TPS (ticks per second) shows whether your server itself is keeping up. 20 is perfect. If TPS is around 20 while you feel lag, the cause is almost always your own connection or computer, not the server. If TPS drops, the Lag timeline on your server's Metrics page shows when it dropped and what was happening at the time.
TPS and MSPT in plain words
- TPS: how many times per second the world updates. The game wants 20. Below that, mobs, machines and blocks slow down for everyone.
- MSPT (milliseconds per tick): how long the server takes to work out one update. It has a 50 ms budget, because 20 updates a second leaves 50 ms for each. Well under 50 ms means plenty of headroom. Over 50 ms, TPS falls below 20.
Both appear on the Cockpit page in the Server health card, and as tiles across the top of the Metrics page. Every number has a circled "i" that explains it.
TPS is measured inside the running Java server. Bedrock servers don't report TPS, and the panel says so instead of showing a number.
Read the lag timeline
- Open your server and choose Metrics in the Overview group.
- Scroll to Lag timeline and pick a range: 1H, 6H, 24H or 48H.
- The top chart is TPS, with a dashed line at 20. The bottom chart is MSPT, with a dashed line at 50 ms.
- Move your pointer across the chart to read TPS, MSPT and players online at that moment, plus any event nearby.
Marked on the chart:
- Backup: shaded across the time the backup ran.
- Start / stop: the server starting, stopping or crashing, and start, stop, restart or kill requests.
- Scheduled task: a schedule's most recent run, and each time someone pressed Run now.
- Health alert: Low TPS, High CPU, Memory pressure or Crash loop.
- Players: joins and leaves, as grey ticks under the chart.
The buttons under the chart turn each kind on or off. Below them is a list of every event in the range, and a data table with each reading.
The panel records a reading about once a minute while the server runs, and the card says how long readings are kept (48 hours at the moment). If you see "No tick-rate history in this range yet", the server wasn't running in that range or has only just started. Subusers see only the events their permissions allow, and the card says which kinds are hidden.
The TPS · Server Health chart higher up the page is a live view for your current browser session only. The lag timeline is the recorded history.
What to do about lag
- TPS around 20 but players feel lag: the server is fine. Check the player's own internet connection, Wi-Fi, and computer performance.
- TPS drops during a marked event: if it lines up with a backup or a scheduled task, move that schedule to a quieter time. See Schedule automatic restarts, backups and commands.
- High entity count: lots of mobs, dropped items or projectiles packed into one spot is the most common cause of in-game lag. Clear the area, and limit large mob farms.
- Many forced chunks: chunk loaders keep parts of the world working with nobody nearby. Trim them if the count is high.
- Players spread far apart: each player loads the world around them. Lowering View distance and Simulation distance in Server Properties reduces the work per tick.
- CPU close to your plan's ceiling for long stretches, or memory sitting at the limit: the server needs more resources than its plan gives. See Memory, Estimated RAM and running out of memory and Upgrade or downgrade your plan or storage.
- One mod or plugin is to blame: a profiler such as spark, which you can install like any other mod or plugin, shows which mod or plugin uses the most tick time.
The Health page in the Overview group keeps a history of Low TPS, High CPU, Memory pressure and Crash loop alerts, if you want to see how often it happens.
If you open a ticket about lag, include the time it happened, what TPS and MSPT showed, and any event marked on the timeline at that moment.