Optimize your Minecraft server

A well-optimized Minecraft server runs smoother, maintains higher TPS and handles more players. This article covers three effective optimizations you can apply in under fifteen minutes: adjusting Paper configuration, pre-generating the world and setting entity limits.

1. Adjust Paper configuration

Paper includes dozens of built-in optimizations that you can fine-tune through configuration files. The key files are paper-world-defaults.yml and spigot.yml.

Recommended changes:

Lower view-distance to 6 or 8 in server.properties. This is the single most impactful setting.
Set simulation-distance to 4 or 6 in server.properties. Entities outside this range are not ticked.
Set max-auto-save-chunks-per-tick in paper-world-defaults.yml to 8 to reduce save spikes.
Set mob-spawn-range to a value equal to or lower than your simulation-distance.

Restart the server after each change to apply the new settings.

2. Pre-generate the world with Chunky

Generating new chunks is one of the heaviest tasks for a Minecraft server. By pre-generating the world, you prevent lag when players explore new areas.

Install the Chunky plugin in the plugins folder.
Restart the server and set a world border: /worldborder set 10000 (this covers 10,000 blocks around spawn).
Start pre-generation: /chunky start.
Chunky generates in the background and pauses automatically when the server is busy. The process can take hours depending on the size.

Always set a world border. Without a boundary, players keep loading new chunks, which negates the optimization entirely.

3. Set entity limits

Too many entities (mobs, items on the ground, experience orbs) are a common cause of low TPS. Paper offers several ways to manage this.

Lower spawn-limits in bukkit.yml. By default, up to 70 monsters, 10 animals and 15 water entities spawn per player. Lowering monsters to 40 or 50 noticeably improves performance.
Enable per-player-mob-spawns in paper-world-defaults.yml (on by default in recent Paper versions). This distributes mob spawns fairly across all players and prevents one player in an empty chunk from attracting all mobs.
Use alt-item-despawn-rate in Paper to make items like cobblestone and dirt disappear faster than rare items.

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Does optimization change the gameplay?

Slightly. A lower view-distance means players can see a bit less far. Lower spawn limits result in slightly fewer mobs. For most players the difference is barely noticeable, while server performance improves significantly.

Should I use Aikar JVM flags?

Yes. Aikar flags optimize the Java garbage collector specifically for Minecraft. They reduce lag spikes caused by Java cleaning up memory. Search for "Aikar flags" and copy the recommended startup flags for your amount of RAM.

How do I measure whether the optimization works?

Install the Spark plugin and run /spark tps and /spark profiler. Spark shows your TPS, memory usage and which processes take the most server time. Compare the results before and after your changes.