Optimizing spigot.yml To Reduce Lag

If you’re running a Spigot server you have a handful of options you can use to optimize your server to 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.

Note

This article is specifically for Minecraft Java Edition servers, and depends on Spigot or Paper to work.

Below is a list of settings from spigot.yml and their recommended values for optimal performance in the order of most impact to least impact on performance. For help editing this file, reference our guide on modifying your Spigot configuration.

For more detailed and advanced options you can adjust, feel free to check out this useful server optimization GitHub guide by YouHaveTrouble and contributors.

Option	Description	Default	Optimized / Recommended
save-user-cache-on-stop-only	Prevents constant saving of user data while online. Improves performance, but may risk data loss if the server crashes. Make backups and stop server regularly.	false	true
entity-activation-range	Controls how close entities must be to players to activate AI.	animals: 16 monsters: 24 raiders: 48 misc: 8	(same as default)
merge-radius	Increases how close items/XP must be to merge, reducing ticking entities. Too high values may cause bugs (e.g. teleporting through blocks).	item: 4.0 exp: 6.0	(same as default)
nerf-spawner-mobs	Disables AI for mobs from spawners, improving performance on spawner-heavy servers.	false	true
max-tick-time	Controls max tick time before skipping logic. Setting to 1000 disables the feature to avoid breaking gameplay.	tile: 1000 entity: 1000	1000 (disabled)
mob-spawn-range	Sets how far (in chunks) from a player mobs can spawn. Keep lower than view-distance to ensure effectiveness.	8	6
arrow-despawn-rate	Controls how long survival arrows stay before despawning. Reduces entity lag. (300 ticks = 15s)	1200	300
item-despawn-rate	Sets how long items stay on ground before despawning. Reducing helps performance but may annoy players. (4000 ticks = ~3.3 minutes)	6000	4000
tick-inactive-villagers	Prevents ticking of villagers outside activation range. Greatly improves performance in 1.14+ servers.	true	false

You can further improve performance on your Spigot server by optimizing Bukkit and Paper. Learn more on how to optimize your Bukkit configuration with our guide on optimizing Bukkit’s bukkit.yml here.

Still got questions?

Optimizing spigot.yml To Reduce Lag

Note

Zach Lowery