View distance controls how far players can see, simulation distance controls how far the world actually stays active and ticking, and both directly affect your server's TPS because each step outward adds more chunks for the server to process.
What each setting does
- View distance: how many chunks (16-block-wide squares of the world) the server sends to each player. Higher means players see farther, but the server has to load and stream more terrain to everyone.
- Simulation distance: how far out the world stays "alive". Inside this range mobs move, crops grow, redstone runs, and physics happen. Outside it, chunks are loaded but frozen.
The key point is that simulation distance is usually the more expensive of the two, because an active chunk costs far more than a merely visible one.
Why they hit TPS
TPS (ticks per second) is how many times per second your server updates the world. A healthy server runs at 20 TPS. Every active chunk adds work to each tick, and because the active area grows roughly with the square of the distance, going from 8 to 10 is a much bigger jump than it looks. If your server cannot finish a tick in time, TPS drops and the whole world feels sluggish.
Sensible starting values
There is no single correct number, but these ranges work well for most community servers:
- Busy or modded servers: view distance around 6 to 8, simulation distance around 4 to 6.
- Small friends-and-family servers with RAM to spare: you can push view distance higher for the scenery.
- If TPS is already struggling: bring simulation distance down first, since it does the most work.
How to change them
- Open the Files tab and edit server.properties (or use the Startup tab if these are exposed as variables there).
- Set view-distance and simulation-distance to your chosen numbers.
- Save the file.
- Restart the server from the Console tab so the new values load.
A useful multiplayer trick
You can set a lower simulation distance and a slightly higher view distance. Players still see a big, open landscape, but the server only has to actively simulate the area close to them. This keeps the world looking large while cutting the tick cost dramatically.
Test the change
After a restart, check your TPS with /tps on Paper or Spigot, or watch the Console for tick warnings. If TPS climbs back toward 20 and MSPT falls, your distance settings were part of the problem. If nothing improves, the bottleneck is somewhere else, such as RAM, entities, or a heavy plugin.
Before you experiment, it is worth taking a snapshot on the Backups tab so you can restore your config instantly if a value causes trouble.
Still stuck? Jump into our Discord at discord.gg/GuavaHost and the team will help you out.