View Distance and Simulation Distance Guide

Balancing graphical visibility and processor load is the single most impactful optimization you can make on a Minecraft server. Understanding the difference between View Distance and Simulation Distance allows you to run high-render worlds smoothly on 4GB RAM hardware.

1. View Distance vs Simulation Distance

Since Minecraft 1.18, Mojang separated chunk loading into two distinct settings:

• View Distance (view-distance): Determines how far players can visually see terrain. Chunks outside the simulation distance are sent to the client as static background terrain. Mobs, redstone, and entities in these chunks do not tick and consume zero CPU power.
• Simulation Distance (simulation-distance): Determines the radius around each player where the game actively computes game physics, mob AI, crop growth, redstone circuits, and entity collisions.

Player (Center)
  ├── 0 to 4 chunks: Full physics, mob AI, crop ticking (Simulation Radius)
  └── 4 to 8 chunks: Static visuals sent to client (No CPU load on server)

2. Impact on Server RAM and CPU Load

The number of active chunks loaded per player scales quadratically with distance:

$$\text{Total Chunks} = (2 \times \text{Radius} + 1)^2$$

• At a simulation distance of 10: Each player forces $(21)^2 = 441$ actively ticking chunks. With 10 players online, that is over 4,400 ticking chunks, easily causing TPS to collapse on any 4-core machine.
• At a simulation distance of 4: Each player only loads $(9)^2 = 81$ ticking chunks—an 82% reduction in CPU and RAM load without players noticing any change in gameplay.

3. Recommended Settings for Free 4GB Servers

For optimal 20.0 TPS performance on FreeMcHosting nodes:

In server.properties

view-distance=7
simulation-distance=4

In spigot.yml

world-settings:
  default:
    view-distance: default
    simulation-distance: default
    entity-tracking-range:
      players: 48
      animals: 32
      monsters: 32
      misc: 16
      other: 32

In paper-world-defaults.yml

chunks:
  auto-save-interval: 6000
  max-auto-save-chunks-per-tick: 12
  delay-chunk-unloads-by: 10s
entities:
  spawning:
    despawn-ranges:
      monster:
        soft: 28
        hard: 96

4. Key Takeaways

• Keep simulation-distance at 4 or 5 on survival servers. This preserves mob spawner rates and farm mechanics while protecting server TPS.
• Keep view-distance between 6 and 8. If players want even higher render distances, recommend client-side chunk caching mods such as Bobby or Distant Horizons.