Different Minecraft Lag Types and their fixes ?
Last updated
Last updated
With Minecraft being so varied with different settings, mods and plugins, there can be a number of things that you can do to improve lag on your server.
Common reasons for lag: - Too many players and not enough RAM. - Too many mobs/items and not enough RAM. - You are too far away from your server. - - Too many worlds are running on your server without sufficient RAM. - Errors are spamming in your console. - Too many plugins running on your server and not enough RAM.
THINGS TO DO FIRST Console Errors Always, check for console errors before submitting a ticket. Most are easily solved with a Google search and you should get into the habit of fixing your server.
1. Check if you have any errors in your console. If you see any "SEVERE" errors, this maybe be the cause of your lag. 2. Try and troubleshoot these errors. Google is your friend, and we have a knowledge base full of guides.
If you see "End of Stream" with a "SEVERE" tag, do not be alarmed. Unless this is spamming in your console this it not an issue.
TPS lag (server lag)
The next type of lag is server lag. This is described in Minecraft as TPS. TPS stands for Ticks Per Second. TPS is otherwise known as game ticks and is a maximum of 20. 20 TPS is hardwired into Minecraft as the universal speed. That is to say, the smallest amount of time possible that is distinguishable from the game's perspective. Each “tick” causes the game to recalculate directions of mobs, as well as other things such as growing crops adjusting the direction of mobs etc. Just to get an idea of how long it is, each redstone tick is equivalent to 2 game ticks. This is incidentally also the reason redstone “half” ticks exist, being 1 game tick. Remember that TPS and FPS are different. TPS, on the server, is controlled by the speed and capabilities of the server. FPS is based on the player's computer.
Reduce Your View Distance We recommend that you reduce the view distance of your server from the default 10 to a value between 6-8.
ClearLag This plugin is a great and very configurable and is recommended for any server. ClearLag can be found on Bukkit here. 1. Once you have ClearLag installed you can run the command "lagg check" to see how many entities you have on your server 2. If you are running a small server anything over the value "500" may possibly be the reason for your lag. 3. If you do have a high number of entities, run the command "lagg clear" and "lagg killmobs". This will remove the lag causing entities from your server i.e. items on the ground and mobs
Remove Plugins The more players and plugins you have the more RAM you will need. If you have lots of plugins and not a lot of RAM you will overload your server causing it to have lag spikes and/or crash. The best thing to do it limit the amount of plugins you require to run your server, as some plugins such as Survival Games can use up to 1GB of RAM.
Corrupted Chunks + Entity Buildup A common issue with Minecraft servers is world "chunks" becoming corrupted, see an example of this here: Along with this, you can find that entities can buildup within the world, large number of entities in a small area (mobs, items on the floor etc) can also cause FPS and TPS lag. To limit these, we suggest running a region fixer, if you have a server with EnderCloud, you can create a support ticket to get this done, alternatively, you can run it on your world yourself using the tool here:
Low Memory Running your server without enough memory for the world/plugins/mods you are running on the server can often cause lag, you can read more about this here:
FPS lag (client lag) As a player, you should be concerned with client lag. This lag is a direct result of the client. This means that this lag is caused by your computer running the Minecraft game. Client lag is affected by things like a large amount of entities (e.g thousands of dropped blocks or animals, and a few other related things, such as light values on structures running shader-packs, mods, etc). This will cause your FPS (Frames Per Second) to drop, and is the most common type of lag. When playing on servers this is reduced, as the game engine calculations are running on another computer (the server), minimizing the calculations your computer needs to run and therefore giving you, as the player, more resources to play the game. This is the only kind of lag that is affected by the quality of your computer.
Fixing FPS lag
The Optifine mod can help a player to achieve higher FPS with the same quality. You can also make efforts to limit this by removing all the land in spawn worlds, so that it is a void world with only the spawn, or should your spawn reside withing the same world as the world to play in, you can use WorldEdit to fill the caves below with stone, to lower the amount of light-values to be calculated when a player spawns. You should also remove any unnecessary and fast-flashing redstone and any mobs close by, by using WorldGuard regions and flags to block mob spawning.
Latency Finally, we get to Latency or Internet lag. Internet lag is usually a result of being geographically far from the server host. This means that the electrical impulses take many milliseconds to reach the server and then have to travel all that way back. This means there can be a lag between input from your computer to it appearing on your and other screens. Take the example of you placing a block in front of your friend. Firstly you have to click to place the block, that information then has to travel up to 12,756 km (diameter of the earth) to the server. Then, this information has to be processed and sent out to your friend's computer, which might be up to another 12,756 km away. Traveling this long distance can take a while. Other kinds of internet lag can include bandwidth issues, common in the event of a DDoS (Distributed Denial Of Service) attack, where the server is bombarded with so many connections that it is unable to process normal connection. This is similar to how roads get slower and blocked with traffic when there is a lot of cars.
Fixing Latency Lag If you want to check your latency with a server just log onto Minecraft and add the server you want to test to your list of servers. When it's added there will be a small icon in the top right on the server field just above the number of slots the server holds. If you hover over the icon it will tell you the ping of the server.
Fast Ping: <100ms Medium Ping: 100-200ms Satisfactory Ping: 200-300 Slow Ping: 300-500ms Laggy Ping: >500ms
Latency lag is when you are too far away from your server so the connection is slightly delayed.
Check your server Daemon/Node location and see if you are the closest you can be to our servers. If you see that any of our server locations are closer to you than your current server's location, submit a ticket and request a transfer free of charge.
Want a super fast, lag-free server experience? Get a Minecraft Server with us and run your server with the experts!