Adjusting View Distance and Simulation Distance on Your Minecraft Server

View Distance and Simulation Distance are configuration options for Minecraft servers.

View Distance sets the number of chunks that are visible in all directions around a player.

Simulation Distance sets the number of chunks that will run in-game processes (even if they’re not visible): load entities, grow crops, run automatic contraptions, etc.

These options can be found in the server.properties file located in the main / root directory of your Minecraft server.

Although players can customize their client's render distance, the view distance and the simulation distance options can force a limit to the amount of world data that the server sends to every single computer/player connected to a Minecraft server. Doing so is a great way to reduce lag on your server.

You can manually change your server's view and simulation distance by following the steps below:

  1. On the server’s control panel, navigate to Files > Config Files.
  2. Navigate to Server Settings.
  3. Locate the option called View Distance or Simulation Distance and enter a number from 3 to 32. By default, these are set to 10. If you are experiencing lag on your server, it is recommended to choose a lower value than your current setting.
  4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the Save button.
  5. Restart your server for the changes to apply.

You may learn more about View/Simulation Distance and how they are used to reduce server lag here: Tips: Reducing Server Lag

Learn more about the server.properties file and how to configure it from this article: How to Configure Your Minecraft Server (server.properties)

If you require any further assistance, please contact our support at: https://shockbyte.com/billing/submitticket.php

Mitchell Smith

Managing Director @ Shockbyte

  • view distance, server.properties, manage server, minecraft server, server management, Minecraft Java Edition, Minecraft PC, Minecraft Bedrock Edition, server configuration, Minecraft server configuration
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