Spigot.yml Optimization to Reduce Lag

NOTE: This article is specific to Minecraft Java Edition servers and depends on

If you are running a Spigot server, you have several options you can use to optimize your server and ensure optimal performance. This guide will show you the settings offered by Spigot that you can take advantage of to optimize your server's performance.

Below is a list of spigot.yml settings and their recommended values for optimal performance, in order from highest to lowest impact on performance. For help on how to edit this file, refer to our guide on how to modify the Spigot configuration

OPTION

DESCRIPTION

RECOMMENDED VALUES

save-user-cache-on-stop-only

By enabling this option, user data is prevented from being saved constantly while players are online, which improves server performance. However, it is important to note that if your server crashes, user data will not be saved. For this reason, it is recommended to perform backups regularly and stop the server frequently to protect player data.

Default: false Optimized: true

entity-activation-range

This set of settings will adjust how close mobs and other entities need to be to activate their artificial intelligence (AI). The numbers indicate the distance in blocks that entities can travel before being deactivated. Entities will reactivate when a player gets close enough to them.

animals: 16 monsters: 24 raiders: 48 misc: 8

merge-radius

By increasing the merge radius, items and experience will group together more frequently, reducing the number of items on the ground that are active and ticking. However, it is important to note that if the numbers are too high, problems may arise where items will teleport through blocks and, occasionally, to dangerous places (like lava).

item: 4.0 exp: 6.0

nerf-spawner-mobs

For servers that rely on mob spawners, this option will provide a good boost to server performance by making mobs spawned by spawners have no artificial intelligence (AI).

Default: false Optimized: true

max-tick-time

Due to the risk associated with enabling this feature, as it skips ticking on some entities and blocks in a way that can affect gameplay, it is best to set this to 1000, which effectively disables the feature.

tile: 1000 entity: 1000

mob-spawn-range

You can adjust the distance in chunks away from a player where mobs will spawn, which can help ensure there are fewer active mobs in an area inaccessible to players. Keep this number lower than the view-distance so that mobs actually spawn for players.

Default: 8 Optimized: 6

arrow-despawn-rate

This will make arrows shot by players in survival mode despawn more quickly (counted in number of ticks), reducing the number of active entities. The recommended 300 ticks is approximately 15 seconds.

Default: 1200 Optimized: 300

item-despawn-rate

This will make dropped items on the ground despawn after a certain number of ticks. Be careful not to set this too low, or your players will lose valuable items. The recommended 4000 ticks is approximately 3.3 minutes.

Default: 6000 Optimized: 4000

tick-inactive-villagers

When version 1.14 was released, new villager mechanics were introduced that can cause significant lag on a server if not optimized. Setting this to false will prevent villagers outside the activation range (see above) from being ticked.

Default: true Optimized: false

You can further improve performance on your Spigot server by optimizing Bukkit and Paper. Learn more about how to optimize your Bukkit configuration with our guide on Bukkit's bukkit.yml optimization. If you are using PaperMC, learn more about Paper optimization with our guide on Paper's paper.yml optimization.