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I'm a happy Minecraft player. I place my blocks, mine my coal, and generally nobody gets hurt. Lately though, those mean creepers have been sneaking up on me from behind, and killing me. Why? Because my framerate is so darn low.

Adjusting the graphics option (Fancy to Fast) and the render distance help, but they are not enough. I have seen mention of outside optimizations and programs that people have made/used. What hacks, tricks, and mean mods can I use to improve my Minecraft FPS?

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  • 8
    Have you tried pressing "F" a few times to lower your depth of view? Shorter depths should lead to higher frame rates.
    – Dave McClelland
    Commented Jan 18, 2011 at 17:40
  • 3
    I thought the whole point of Minecraft was to see "a bunch of blocks"? ;)
    – Wikwocket
    Commented Jan 18, 2011 at 20:00
  • @Dave he mentioned render distance in the question so he definitely tried it.
    – Sadly Not
    Commented Jan 18, 2011 at 22:51
  • @thethinman That was an update to the question, which I should have made clear.
    – Connor Albright
    Commented Jan 18, 2011 at 23:12
  • 3
    generally nobody gets hurt Really? Even playing on peaceful, I fall off cliffs and into lava all the time!
    – fredley
    Commented Nov 4, 2011 at 23:37

13 Answers 13

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+50

There are a number of mods that claim to improve FPS in Minecraft. My experience is limited to OptiFine (an updated version of Optimine from around version 1.2) on 1.8.1, but I do see a very significant improvement in my FPS. Although it's a bit non-specific, I have seen my FPS on a Mac go from completely unplayable to very smooth.

OptiFine (Minecraft Forum Link) reworks a number of rendering details to improve Minecraft performance (+20fps). Many people go crazy about it on the forum, others say that it just doesn't work so your mileage may vary. Last I heard, Notch was actually including some of these optimizations into Minecraft proper.

Keep in mind that any Minecraft mod that's not a skin requires you to patch the Minecraft code itself and thus it may not be compatible with other mods or your Minecraft version.

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  • Just installed the updated (1.8) OptiFine, and after modifying some of the settings, I did actually get approximately a 20 FPS increase. :D
    – user13698
    Commented Nov 3, 2011 at 23:58
  • Also, Google FPS++ for another compatible mod. Haven't formally tested it, but it can't hurt.
    – ameed
    Commented Apr 21, 2013 at 22:55
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Within the options menu (Esc -> Options), set Graphics to Fast and set Render Distance to Tiny.

Close any programs you can spare to lose (ie internet browser, messenger, music).

If you're really desperate, you can open your task manager (Ctrl + Alt + Delete -> Start Task Manager) and select the "Processes" tab. Order by "Memory" and have a look at what's taking up so much processing power on your computer (Minecraft will be listed as javaw.exe). Use the End Process button to stop a selected process.

Do not end any processes that you don't know what they are. Have a look at the "Description" tab, and if you know what the process does, and you know you don't need it, then end it.

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  • 19
    You can always skip the extra step and go straight to the task manager by hitting (Ctrl + Shift + Esc)
    – AndyPerfect
    Commented Jan 23, 2011 at 14:10
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    On (most) Windows XP computers CTRL-ALT-DLT does it in one step.
    – Joe the Person
    Commented Oct 15, 2011 at 15:03
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Of course you can change your render distance and the graphics quality, but for many, like it seems for you, the speed still is not high enough.

Now, I'm assuming that you do not have a great graphics card. For some graphics cards, like Intel HD, you will not have a chance of speeding it up without modifying the game. Optimine is common in that case. Link

If by chance you have an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator, there is another opportunity for you. GMABooster is a nice program which can boost your graphics speed quite a bit. Link

If graphics isn't your problem, and you have a slow processor/low RAM, you could try the following:

  • Do not multitask. Only have Minecraft open, and don't run it in your browser. Close all programs that you don't need, even those that are behind the scenes.
  • If you don't mind the lack of monsters at some times, turning the game on peaceful will reduce some load on your CPU, but of course, it takes away monsters, and that's boring!
  • Change Minecraft's processing priority. A good tutorial to do that is here: Link

So that's all I can suggest. If all else fails, you might have to upgrade your computer. You can get plenty of cheap, new choices at Amazon.com.

(Plus, you could try all of those at once! The processing priority change works the best for me. I have Intel HD, and I can run Minecraft pretty smoothly.)

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  • One thing I've noticed with changing the priority in Win 7 is that realtime causes sound stuttering. High however doesn't. In linux I've had no issues with changing the priority at all, but I've never set it lower than -10. (In linux the lower the number is the more priority it has.)
    – Fambida
    Commented Jul 28, 2011 at 21:39
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Without knowing your PC specs it is hard to tell. But still here are some ways:

Optifine: Available here.

Optifine is a tool which lets you set your graphics as per your fps requirements.

My Rating: 10/10

Gamebooster: Available here.

Gamebooster is a third party program which will optimize your computer for gaming for a limited period of time until you turn it back to Normal mode, it stops all background programs which are not needed to run the game, while keeping your Computer drivers and system32 files running to keep your computer stable which will give the game more CPU to run which will result in a faster game, it's a free download and its a small file size and is very user friendly.

My Rating: 7/10

Some Tips To Keep Your PC in Shape

  • Always scan your PC once a week so that there aren't any threats causing your computer to slow down.

  • Clean the temporary files:

To do this:

  1. Press Windows+R on your keyboard in order to start "Run".
  2. Type %temp%.
  3. Delete all the files there.

Don't worry, they're temporary files which take your storage up.

  • Update your PC more quickly.

When your OS receives an update it's only for your security, So update as frequently as possible.

Optional Ways

  • FPS++ Or another (+).

I don't know much about it but here give it a go : Fps++(+)

  • Defrag

Search it up on google.

  • Do not play Minecraft On Fullscreen.

Update Your Drivers

  • In order to do that, you may look up on your driver provider's website: Intel, Nvidia
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On windows 7, I set minecraft to run in Compatibility Mode as Windows 2000. The improvement was remarkable!

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  • 2
    I wonder why that helps.
    – Connor Albright
    Commented Feb 9, 2011 at 14:07
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McRegion v5 mod optimizes how chunks are stored on the disk, meaning pauses to load or save a chunk as you move around a world become much shorter and less noticeable.

Your beta copy of minecraft already includes the FastRender mod; which has been improved to Optimine.

As with all mods, they break when minecraft version increments.

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Even though this question has already been answered I think people here left out defragging the folder of MineCraft(don't use on SDD drives), and I think McRegion does that too but programs like Defraggler can do it better. Defragging the folder will put the files closer to each other, so loading things will be a lot faster.

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Since the first 1.13 snapshot you can set your fullscreen resolution. And of course you can resize your window to be very small. Both help enourmously, the smaller the window (or the lower the fullscreen resolution), the faster is the game.

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0

You can change your draw distance in the options.

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  • 1
    Render speed isn't in there anymore.
    – John the Green
    Commented Jan 10, 2012 at 1:31
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To reduce lag on the client side, you should set render distance to Normal (or shorter if you have an older computer), set graphics to fast, disable clouds, turn off smooth lighting, set performance to balanced, turn off particles, and, if you have a newer computer, turn ON Advanced OpenGL. If you still have lag, you can grab OptiFine (use the light version if you just want an FPS increase, otherwise go ultra) and add it to your game, which should massively increase your FPS.

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This is what I know of Minecraft and its performance:

  1. Minecraft is a CPU intensive game (duh, look at those graphics) because it runs using Java which is a CPU hog. So upgrading the CPU to have more cores or a faster clock rate would help a lot

  2. But the graphics card does matter to a point, having a dedicated chip for graphics processing should increase FPS

  3. Minecraft has the ability to use a LOT of RAM, when a chunk gets loaded into memory, it never gets removed, until you restart the game. Having a decent pool of ram and at a decent speed should help, but not as much as the first two

How to achieve those FPS GAINZ:

  1. Lower graphics settings, like render distance etc.
  2. Overclock your CPU, (though not possible for your computer)

If you are hosting PvP on your computer your going to experience more of a performance drop, because your computer has to process everything. Which can also lead to an FPS drop.

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  • Could you explain how CPU intensity is related to frame drops? As far as I know, update cycles and frame cycles are separated. This means that a decrease in update cycles shouldn't result in a decrease of frames. I could be wrong though ofcourse...
    – D-Inventor
    Commented Oct 24, 2017 at 15:15
  • @D-Inventor I'm just a little confused with what you are asking, but I'll try to answer. So In a CPU intensive game (meaning your CPU is relied on to do all of the graphics rendering and calculations), having a higher clock rate on your CPU means that it can do the calculations faster. If your CPU gets an influx of stuff to do, the performance will decrease, and the performance of all processes will decrease until it can catch up
    – SPYBUG96
    Commented Oct 24, 2017 at 15:49
  • "when a chunk gets loaded into memory, it never gets removed" - are you sure Minecraft has a memory leak this severe? I've never run into this issue
    – phflack
    Commented Oct 24, 2017 at 17:32
  • @SPYBUG96 "meaning your CPU is relied on to do all of the graphics rendering and calculations" - this is certainly not true for Minecraft, it does use a GPU for rendering, otherwise swapping GPUs would not make a difference (when it definitely does)
    – phflack
    Commented Oct 24, 2017 at 17:33
  • @phflack Sorry, that answer should be taken in the context of the person who asked the question in the comments. I used a different example to explain a point that doesn't relate to minecraft to better explain the point
    – SPYBUG96
    Commented Oct 24, 2017 at 18:25
-1

Use FasterCraft; go here and download the version appropriate for your version of Minecraft.

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  • 2
    It's now out of date.
    – Connor Albright
    Commented Oct 4, 2012 at 18:13
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Go to your .minecraft folder and search for the options file. Open it and search for:

fpsLimit:0

It will be set at 0 (most likely) so change that 0 to 60 and the fps shouldn't (based on your computer) go below 60 fps

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  • 9
    I thought fps limits were generally maximums, not minimums. Is this not the case for Minecraft? Does minecraft dynamically reduce your graphics settings in an attempt to hit this limit?
    – PeterL
    Commented Oct 4, 2012 at 14:48
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    Your computer cannot magically perform better simply because you tell it to. This answer is nonsense.
    – Matthew Read
    Commented Mar 30, 2013 at 21:21
  • 1
    Just because something is set to 0 doesn't mean it's a minimum. 0 is used a lot for meaning "no maximum." Besides, you can't just pull better performance out of a hat; you need a good computer or settings.
    – ameed
    Commented Apr 21, 2013 at 22:54
  • This might actually work if you are using something like a laptop or other thermally limited hardware, especially when the GPU is in the CPU package. If the frame rate is sky high and it makes the GPU run hot it could result in the CPU/GPU throttling and severely hurting performance. Limiting it to 60 could reduce GPU power use/heat and greatly improve overall performance, so this answer is not "nonsense" at all.
    – doug65536
    Commented Jul 20, 2017 at 21:09

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