Game Server Performance Optimization: The Ultimate Guide

Why Performance Matters

Every millisecond counts in online gaming. A laggy server means unhappy players—and unhappy players leave.

This guide covers essential optimizations for game servers running on Nellyx infrastructure.

Hardware Selection

CPU: Clock Speed vs Cores

For most game servers, clock speed matters more than core count.

Game Type	Recommended
Minecraft	3.5GHz+ (any cores)
Valheim	3.0GHz+ minimum
Rust	4.0GHz+ recommended
Counter-Strike	4.5GHz+ optimal

RAM: Allocation Guidelines

Running out of RAM causes catastrophic lag. Here’s what we recommend:

Minecraft (Paper):     6GB  + players  / slot
Minecraft (Vanilla):  4GB  + players  / slot
Valheim:               4GB  + players  / slot
Rust:                  8GB  + players  / slot
Ark Survival:         12GB  + players  / slot

Storage: NVMe is Non-Negotiable

HDD storage will bottleneck your server. Always use NVMe:

• NVMe Gen4: Up to 7,000 MB/s read
• SATA SSD: ~550 MB/s read
• HDD: ~100 MB/s read

Nellyx servers include NVMe storage by default.

Server Configuration

Tick Rate Optimization

Tick rate determines how often the server updates. Higher isn’t always better:

# View current tick rate (Minecraft)
/tps

# Recommended tick rates:
- Casual survival: 20 tps
- Technical/Factions: 18-20 tps
- Minigames: 20 tps

JVM Arguments (Minecraft)

Optimize your JVM startup flags:

# Recommended flags for Paper/Spigot
-XX:+UseG1GC -XX:+ParallelRefQueueEnabled -XX:MaxGCPauseMillis=200 -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions -XX:G1NewSizePercent=20 -XX:G1MaxNewSizePercent=60 -XX:G1HeapRegionSize=16M -XX:G1ReservePercent=15 -XX:InitiatingHeapOccupancyPercent=20 -XX:G1HeapWastePercent=5

View Distance

Finding the sweet spot between view and performance:

# Recommended view distances
Survival:    8-10 chunks
Skyblock:    5-7 chunks
Minigames:   4-6 chunks

Network Optimization

Upload Speed

Game servers are upload-heavy. Always have more upload than download:

Players	Minimum Upload
10	50 Mbps
25	100 Mbps
50	200 Mbps
100	500 Mbps

Nellyx offers 10Gbps uplinks on all servers.

Latency Reduction

Reduce latency with these tips:

1. Use closest region — Deploy to the region nearest to your players
2. Choose the best available location — Place the server where it gives your main player base the lowest practical latency
3. Enable QoS — Quality of Service prioritizes game traffic
4. Disable NAT — Direct IP access reduces hop count

Monitoring & Maintenance

Essential Metrics

Track these metrics daily:

• TPS (Ticks per second) — Should be 20.0
• MSPT (Milliseconds per tick) — Should be under 50ms
• Memory usage — Keep below 80%
• CPU usage — Keep below 70%

Automated Restarts

Schedule daily restarts to clear memory leaks:

# Restart script example (crontab)
0 4 * * * systemctl restart minecraft

Summary

Performance optimization is an ongoing process. Start with:

1. ✓ NVMe storage (non-negotiable)
2. ✓ Adequate RAM allocation
3. ✓ Optimized JVM flags
4. ✓ Proper view distance
5. ✓ sensible location planning

Need help? Open a ticket or reach out on Discord and we can help you review your setup.

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Running smooth? Deploy your server at nellyx.xyz