Why is My Minecraft so Laggy?
Minecraft is one of the most successful games when it comes to sales and active player count. Selling over 200 million copies, Minecraft claims the title "The Best Selling Video Game" of all time. As far as player count is concerned, Minecraft managed to retain up to 126 million active users every month in 2020. It is also one of the top ten most-streamed games.
Minecraft is also popular among speedrunners. Speedrunners are players who try to finish video games in the least time possible. Speedrunners regularly try to break speedrun records of Minecraft and, many succeed in doing so.
All that said we can easily conclude that Minecraft is a popular game and people love to play it and watch other people play it. Despite this popularity, Minecraft did not dodge the lag bullet. After conducting a quick google search, one can easily come across several forums explaining instances of experiencing a lag of some kind.
What Is Lag – Minecraft
Several types of experiences are classified as lag. When your in-game character moves in a jittery motion or seems as if it froze mid-movement for a few milliseconds, both these experiences can be classified as lag. Another type of lag is called rubberbanding. You experience rubberbanding when your in-game character jumps back to the previous location where it was a second ago while trying to move. Rubberbanding usually occurs as frequently as 2 seconds.
As far as the literal definition is concerned, lag is the time delay it takes from your input to the appropriate change occurring on the screen. Suppose you pressed the right mouse button to aim your weapon but you feel a slight delay between pressing the button and the in-game character aiming. This delay can never be eliminated and is always present in imperceptible amounts but, when this becomes very noticeable and a limitation to your performance it becomes lag.
Causes of Lag in Minecraft
Lag is not a fun experience. It is equally frustrating to gamers who play casually, and gamers who play competitively. For Minecraft, it becomes a serious problem for players who make a living by streaming Minecraft. One or two hiccups a month or two can be dealt with but regular occurring lag can make the game unplayable.
Lag can occur from several sources. These sources can be classified into three major categories of lag. These three lag sources are further discussed below:
Network
The most common cause of lag is a network-related issue. If you are experiencing rubberbanding, ping spikes, or constant high ping, then the main issue is somewhere in the chain of network connections from your ISP to your computer.
Software
The game itself may cause you to lag. There are many forums on the internet describing instances where players started facing lag after a new update came for the game. For example, the 1.13 and later versions of Minecraft are known to be very unoptimized. New updates for Windows or GPU drivers can also cause massive lag in the game.
Hardware
Sometimes lag can arise just because your computer does not meet the minimum system requirements to run the game. Jittery gameplay and constantly freezing game is most likely the result of your hardware. Input lag is notorious for causing massive delays in inputs of players and the proper changes happening on the screen. Input lag is the product of low FPS.
To rectify these issues, you should either, check for faulty hardware such as low-health hard drives and, check if your computer hardware meets the minimum system requirements of the game. Here are the minimum system requirements that you need to run Minecraft.
OS: Windows 7 or newer
Processor: Intel Core i3-3210 or AMD A8-7600
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 400 Series or AMD Radeon HD 7000 series with OpenGL 4.4
Network: Broadband Internet Connection
Storage: 1 GB Available Space
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
Keep in mind that these are merely the minimum system requirements and, we recommend that you get hardware that is better than these specs.
Potential Fixes for Minecraft Lag
Disable Unnecessary Applications
If you are running Minecraft on hardware that is just slightly better than the system requirements, then it is highly likely that you are getting FPS that is slightly over 60. To remove unnecessary load from your computer and gain a little boost in FPS, you should disable all applications that you are not using. Discord and TeamSpeak can stay. Lower Graphics. You might need to use the task manager to close some applications but make sure that you don’t touch applications that you don’t know anything about.
Lower Your Graphics Settings
Even if you have decent hardware that can run most games, you still might get into low FPS issues. This may be because your game is set on a higher graphics preset than what your computer can handle. You don't need to max out all your graphics settings to ultra, lowering some graphics settings will cause a slight decrease in graphics quality while massively improving fps.
To fix the FPS drop issue, you can try lowering in-game settings, lowering the resolution scaling factor to 100%, and turning off V-Sync. V-Sync is a screen tearing elimination technology that will most likely induce unnecessary input lag and it is very noticeable, so we recommend keeping it off.
Network Upgrades
If you are facing a network-related lag like a ping spike or rubberbanding, lowering your graphics won't help. You should firstly change from a wireless connection to a wired connection, to connect your computer to the internet router. If you can't get a wired connection, you should get a gaming router and keep it as close to your computer as possible.
We understand that it can be very frustrating to experience lag, and like you, we also love to play Minecraft. There is always a solution to a problem. To fix the lagging issue that you are facing while playing Minecraft you can try all the above-mentioned fixes and you will likely find what works for you.
WTFast –The All in One Lag Solution
Soo many types of lag and so many frustrating experiences, with each type of lag having a different solution. All this seems scary to a gamer who is not skilled in diagnosing technical issues. If you don't want to spend hours and hours trying to find the cause of LAG and require an instant fix, WTFast is perfect for you. WTFast is a gamers' private network (GPN) that reroutes your connection to get the lowest possible ping and eliminate any kind of lag.
