When I got my new HP dv7t Quad Edition 17" laptop, I immediately got Java and Minecraft (and Chrome). I opened Minecraft and awaited the famous login screen. I was then surprised with the following error.
In my opinion, I feel the Java 7 VM is to blame. If it is, how do I play Minecraft while Mojang or Oracle work on a new version?
EDIT: I have an NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M.
Best Answer
Note - Assuming your PC is a 64-bit machine -
Are you running 64-bit Java? I've been having a lot of issues running MineCraft on 32-bit java - The game will play fine for about 5 minutes and then lag out (checking the memory usage it gets to about 1GB)
I'd say uninstall Java, and then go to http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp and select the 64-bit version manually.
If you want to check if your PC is 64-bit:
Under the System section it should say whether it is 64-bit.