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How to Optimize PaperMC Performance

Improve PaperMC tick performance with practical view-distance, entity, plugin and profiling guidance.

Published 2026-06-22

Measure before changing settings

Use Paper's built-in profiling tools or a profiler such as spark to identify slow plugins, entity spikes and expensive chunk activity. Average CPU usage alone does not explain a low tick rate; focus on milliseconds per tick and the tasks consuming the main server thread.

Control chunk and entity work

View distance, simulation distance, world generation and entity counts can create sustained main-thread work. Pre-generate the playable world, set distances appropriate for the player count, and review farms or mechanics that accumulate large numbers of active entities.

Treat plugins as production code

Keep Paper and plugins current, remove unused plugins, and test updates on a copy of the server. Extra memory helps avoid pressure, but it cannot fix a plugin blocking the main thread. Maintain backups before configuration or version changes.