Multiplayer Server Lag Under Stress

Tags: performance, lag, troubleshooting, hosting

Heavy hordes or busy towns can overwhelm a server even when hardware looks fine. Reduce the load step by step until the hitches disappear.

Tune the game load

• Lower MaxSpawnedZombies and MaxSpawnedAnimals gradually until horde nights run smoothly.
• Reduce view distance and texture streaming on clients to cut chunk requests.
• Avoid simultaneous large POI clears; stagger big fights if possible.

World and save health

• Keep worlds below ~10–12 GB; archive old regions if players have moved far away.
• Run repairchunkdensity periodically to clean mismatched chunk data.
• Remove broken prefabs introduced by outdated mod packs.

Monitor in real time

• Watch the server console during spikes: chunk timeout messages often point to I/O stalls.
• Track single-core CPU usage; if one core pins, the main game thread is saturated.

Infrastructure checks

• SSDs are mandatory; HDDs cause visible stutter when many chunks load.
• On VMs, ensure you have dedicated CPU shares and aren’t contending with noisy neighbors.

Iterate and document

Change one parameter per test session and note the result. Once stable, lock the config and avoid mid-season toggles that invalidate saved regions.