Minecraft server lagging: understand and improve TPSTell server-side lag apart from client stutter

Published on October 20, 2026

TPS and FPS are two different things

Before you change anything, find out where the problem lies:

• TPS (ticks per second) is measured by the server. The target value is 20. If it drops, the whole world runs in slow motion - mobs, furnaces, redstone. This affects all players at the same time.
• FPS (frames per second) are produced by the client. Low FPS are a problem of the individual computer and have nothing to do with the server.
• Ping is the round-trip time in the network. High ping with good TPS means: the server computes cleanly, the player's connection is the bottleneck.

The cross-check is simple: if it stutters for everyone at the same time, it is the server. If it stutters for only one person, it is their client or connection.

Measure TPS

On Paper and Spigot servers, you measure the tick rate directly in the console or in the game:

/tps

Three values are shown for the last one, five and fifteen minutes. 20.0 is the target value; permanently below 18 becomes noticeable, below 15 clearly so.

For finding the cause, the profiler Spark delivers much more: it shows which plugins, entities or chunks use up the tick time. It is installed like any other plugin - see Install plugins & mods.

View distance: the biggest single lever

Two values in server.properties determine how much of the world the server computes at the same time:

• view-distance - how many chunks are sent to the players.
• simulation-distance - in how many chunks computation actually takes place (mobs, growth, redstone).

The computing effort grows quadratically: going from 10 to 12 does not mean 20 percent more, but considerably more chunks. Conversely, lowering it from 12 to 8 often achieves more than any other single measure - and is less noticeable in the game than expected, because the simulation-distance is usually lower anyway.

Entities and farms

The second most common cause on grown servers. Every item, every mob and every frame costs computing time in every tick.

• Mob farms with hundreds of waiting mobs are the classic.
• Item build-up on the ground, for example from overflowing automation.
• Bred animals in large numbers in a tight space.
• Constantly running redstone clocks that never come to rest.

Spark or an entity counter shows where the mass accumulates. Paper also brings configuration values to limit mob density and item merging - see Paper server.

Plugins, mods and world generation

A single badly performing plugin can drag TPS down on its own. If the lag started with an installation, the case is clear; otherwise, Spark helps name the culprit.

A special case is world generation: when a player explores unknown territory, the server has to generate new chunks - that costs noticeable performance and is completely normal. Such lag disappears on its own once the area has been explored. A pre-generated world border defuses this permanently.

If the server stays slow even without extensions and with a reduced view distance, check memory: a heap that is too tight produces regular, short freezes. Guideline values in How much RAM does a server need?.

Frequently asked questions