How to Optimize Your Minecraft Server Performance on Syncara Host

Mastering Minecraft Server Performance: From Chunky to JVM Flags

Running a Minecraft server is about more than just letting players connect — it’s about delivering a stable, smooth experience where lag, long load times and TPS drops are minimized. On a strong hosting platform like Syncara Host, powered by AMD architecture and NVMe SSDs, you already have excellent foundation hardware — but the magic happens when you apply smart optimizations.

In this guide we’ll cover everything from using Chunky for pre-generating chunks, monitoring with profiling tools, fine-tuning server configurations, to advanced JVM flags. Whether you’re running a small SMP server or a large public network, you’ll walk away with actionable steps that elevate performance.

1. Why Performance Optimization Matters

When players explore, build and interact, your server’s resources are consumed in three key areas:

• Chunk generation and loading: New terrain is generated dynamically — expensive in CPU & I/O.
• Tick processing & entity activity: Mobs, redstone, plugins — all contribute to tick lag.
• Memory & garbage-collection behaviour: Long-running JVM threads, plugin memory leaks, and GC pauses hurt gameplay.

Even with strong hardware, if the software side isn’t optimized you’ll still see issues like lag spikes, high entity counts, long chunk-load times, and unhappy players. That’s why we dive deep.

2. Pre-Generate Chunks with Chunky

One of the largest single sources of lag is when players explore new areas and your server must generate many chunks in real time. The plugin Chunky removes that burden by handling chunk generation ahead of time.

/chunky world world_name
/chunky center  
/chunky radius 5000
/chunky start

By generating a large radius (for example 5000 blocks) before your server opens to players you ensure most terrain is already baked and ready-to-load. Multiple guides show that this alone can significantly reduce CPU spikes when many players join or fly around. See infographic above.

Important: run this process during low-traffic periods since generation can itself cause load. Use console mode to track progress and pause/resume if needed.

3. Install PaperMC (or optimized fork) and Use Low-Lag Configuration

Running vanilla Minecraft server software is fine but you’ll get far better TPS behaviour with PaperMC (or forks like Purpur) because it offers tuning options and better entity/chunk handling.

Key config tweaks in paper.yml and spigot.yml:

# paper.yml
max-auto-save-chunks-per-tick: 8
entity-activation-range:
  animals: 16
  monsters: 24
  raiders: 32
  misc: 8

# spigot.yml
view-distance: 8
entity-tracking-range:
  players: 48
  monsters: 32
  misc: 16

These reduce how far entities and chunks are processed/tracked when players are far away, which improves TPS especially in modded or large-world servers.

4. JVM Tuning with Aikar’s Flags

Even with all other optimizations, the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) itself needs tuning. Aikar’s JVM Flags are widely used by high-performance servers:

-Xms4G -Xmx4G -XX:+UseG1GC -XX:+ParallelRefProcEnabled \
-XX:MaxGCPauseMillis=200 -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions \
-XX:+DisableExplicitGC -XX:+AlwaysPreTouch -XX:G1NewSizePercent=30 \
-XX:G1MaxNewSizePercent=40 -XX:G1HeapRegionSize=8M -XX:G1ReservePercent=20 \
-XX:G1HeapWastePercent=5 -XX:G1MixedGCCountTarget=4 \
-XX:InitiatingHeapOccupancyPercent=15 -XX:G1MixedGCLiveThresholdPercent=90 \
-XX:G1RSetUpdatingPauseTimePercent=5 -XX:SurvivorRatio=32 \
-XX:+PerfDisableSharedMem -Dusing.aikars.flags=true \
-Daikars.new.flags=true

Adjust -Xms and -Xmx to match your server’s RAM (2G, 4G, 8G etc). These flags reduce GC pause impact, speed up object allocation, and improve long-term stability.

5. Plugin & Entity Management

Optimizing isn’t just about hardware and flags — it’s also about what you run on top of the server. Too many plugins, especially ones tracking large entities or heavy tasks, can kill TPS.

Consider running:

• ClearLag / FarmLimiter: Reduces lag from large farms or mob spawners.
• EntityTrackerFixer: Limits expensive entity tracking tasks.
• Avoid heavy real-time map plugins such as Dynmap unless you’ve got strong resources and separate threads/DB.

Use Spark or Timings to identify plugin bottlenecks — sometimes a single misbehaving plugin can be responsible for most lag.

6. Scheduled Restarts & Monitoring

No matter how optimized, Minecraft servers accumulate load over time — memory fragmentation, unused entities, farms, plugins all build up. Schedule a lightweight restart every 12-24 hours to ensure clean state.

Also, use profiling tools like Spark to identify bottlenecks:

/spark profiler --timeout 60

Then view the link Spark gives you to see what percentage of tick time is being spent on plugins, entities, block ticks etc. It’s an excellent way to see what needs optimizing next.

7. Make Use of Syncara Host Infrastructure

Since you’re using Syncara Host you get the benefit of high-end AMD-based CPUs and NVMe storage — meaning when everything else is tuned, your server *can* perform at peak.

Here are some Syncara-specific tips:

• Ensure you pick a plan with enough RAM and CPU cores for your expected player count.
• Use off-peak hours to run large tasks like Chunky generation or world backups.
• Take full advantage of the “root access / full control” panel to monitor logs, memory usage & tweaks.

8. Common Pitfalls & How to Avoid Them

Here are some things to watch out for:

• Huge world border radius without enough RAM/disk —> slows down generation dramatically.
• Setting -Xmx way higher than RAM available —> GC thrashing.
• Leaving heavy plugins on starter plans —> overselling of features kills performance.
• Running Chunky while many players online —> can reduce performance temporarily.