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Overview

Experiencing lag or low TPS on your Minecraft server can stem from a variety of causes — inefficient plugins, unoptimized configurations, or excessive entity/chunk loading. This guide walks you through the essential steps to diagnose and resolve performance issues using industry-standard tools and optimization resources. We recommend following each section in order before reaching out to support, as the data you gather will help us assist you more effectively.

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Profiling Your Server with Spark

The first step in diagnosing performance issues is to generate a server profile. Spark is a lightweight, powerful profiling tool designed specifically for Minecraft servers. It provides detailed insights into what’s consuming your server’s resources.

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Installing Spark

  1. Download the latest Spark plugin from the official website.
  2. Place the .jar file into your server’s plugins/ folder.
  3. Restart your server to load the plugin.

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Generating a Performance Profile

Once Spark is installed, run the following commands in your server console:
  • TPS & Tick Report: Run /spark tps to get a quick overview of your server’s current ticks-per-second and tick duration.
  • CPU Profiler: Run /spark profiler start, wait for at least 5 minutes during peak activity, then run /spark profiler stop. Spark will generate a shareable link containing a full breakdown of what’s consuming CPU time.
  • Memory Analysis: Run /spark heapsummary to inspect memory usage and identify potential memory leaks.
When submitting a support ticket, always include the Spark profile link. This allows our team to quickly identify the root cause of lag without guesswork.

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Optimizing Your Server Configuration

After profiling, the next step is to optimize your server’s configuration files. Two community-maintained guides are widely regarded as the gold standard for Minecraft server optimization:

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YouHaveTrouble’s Optimization Guide

This comprehensive guide provides recommended settings for server.properties, bukkit.yml, spigot.yml, paper-global.yml, and paper-world-defaults.yml. It covers everything from view distance tuning to entity activation ranges.

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PaperMC Documentation

The official PaperMC documentation offers in-depth explanations of each configuration option and their impact on performance, along with anti-cheat compatibility considerations.

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Key Areas to Optimize

Based on these guides, the most impactful settings to adjust include:
  • View Distance & Simulation Distance — Reducing these values significantly lowers chunk loading overhead.
  • Entity Activation Range — Controls how far entities need to be from a player before they start ticking.
  • Mob Spawn Limits — Lowering spawn caps reduces entity count and improves tick performance.
  • Hopper & Redstone Optimization — Paper provides built-in optimizations for these notoriously lag-heavy mechanics.
  • Chunk Loading & Generation — Throttling async chunk generation prevents CPU spikes during exploration.

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Installing SyncBoost

For larger servers that require additional optimization beyond configuration tuning, we offer SyncBoost — a custom optimization solution built specifically for Syncara Host infrastructure.

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What SyncBoost Does

  • Applies pre-tuned performance configurations tailored to your server’s hardware allocation.
  • Optimizes JVM startup flags and garbage collection parameters.
  • Includes automated entity and chunk management for high-player-count environments.

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How to Install

  1. Navigate to the Syncara Control Panel and select your server.
  2. Go to the Mods/Plugins section and search for SyncBoost.
  3. Click Install and restart your server.
Alternatively, contact our support team at support@syncara.host and request SyncBoost to be enabled on your service.
SyncBoost is recommended for servers with 50+ concurrent players or servers running heavy modpacks. For smaller servers, the configuration optimizations above should be sufficient.

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Still Experiencing Issues?

If you’ve followed all the steps above and are still experiencing performance problems, please open a support ticket and include the following:
  • Your Spark profile link (CPU and/or memory)
  • Your current player count and plugin list
  • A brief description of when the lag occurs (e.g., during peak hours, world generation, specific plugin actions)
Our team will review your data and work with you to resolve the issue.