Fix Minecraft lag?
12.02.2022
Servers are the most popular way for players to enjoy Minecraft multiplayer. The largest servers have huge player counts during peak hours.
However, one of the biggest problems with Minecraft servers is that they are extremely prone to lag, especially if they are not set up correctly. This can prove to be a major problem for novice server owners or less technical players.
There are many easy and efficient ways to improve the server's performance. This guide will show you how to optimize your server so that it doesn't suffer from game-ruining latency.
Why does a Minecraft server slow down?
Players should be aware that there are two types of lag when playing Minecraft servers: network and TPS.
High pings can be a sign of network lag. To check the player list, hold the tab key and ping can be easily checked. Players who see only a few bars of connection strength are likely experiencing experienced lag.
If a player experiences lag when connecting to the server despite having a full connection meter, it is likely that there has been TPS (ticks per sec) loss.
For simplicity, TPS can be used to refer to the frequency of a Minecraft server's refresh. Servers with zero lag will have 20 TPS. This means that the server refreshes 20 times per second.
Players using either bukkit or spigot as their Minecraft server jars can check their TPS easily by using the command “/TPS” in-game. Any lower than 17 TPS is unacceptable and likely to cause lag.
How can players fix lag issues on a Minecraft server
It's difficult to fix network lag, unfortunately. It could be the problem on the server's end or the internet connection of the connected player. It's unlikely that the problem is on the server's side if there's no network lag from other players connecting to the same server (full connectivity meters).
The simplest way to fix TPS lag is to simply upgrade your hardware. As a quick fix to most problems with TPS, players can upgrade their CPUs or allocate more RAM for their servers. Upgrades to hardware are expensive and not always possible.
An optimized Minecraft server jar is another way to immediately see improved performance. Paper MC is the most well-known. As a passion project, it has been refined over many years by some of Minecraft's most talented developers.
It is easy to upgrade to Paper MC. Simply swap your old server jar for the appropriate Paper MC version.
Paper MC supports all Minecraft versions, as well as builds for the most recent versions.
Players should also ensure that plugins of low quality and poorly optimized are not installed on their server. Even one poorly written plugin can bring down even the best server.
Players can identify laggy plugins easily if there are many of them. They can then remove each one until the lag ceases.