How To Change the Tick Speed in Minecraft

INTRODUCTION TO HOW TO CHANGE TICK SPEED IN MINECRAFT

In Minecraft, players take many actions to survive the unique worlds and biomes. From breaking blocks to harvesting crops, using redstone and even mob AI, there is a lot to be done. When it comes to performing those actions, if issues arise such as lag or slow performance, it can cause frustration in players. One of the most common issues of Minecraft lag can involve your world or server’s game tick.

Ticks in Minecraft are one cycle of the game’s loop where many different actions can occur after a set amount of ticks. These actions include plant growth, weather activation, time updates, mob spawns, and more. When ticks process too quickly or perform too many actions, that Minecraft world or server can begin to experience lag. Understanding Minecraft ticks, how they work, how tick speed works, and how to change tick speed will not only help with fixing lag but can also optimize your server for better performance. Start improving the experience for you and your friends today by reading below for how to change tick speed in Minecraft for your Minecraft game server!

TYPES OF TICKS IN MINECRAFT AND WHAT THEY DO

GAME TICKS

A tick in Minecraft is also known as a game tick. Game ticks are the most common ticks that occur in Minecraft, running at a rate of one tick every 0.05 seconds or 20 ticks per second. During a game tick, a variety of actions occur:

• Player entities, their location, and their client packets are processed.
• Every 6000 ticks, the game will attempt to autosave.
• Functions with the “tick” or “load” tags will execute.
• All world dimensions tick in order of the overworld, the nether, and the End. In each world dimension, the following tick events happen:
  • Any updates to the world border will occur.
  • The current time sends to the player’s game client.
  • The game will determine if players can sleep or not.
  • Weather logic will occur, potentially changing the weather.
  • In the overworld dimension:
    • Any scheduled functions execute.
    • Game-time and day-time increases.
  • For loaded chunks in a world:
    • When each chunk ticks, that information sends to the player clients.
  • Chunks no longer in use will attempt to unload.
  • Entities will attempt to spawn in.
  • Entity changes send to player clients.
  • Scheduled block ticks and fluid ticks process.
  • Raid logic occurs, determining if a raid should summon.
  • Wandering traders will attempt to spawn in the world.
  • Block events and entities will process.

GAME TICK LAG

The ticks per second that you get while playing depends highly on your computer’s performance. On lesser-performance computers, the above actions can occur slower than usual due to fewer ticks being able to process. These actions occurring slower will often affect client-side gameplay, especially in single-player.

Related to game ticks are milliseconds per tick or MSPT, the time an integrated server will take to read a tick. An integrated server is a Minecraft server hosting from the LAN feature. For an integrated server to stay at 20 ticks per second, the milliseconds per tick need to be 50 or less. The milliseconds per tick are displayed by opening the debug screen with the F3 key while on an integrated Minecraft server.

On regular Minecraft game servers, you can open a chart displaying ticks per second by pressing the ALT and F3 keys simultaneously.

When the milliseconds per tick or TPS are low on a server, there are a few possible reasons why this can occur. These are the most common reasons for MSPT or TPS lag and how you can resolve those Minecraft lag issues:

• Hoppers are a common contributor to tick lag as they will constantly attempt to search for items above them. There are two ways to stop the tick checks from occurring with hoppers you’re no longer using. You can cover the unused hoppers with another block or replace the hoppers with a water-based transportation system instead.
• Mobs and entities tend to be another cause of tick lag. Lowering the maximum spawn limit of certain Minecraft mobs and using efficient mob farms can help with this.
• Redstone machines and components can cause significant lag on a server due to the number of redstone and blocks used in these creations. Using smaller redstone contraptions and disabling redstone when it isn’t needed can help with any lag caused by that redstone.

CHUNK TICKS

Chunk ticks occur with every game tick, causing different events to occur in chunks. For a chunk to perform a chunk tick in Minecraft: Java Edition, it will need to be of an entity ticking type and be less than 128 blocks horizontally from a player in that world.

An entity ticking type chunk is a chunk that is within a player’s render distance range set on the game or server. The area of Minecraft chunks that become entity ticking types is determined with the formula (2r-3)^2, where “r” is the render distance set for the game or server. For example, if a player has a render distance of 5 in single-player, an area of 7×7 chunks will remain loaded around that player.

Compared to Java Edition, where Minecraft chunk ticks have specific requirements, in Bedrock Edition, chunks within range of a player will tick without restrictions.

During a chunk tick, the following tick events will occur:

• Mobs will attempt to spawn within the chunk.
• If there is a thunderstorm, there is a 1/100000 chance that lightning may strike.
• There is a 1/16 chance the top of a block in a chunk will perform a weather check:
  • In cold biomes, water has a chance to freeze into ice.
  • When snowing, a snow layer can appear on those blocks in the chunk.
    • Snow can also start filling up Cauldrons with powdered snow.
  • Cauldrons can begin filling up with water if it rains.
• In each chunk, random blocks are ticked based on the gamerule randomTickSpeed’s set tick speed. When you change ticks speed in Minecraft, this adjusts when certain random actions can occur. You can learn more about this gamerule below!

RANDOM TICKS

Random ticks are a part of Minecraft and occur every chunk tick. These random ticks will affect several blocks in that chunk, resulting in many different types of changes. Everything from spreading fire to crops growing and even a turtle egg hatching can occur due to these ticks.

When a random tick occurs on a block in a chunk, the following actions can happen:

• Sweet berry bushes, bamboo, chorus flowers, kelp, sugar cane, and cacti might grow.
• Amethyst that is budding may grow an amethyst bud on any of its sides as long as they’re unobstructed.
• Copper blocks have a chance to oxidize.
• Crops may grow or experience uprooting.
• Any farmland hydration will update based on water conditions.
• Active fires can spread or burn out.
• Grass blocks, mycelium, and nylium can decay under specific conditions.
• Grass blocks and mycelium can spread.
• Layers of ice and snow may melt.
• Lava can potentially set fires nearby.
• Leaves might decay.
• If redstone ore is currently activated and lit, it will deactivate.
• If mud is on pointed dripstone, it has a chance to turn into clay.
• Mushrooms may spread or uproot.
• Nether portal blocks have a chance to spawn in zombified piglins.
• If a cauldron is below pointed dripstone, it can fill with water.
• Planted saplings may grow into a tree.
• Turtle eggs can potentially hatch or crack.
• Any vines have a chance to spread.

SCHEDULED TICKS

A scheduled tick is a tick scheduled for future use, where a specific block or item will need to perform an action later to update. Two types of scheduled ticks occur in Minecraft, scheduled block ticks and fluid ticks.

Block ticks execute based on their priority and scheduling order and are most used with blocks such as redstone repeaters. Fluid ticks are very similar but do not use priorities, instead using a scheduling order to update blocks such as water and lava.

Minecraft limits the number of scheduled ticks that occur during a game tick. In Java Edition, this maximum is set to 65,536 scheduled ticks per game tick. While in Bedrock Edition, the maximum number of scheduled ticks is set per chunk to 100 per game tick.

REDSTONE TICKS

A redstone tick consists of two game ticks, where redstone has a 1/10 of a second delay in the time it takes a redstone circuit to travel from one location to another. Due to this delay, larger redstone circuits and those with redstone repeaters can increase the redstone ticks that occur.

While redstone ticks make sense, technically, they are not real ticks in Minecraft. Instead, redstone ticks are a term created by the Minecraft community to make redstone easier to understand when designing redstone circuits and machines.

HOW TO CHANGE TICK SPEED IN MINECRAFT

In Minecraft, only random ticks allow you to change ticks speed. The number of blocks affected by a random game tick depends on the Minecraft gamerule command “/gamerule randomTickSpeed <value>”. By default, the randomTickSpeed value in Java Edition is 3, and the value in Bedrock Edition is 1.

When changing the randomTickSpeed value, you can increase the number of blocks randomly ticked during a chunk tick. Since these game ticks occur randomly, there is no way to predict when a block in a chunk will receive a random tick. This is how to change tick speed in Minecraft:

1. Head on your game or Minecraft game server.
2. Ensure that you have enabled cheats or have admin access.
3. To change the tick speed, type the command:
   /gamerule randomTickSpeed <value>
4. Replace <value> with the speed to which you’d like to set the randomTickSpeed. When you’re experiencing lag, lowering this value can help. If you increase this beyond the default value, you may begin to experience game and server lag.
   
5. Afterward, send the command. Minecraft’s random tick speed will now be changed!

INCREASING THE RANDOM TICK SPEED TOO HIGH

When changing the random tick speed, it’s important to note that increasing the speed too high can result in issues with your game and Minecraft server. The types of issues you can experience include severe lag and potential crashes. Along with lag and crashes, everything in your Minecraft world will grow at an increased rate which can result in large numbers of unwanted plant growth such as vines.

While you’re increasing the random tick speed, it’s recommended to only adjust the speed in small increments. After a change, test the overall performance of your game or server. To keep your game or server safe, take regular backups before making adjustments to your random tick speed. If you then begin to experience any issues, you can undo those changes or restore your backup.

OPTIMIZE YOUR MINECRAFT SERVER EXPERIENCE

Adjusting the tick speed on Minecraft can offer many benefits to assisting with lag and speeding up certain game events. Whether that’s decreasing the ticks to slow down hoppers or increasing the speed to improve your and your friends’ Minecraft farm production. Now that you know how to change tick speed in Minecraft, how will you use these new powers? Find out by joining your Minecraft game server and change the ticks speed in Minecraft for a new experience with your friends!

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