The key to building TPS-friendly Minecraft farms is controlling entity counts, minimizing hopper usage, using efficient redstone, and killing or collecting items before they pile up. Most server lag from farms isn't caused by the farm concept itself, it's caused by hundreds of entities sitting in a 2x2 area while 64 hoppers tick every game tick.
Farms are the backbone of any survival or SMP server. Players need them for resources, XP, and progression. But a single poorly designed farm can tank an entire server's TPS from 20 down to 12. The good news is that almost every farm can be built or retrofitted to run efficiently without gutting its output. This guide covers how.
Why Farms Kill TPS
Before optimizing anything, it helps to understand what the server actually processes each tick. Every single game tick (50ms budget), the server has to:
- Tick every loaded entity: every mob, dropped item, XP orb, arrow, and minecart in loaded chunks runs AI, pathfinding, collision checks, and physics
- Process every hopper: each hopper checks for items above it and in its inventory every tick, even when empty
- Calculate redstone updates: every powered component propagates updates to its neighbors
- Run mob spawning: the server attempts to spawn mobs in eligible chunks every tick
A single mob farm can easily produce 200+ entities (mobs waiting to die, dropped items on the ground, XP orbs floating around). A storage system with 100 hoppers runs 100 inventory checks per tick. A sorting system with redstone comparators fires updates constantly. Stack all of that together and the server's CPU runs out of headroom.
Entity Management
Entities are the biggest TPS drain from farms. The goal is simple: minimize the number of entities that exist at any given time.
Kill Mobs Quickly
The longer mobs stay alive in a farm, the more ticks they consume. Designs that funnel mobs into a killing chamber and eliminate them immediately are far more efficient than ones where mobs accumulate.
- Use fall damage to kill mobs instantly instead of letting them pile up at half health
- Magma blocks and campfires deal passive damage without entity-heavy mechanisms
- Avoid designs that accumulate mobs in a holding chamber for manual killing unless players are actively there
- Entity cramming (24+ mobs in one block) kills excess mobs automatically, but the cramming itself causes collision calculations that eat TPS
Collect Items Immediately
Dropped items are entities. Every piece of rotten flesh, bone, and arrow sitting on the ground is being ticked by the server. The faster items are collected or destroyed, the better.
- Water streams into hoppers collect items as they drop
- Hopper minecarts pick up items through blocks and can cover larger areas than static hoppers
- Kill chambers over hoppers ensure items are collected the same tick they drop
- If items aren't valuable, let them despawn quickly by not collecting them at all. Paper's alt-item-despawn-rate setting can despawn junk items in 15 seconds instead of 5 minutes
Limit XP Orbs
XP orbs are entities too, and farms that produce XP constantly (mob grinders, furnace arrays) can flood an area with hundreds of orbs. Paper merges nearby XP orbs automatically, but you can help by designing farms so orbs are collected quickly or don't generate at all when nobody is farming.
Hopper Optimization
Hoppers are one of the most expensive blocks in Minecraft. Each hopper runs an inventory check every game tick (20 times per second), scanning for items above it and attempting transfers. A storage room with 200 hoppers costs real TPS even when completely idle.
Reduce Hopper Count
- Use water streams to funnel items to a single hopper instead of covering a floor with hoppers
- Hopper minecarts can replace entire hopper floors since one minecart does the work of dozens of hoppers
- Chest-to-hopper ratio matters. You don't need a hopper under every chest. Route items with water to a few collection points
Lock Idle Hoppers
A hopper powered by redstone (a redstone signal pointing into it) stops ticking entirely. If a hopper only needs to run when items are present:
- Place a comparator reading the input container
- Power the hopper line with redstone when idle
- Unpower it only when items are detected
This is more complex to build but can eliminate thousands of unnecessary hopper ticks per second in large storage systems.
Use Alternatives Where Possible
- Droppers with redstone clocks are cheaper than hoppers for moving items on a timer
- Allays collect specific items and deliver them to noteblocks without any tile entity cost
- Water streams move items with zero tile entity overhead
Redstone Efficiency
Redstone updates propagate to neighboring blocks, and complex circuits fire these updates constantly. On vanilla servers, redstone is one of the most expensive calculations per tick. If your server runs Paper, switching to ALTERNATE_CURRENT in the Paper settings reduces redstone tick cost by up to 90%.
Beyond server config, farm design matters:
- Avoid observer chains that fire continuously. A loop of observers ticking every game tick generates constant redstone updates even when nothing is happening
- Use comparator-based item detection instead of hopper clocks where possible, since comparators only fire when inventory changes
- Minimize circuit length. Every redstone dust block in a line adds propagation calculations. Shorter circuits are cheaper
- Turn off farms when not in use. A simple lever that disables the clock or spawning mechanism saves all of its redstone cost when nobody is farming
Chunk Loading and Farms
Farms only run when their chunks are loaded. This is actually a built-in performance safeguard, but players often try to work around it in ways that create problems.
Spawn Chunks
The spawn chunks are always loaded, making them attractive for farms. But every entity and tile entity in those chunks runs permanently. A lag-heavy farm in spawn chunks damages TPS 24/7, even when nobody is online. Keep spawn chunks clean.
Chunk Loaders
Some servers allow chunk loaders (via plugins or mods) that keep remote chunks active. Every loaded chunk with a farm in it adds permanent TPS cost. If your server uses chunk loaders:
- Limit the number of chunks each player can keep loaded
- Require farms in loaded chunks to be optimized
- Consider unloading chunks during low-activity hours
For more on how chunk loading affects performance, see our chunk loading lag guide.
Server Settings That Help
Several Paper settings directly reduce the TPS impact of farms:
| Setting | Value | Effect |
|---|---|---|
per-player-mob-spawns | true | Prevents one farm from eating the entire mob cap |
max-entity-collisions | 2 | Reduces collision calculations in mob-dense areas |
alt-item-despawn-rate | Enabled | Despawns junk items in 15 seconds |
despawn-ranges.hard | 72 | Despawns mobs further than 72 blocks |
redstone-implementation | ALTERNATE_CURRENT | Slashes redstone processing cost |
entity-per-chunk-save-limit | Capped | Prevents entity bloat in saved chunks |
tick-rates.behavior.villager | 60 | Reduces villager AI cost in trading halls |
For view and simulation distance tuning, lower simulation distance means fewer chunks are ticked, which directly limits how many farms run simultaneously.
Performance monitoring plugins like Spark can show you exactly which farms and entities are consuming the most tick time. See our performance plugins guide for setup recommendations.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Do farms cause server lag?
Poorly designed farms are the single most common cause of TPS loss on SMP servers. The lag comes from accumulated entities, excessive hoppers, and constant redstone updates. Well-designed farms can run with minimal TPS impact.
How many entities is too many?
There's no hard limit, but servers typically start showing TPS loss around 500-800 total loaded entities. A single farm shouldn't contribute more than 50-100 entities at any time. Use Spark or a similar profiler to check your entity counts.
Should I ban farms on my server?
No. Farms are a core part of Minecraft gameplay. Instead, set guidelines for farm design (entity limits, hopper caps), use Paper's performance settings, and educate players on efficient building practices. The settings in this guide make most farms manageable.
Are hopper minecarts better than hoppers?
For collection, yes. One hopper minecart moving across a surface replaces dozens of static hoppers and doesn't run per-tick inventory checks when stationary. For item transfer between containers, regular hoppers in short chains are fine.
Does simulation distance affect farms?
Yes. Farms only tick when they're within a player's simulation distance. Lowering simulation distance means farms further from players stop running, which reduces TPS load but also reduces farm output when players aren't nearby.
What's the best way to monitor farm performance?
Install Spark (a server profiling plugin) and run /spark tps to check your current TPS. Use /spark profiler to see exactly which entities, tile entities, and chunks are consuming the most processing time. This tells you which farms need optimization.
