Expert Performance Settings

Tuning your configuration files is the single most effective way to eliminate lag without needing to upgrade your hardware. It’s all about finding the right balance between "beautiful world" and "smooth gameplay."

1. The Big Wins (Mission Control)

These are the settings you should check first. You can find them in Mission Control under the Settings tab:

View Distance (under Server): Drop this to 6 or 8. It limits how many chunks are sent to players, which is the #1 way to save RAM and CPU.
Simulation Distance (under Server): Set this to 6. This controls how far away things like crops grow or mobs move. It keeps the "action" close to the players and saves massive amounts of CPU.
Max Tick Time (under Properties): If your server crashes due to "Watchdog" errors (lag), you might need to increase this or set it to -1 to disable the timeout.

2. Advanced Tuning (Paper & Spigot)

If you're running Paper, you have access to some deeper settings in your config files that can really speed things up:

Entity Activation Range: This stops mobs from "thinking" if a player isn't close to them. It keeps your farms working but stops the server from lagging due to a random zombie in a cave 50 blocks away.
Mob Spawn Limits: Do you really need 70 mobs per player? Dropping this slightly won't ruin survival, but it will make the server feel much snappier.

3. The "Test and Verify" Method

Don't just change everything at once!

Take a Baseline: Use Spark to see your current performance.
Change ONE Thing: Tweak a value, save it, and restart.
Check the Result: Did your MSPT (milliseconds per tick) go down? If yes, keep it. If no, revert it!

4. Common Sense Optimizations

Trading Halls: Keep villager halls small. If you need 50 villagers, split them into two different areas.
Item Frames: These are actually entities and can cause lag in large numbers. Try using signs or even player heads for decoration instead.
The "Hopper Trick": Always place a block (like a furnace or a slab) on top of hoppers that aren't actively pulling from a chest. It prevents them from constantly checking for dropped items in the air above them.

Combined with Chunk Pre-Generation, these settings are the secret to a lag-free 24/7 server.