Server Performance Configs

Minecraft servers run a loop that must finish about twenty times a second. When one pass takes longer than fifty milliseconds, players see lag: blocks that reappear, mobs that stutter and a world that feels slow to respond. Performance tuning is finding what makes the pass slow and deciding whether to pay that cost.

Three levers cover most servers. The first is what the server simulates and sends: view distance, simulation distance, entity activation and the number of mobs per chunk. The second is the Java process: how much memory it gets and how the garbage collector is told to behave, which is what startup flags configure. The third is plugins, which often account for more of the tick than the game itself.

The references listed here are guides rather than files to paste. A well-known optimisation guide explains each setting in Paper's configuration and what it costs. The Paper documentation lists every option. A set of startup flags published by a Paper maintainer is widely used as a starting point for the garbage collector.

Work in a loop. Measure with a profiler, change one setting, measure again and keep the change only if the numbers improved. A copied config tuned for someone else's hardware can make your server worse.

What is the first thing to change on a laggy server? Profile it. The cause is often a single plugin or an oversized loaded area, not a global setting.

Should I use startup flags I found online? A published set, such as the flags in the Paper documentation, is a reasonable start. Test them on your server and compare tick times before and after.

Does lowering view distance help? Usually, because fewer chunks are loaded and sent. The trade-off is how far players can see, so lower simulation distance first if you only need to reduce server work.