How to Optimize your Paper Configuration to Reduce Lag

One of the main strengths to running a Paper server over a Vanilla one is the sheer amount of customisability offered from the Paper configuration files. As a Paper server owner, this gives you the ability to seriously fine tune your server performance, usually by cutting corners off of bloated gameplay features.

Please Note

The configuration options discussed in this guide only apply to servers using the Paper Minecraft server type or a PaperMC fork, like Purpur.

# Paper Options and their Optimisations

Below is a list of configuration options that can be found in the paper-world-defaults.yml configuration file. These options will be applied to each world individually when they are first generated on Paper. If a world already has a paper-world.yml settings generated, changing the defaults file will not affect it.

You can locate this config file at /config/paper-world-defaults.yml

Option	Description	Default	Optimized / Recommended
max-auto-save-chunks-per-tick	Slows down how often chunks are saved during world save. Don’t go below 8 to avoid data loss.	24	8
optimize-explosions	Uses Paper’s efficient explosion handling. Less important after 1.15, but still beneficial.	false	true
mob-spawner-tick-rate	Increases time between mob spawner ticks. Only increase if experiencing lag.	1	2
container-update-tick-rate	Controls how often container GUIs (like chests) update. Higher values reduce server load, but avoid going above 3–4.	1	3
max-entity-collisions	Limits how many entities can collide at once. Helps with performance in crammed mob areas.	8	2
grass-spread-tick-rate	Increases time between grass spreading ticks to reduce load.	1	4
non-player-arrow-despawn-rate	Time in ticks before non-player arrows despawn. Useful to reduce entity lag.	-1	60
creative-arrow-despawn-rate	Same as above but for arrows shot in creative mode.	-1	60
despawn-range (soft)	Distance in blocks for soft despawning (randomized, periodic).	28 (soft)	28
despawn-range (hard)	Distance in blocks for hard despawning (immediate).	96 (hard)	96
hopper.disable-move-event	Prevents hoppers from checking every slot each tick. Improves performance significantly.	false	true
prevent-moving-into-unloaded-chunks	Stops players from entering unloaded chunks, preventing potential lag spikes.	false	true
use-faster-eigencraft-redstone	Enables faster redstone algorithm without changing behavior. Significant performance improvement.	false	true
armor-stands-tick	Disables ticking for armor stands (only needed for water interaction). Frees up performance.	true	false
per-player-mob-spawns	Uses per-player mob spawns to balance mob farms and prevent griefing of server-wide spawns.	false	true
anti-xray	Paper's built-in anti-xray system. More efficient than plugins.	false	true

While running a Paper Minecraft server, you will also have access to some additional configuration files, which can also be optimized. Feel free to refer to the following guides for more resources on how to further optimize your Paper Minecraft server:

Still got questions?

How to Optimize your Paper Configuration to Reduce Lag

Please Note

# Paper Options and their Optimisations

Kobe Plane