Tutorials/Improving frame rate

Frame rate (also known as FPS) is the frequency rate at which a video device produces unique consecutive images called frames. Frames are still pictures that when sequence together form a fluid animation that is the basis for all moving media. Frame rate is most often expressed in frames per second (fps).

Low FPS will result in a "choppy" gaming experience, as far as looking like a slideshow in extreme cases. Difficult calculations (like blowing up large amounts of TNT or spawning in a large number of mobs) can temporarily decrease the FPS to a complete stop.

Monitoring frame rate
Note that your displayed fps might not be accurate, as the game has to render all of the information in the debug menu, so you may get an increase as soon as you close the display.


 * Press to bring up the Debug screen. The frame rate is shown under the Minecraft version at the top left. (Note: The debug screen is known to cause more load to your system, resulting in lower fps than you would normally achieve.

Increasing frame rate
Most of the following suggestions are configurable in the game's Options menu, accessible by pressing.


 * Turn down your render distance.
 * Set Maximum FPS to Unlimited.
 * Set graphics from Fancy to Fast.
 * Turn off smooth lighting and clouds.
 * Reduce your FOV.
 * Set particles to minimal.
 * Turn off vsync
 * Disable mipmaps. (Warning: this can result in water/lava drips not being visible and taking a lava bath.)
 * Disable biome smoothing.
 * Set the game to small screen mode, as this makes the game load less on screen, making the game run a little bit faster. However, for computers which have a better graphics card, change your settings, so Minecraft is in full screen mode, this makes the GPU focus more on Minecraft and less on other programs. Test both ideas and see which setting works best!
 * Close any programs in the background, including any internet browsers. Or at the very least minimize them.
 * If in multiplayer, move away from areas densely populated by players.
 * Install OptiFine or Sodium to adjust settings to better suit your computers architecture. Note that Sodium only supports Minecraft 1.16+ with Fabric and can't be installed together with OptiFine, but provides significantly higher performance on most PCs. Either mod can be paired with Phosphor and Lithium to speed up lighting updates and general game systems respectively.
 * If your computer is hot or your fan is loud, avoid running mods other than OptiFine and don't do anything that causes your computer to run a lot of calculations. This means close any browsers or other games.

Outside of Minecraft

 * On Windows, open Task Manager and go to the details section, find  (the one the game uses), right click it and set its priority to high (not realtime, as realtime will try to allocate all of the PC's resources (RAM/CPU/GPU) to the game, but not leaving enough for Windows to function, causing it to freeze or even blue-screen).
 * Make sure you have enough RAM available (in a program such as a task manager), else your computer may swap to disk, which could cause the game to stutter intermittently.
 * On laptops and most pre-built desktops, uninstall bloatware.
 * Do frequent malware scans with an antivirus program, to ensure no malicious programs are consuming computer resources.
 * Do not run other CPU- or GPU-intensive programs while the game is open.
 * On Windows Vista through Windows 7, disable graphical effects such as Windows Aero and taskbar transparency.
 * Disable compositing (sometimes called "desktop effects") on GNU/Linux. When compositing is disabled, all window managers tend to give similar performance, so there is no need to use a "lightweight" one.
 * Update your graphics card drivers. You can find these on your GPU manufacturer's website.
 * Disable anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering in your GPU driver settings.
 * Ensure the computer is running at a cool enough temperature so as to not cause thermal throttling. This is especially effective for laptops and older desktops.
 * Reduce the display resolution. (Play Minecraft in windowed mode and make it about half the size of your screen.)
 * You may be able to switch your operating system to a Linux distribution, depending on what you use your computer for. Linux distributions are generally easier on the computer's resources compared to Windows. However, it is important to research hardware/software compatibility (for example, Nvidia graphics cards) before switching operating systems.
 * If you are playing on a desktop computer, look into upgrading your graphics card, which can help the game render objects faster.
 * Try using Minecraft for Windows 10 instead of Minecraft Java if you are not using a Java-exclusive feature. Minecraft Bedrock generally has smoother performance than Java.

JVM optimizations

 * Tune the JVM arguments in the Minecraft Launcher to maximize performance.
 * Leave a world full of lag machines on for a long time for the JIT compiler to warm up before switching to another world.
 * Use the latest OpenJDK to play Minecraft
 * Use an ahead-of-time compiled version of Minecraft
 * Allocate less RAM to Minecraft. Minecraft runs perfectly fine with just 512MB-1024MB of RAM. This will not increase your Minecraft FPS directly but might improve system responsiveness while playing Minecraft. Allocating less RAM often allows computers with a low amount of RAM to have a web-browser and Minecraft open at the same time.

Stuttering on Mac

 * Minecraft 1.16.4 - Java Edition - Macbook Pro Mid 2012 - macOS Mojave. Stuttering observed in multiplayer, singleplayer, and even the title screen. Tried all of the increasing framerate suggestions above without it helping.
 * Try testing your performance while toggling the VSYNC option. In a creative world. VSYNC "OFF" - observed stuttering and around 30FPS.  VSYNC "ON" - observed smoother gameplay and around 60FPS.  Tested in multiplayer with similar results, immediate improvement seen.
 * The other option when VSYNC is "OFF" to stop the stuttering is to set the maximum FPS down to 30, matching the FPS seen when when having VSYNC "OFF", rather than FPS being set to "unlimited" as suggested above.