look around without the mouse by using the I, J, J and L keys. This will probably take you to a whole new level of wonderful in your minecraft videos, if you make them. And if you don't, you should, everybody else is and mother always said that doing what everybody else is doing is the best idea ever.

Clouds can now be turned off, and that's a very, very good thing indeed for anyone who is sick of having clouds wafting through their mountain bases like disinterested tourists cluttering up the Mona Lisa.

Slimes roam free. Well, not quite free, but they're no longer restricted from spawning ubiquitously like they used to be and that means more sticky pistons for you and me.

Changes You Might Hate

Everyone knows that change is inevitable, but not all change is met with open arms. Here are a few (and when I say a few, I of course mean two) changes you might not find so wonderful.

Stripy iron block texture. The iron block now has gray horizontal stripes running across it. Depending on your use of iron blocks, this could be aesthetically pleasing, or a design nightmare.

You can no longer use enchanted items to pick up mob spawners. Your days of creating halls of monsters are over for the moment.