Minecraft Single Player Lag: Cause & How to Fix It

petra pralica game horizonByPetra Pralica Published on
What are the causes and how to fix lag
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Even though Minecraft doesn’t require a beast of a computer to run smoothly, lag can still happen, and it’s perhaps even more annoying when it happens in your single-player world. The recommended amount of RAM to run Minecraft is only 4 GB, but even computers with 16 GB of RAM can experience lag, so what’s the catch? What are the causes of Minecraft single-player lag, and how do you fix it?

There are many reasons why Minecraft might lag in a single-player world, but more often than not, the cause is settings that are set too high for your computer to handle. One of the best things you can do to make Minecraft run more smoothly is to install Optifine. It’s free to download and doesn’t hold any viruses.

If you already have Optifine installed but don’t exactly know what it’s used for, we’ll dive deep into that and other causes of lag and how to fix them if not even Optifine is helping you. Whatever the reason for your lag, you’ll stay clear of it for the time being after reading this article.

Lag Types

We all know the classic Minecraft lags like blocks breaking and reappearing, choppy frames, or when you keep moving back and forward and suddenly freeze in one place, reappear somewhere else in the next second, and then die. All of these types of lags have names so let’s see what they are.

Client Based Lag

Client-based lag is what you most commonly experience in your single-player world. It is when your FPS drops or the game has choppy frames. There are many reasons why this type of lag might occur, and we’ll get into all of them a bit later on, so find what resonates with your experience and work from there.

RELATED:

Minecraft Realms Lag: Here Is How to Fix It

Server Based Lag

Server-based lag doesn’t sound like it can happen in a single-player world, and truth be told, it can’t, kind of. It only happens on servers, but it can happen when you’re playing alone on a server. Reappearing blocks and going back and forward rapidly fall into the category of server-based lag. It’s caused by low TPS or Ticks Per Second.

Block Lag

It can happen in single-player as well, and it can be fixed by changing the random tick speed using commands and cheats in your Minecraft world, but more on that later. If you’re experiencing this type of lag on a multiplayer server, you can make sure your internet connection is stable, or you can try to allocate more RAM to the server.

Reasons for Minecraft running poorly.

There are numerous reasons why your Minecraft single-player world might be laggy, and we’ll get into all of them, so follow along:

1. Weak Computer

The minimum system requirement for a PC to run Java Edition Minecraft is CPU – Intel i3, RAM – 4 GB, GPU – Nvidia GeForce 400 series, and HDD – at least 1 GB. These are the minimum requirements, but as we all know, the recommended requirements to run the game smoothly are very different, so you’ll need a CPU – intel i5, RAM – 8 GB, GPU – Nvidia GeForce 700 series, and HDD – 4GB but SSD is recommended. If you have a PC with the first specs, lag is more likely to happen.

2. Too many programs running in the background

Are you playing Minecraft while watching YouTube videos and running ten more windows in the background? If that’s the case, make sure you only run Minecraft. Chrome is a web browser known to suck up all of your RAM, so if you still want to play while listening to music or watching tutorials and other videos, my advice to you is to download Opera GX, which allows you to set a limit on how much RAM it’s using.

3. Too many farms

Large automated farms run in the background, and if you have a dozen of them, it might just be the cause of your lag. There’s too much going on constantly in the background for your computer to process it all on top of rendering your whole world and actions you take, so maybe shut down a farm or two.

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Minecraft: 11 Best Things You Can Make with Bamboo

4. Too many Redstone contraptions

Redstone gadgets take a lot to work. Think of Redstone contraptions as a high-tech thing in Minecraft that takes a lot to run. You could have made a complicated Redstone door, a farm, an elevator, or a world destroyer. Whatever it is, it’s likely just too much for Minecraft to load, so that the game will lag.

How to make Minecraft run smoother

1. Allocate more RAM to the launcher

Did you know you can add more RAM to your Minecraft launcher? The default is 1 GB which is nothing. Players report having success with this method when they boost it to 4 GB, but you need to figure out what will work for you. To add more RAM to your Minecraft launcher, follow these steps:

  1. Open the launcher
  2. Edit your profile
  3. At the bottom of the profile editor, click on Java Settings(Advanced)
  4. Check the JVM arguments box
  5. Change the first argument from “-Xmx1G” to “-Xmx4G”. Change the number if you want it lower or higher.

Do this as a last resort since there are easier ways to fix the lag.

2. Remove farms and Redstone contraptions

We’ve already covered this but remove some of your Redstone contraptions and automated farms. If you don’t want to do it, break a block that allows them to run so that they stop running temporarily.

3. Install Optifine or other mods

OptiFine is the god of all mods in offering players a lag-free experience. It allows Minecraft to run faster and smoother and comes with full support for HD textures you might want to add later. Perhaps pause on adding additional HD textures and download OptiFine for now.

To download it, go to the official OptiFine website, check the version of your Minecraft Launcher, and download the corresponding version of OptiFine. After downloading it, run the installation file and follow the steps.

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4. Turn down Biome Blend

Biome Blend allows for smooth transitions between biomes, so you don’t get shocked when entering a new biome. It blends textures, and as a result, everything looks a bit nicer. If you’re experiencing lag, you might want to turn down this option.

5. Change the Video Settings

To access the video settings, press ESC and go to Settings and then Video Settings. From here, make sure to turn down a couple of the video settings. It would be best if you turned down Graphics, Render Distance, and Simulation Distance. In the picture below, you can see the recommended values to make the game run smoothly, faster, and hopefully without lag.

Settings

How to increase FPS in Minecraft?

There are multiple ways to increase FPS and make it more stable in Minecraft. The first method involves messing around with in-game settings. Go to Settings and then Video Settings, click on Performance, and almost every setting you turn down will help increase your FPS. Smooth FPS will stabilize it and make sure you don’t experience FPS drops.

You can also turn off Vsync, turn on Full-Screen mode, and decrease resolution. Other than that, there’s nothing else for you to do except allocate more RAM to your Minecraft launcher.

Does RAM increase FPS?

Although GPU has the most direct connection to what you see in your game, increasing RAM will certainly help with increasing FPS and make it more stable. The more demanding the game is in graphics, the higher your RAM will have to be to keep the FPS at pleasurable heights. Since Minecraft isn’t a demanding game regarding graphics, most of your effort to increase FPS should come from RAM.

petra pralica game horizon

Petra Pralica has been a content writer for over three years and is based in Zagreb, Croatia. She studied economics in high school and went to college to get her English language and literature degree but decided against proceeding with her studies after three years since an opportunity arose for her to work as a content writer full-time. Petra’s interests span wide, which is clear from her content writing history. She spent around a year and a half writing content about animals and animal products for Petovly, making sure to educate people about the responsibilities that come with pet ownership, especially when it comes to non-traditional pets like parrots, rats, and ferrets. Then she went on to write about all things related to kitchens. After that affair ended, she educated herself on advertising through social media and search engines. Still, she decided to postpone a career change for the future since she got the opportunity to write about another one of her old passions: games. Whether it’s a board game or a video game, Petra will play it. She’s more into the old-school games she used to play on her PS1 and PS2 and her old computer brick. After video games went online and started to focus more on the PvP aspect like many MOBAs and battle royale games do, she decided to stick to her guns but in a different format. Nowadays, she mostly plays games where she can write out a story or live through a story on the PC screen. Part of the reason she likes League of Legends so much is because of the game’s lore, and part of the reason she enjoys Minecraft so much is that you are free to do whatever you want and write out your own story. She’d spend hours in high school playing games like Skyrim, GTA San Andreas, Need for Speed Most Wanted, Crash Twin Sanity, and Assasin’s Creed. This is a salad of genres, but they all have one thing in common: they all tell a story. Although Petra likes to live in fantasy worlds and fantasize about how epic it would be to live out her life through these alternate worlds, her writing isn’t all that creative and imaginative. She’ll write about facts and try to make things easier to understand and figure out. Of course, she’ll never pass up on an opportunity to write about her favorite characters and why they’d win or lose in a fight with a character from a different universe. She will give you direct answers to all of your questions and then present you with a bunch of if’s, but’s, and what if’s. After all, she can’t completely let go of her creative and imaginative nature.

Here’s Why Your Minecraft Skin Keeps Resetting & How to Solve It

petra pralica game horizonByPetra Pralica Published on
Minecraft Skins resetting
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Minecraft doesn’t allow for endless customization when it’s a matter of adding your own personality to the game. It makes up for it because you can do practically anything in the world, but for those that want customization to be more straightforward, you can choose to upload your own skin instead of using one of the defaults. What if there’s a bug and you can’t show your skin off? Why does your Minecraft skin keep resetting, and how do you fix it?

The main reason why your Minecraft skin might keep resetting is that you’re probably offline. If getting online doesn’t help, you might also want to try and reset your skin on Minecraft.net, or you might just have to wait it out because the problem is with skin servers and not you.

Are there ways to completely get around the reasons for skins resetting, and are there any other reasons why it might happen? How long has this issue been a thing, and why does it keep resurfacing as a problem? Let’s explore the answers to all the questions you might have in the rest of this article.

The basics of skin resetting

Before I go into detail about why your skin might keep resetting, I first want to move out of the way the likeliest reason why your skin might not show up in the first place. I do have to say that you might not always be the problem. Sometimes the people you’re playing with are the problem, and they must also change their settings.

In Minecraft, under Options, there’s a ‘Skins’ tab. You can go there and ensure the option to hide skins isn’t toggled on. This is a viable solution to the problem only if your skin never showed in the first place.

RELATED:

How to Add Friends in Minecraft Java Edition?

Skins resetting on servers

Usually, we use skins to show them off to our friends and the people on servers. It’s a simple way to be recognized and stay remembered, but often, your skin will reset to the default Steve, Alex, or with newer versions of Minecraft, one of the seven other skins that have been added in 1.19.

The skins keep resetting on servers because everyone on the server is signed into Xbox Live, and when that’s the case, your custom skin can only be used for a limited time before it resets. To make a long story short, whenever you exit the game, it’ll change your skin to the last one you wore before the custom one.

To fix this, you’ll need to delete your cache. To do this, follow these steps:

  1. Go into your search bar on your desktop and type in temporary files
  2. You’ll then either be able to delete temporary files right from the search bar, or you will be able to enter the temporary internet files and then select the ‘Delete Files’ option.
  3. Deleting your cache on the computer should also delete the Minecraft cache.

RELATED:

Minecraft 1.20 Update ‘Trails & Tales’ Has an Official Release Date

If you are worried about what will happen when you delete your cache, let’s see the potential risks of deleting your cache and how you can do it on a console.

As suggested in the guide on how to delete cached data, this is only temporary data and will not affect your gameplay, nor will it delete your worlds. You can also clear cached data on consoles. I’ll give you an example of how to clear cached data in Minecraft Bedrock Edition.

Clearing the cache should be the same across all platforms since Bedrock Edition has the option built into the game itself.

  1. Open Minecraft, and in the main menu, go into Settings.
  2. Then, scroll down and head on over to Storage.
  3. Once there, go into Multi Select
  4. Then, click on Cached Data and select all of the resource packs that you found there.
  5. Once you’ve selected all of them, click on Delete, and you’re done

Other players can’t see your skin, but you can

This problem has nothing to do with you and more with the settings of other players. If the players are your friends, you can ask them to change their settings for them to see your skin. If the problem is with other players that are a part of some larger server, likely, you won’t be able to do anything about it.

Apart from the option to hide skins, you also have the option to only allow trusted skins. By trusted skins, Minecraft is likely thinking about skins that you bought through their store.

To disable this option, players will have to go into Settings while in Minecraft, go to Profile, and toggle the Only Allow Trusted Skins option off. This will not, in any way, put you at risk of catching a virus r something else entirely.

Disabling the only allow trusted skins option Minecraft

Adding your skin as the default

Minecraft skins resetting isn’t something new. It has been a problem for some ever since the game officially launched. Back then, players used to fix the problem by adding their skin as the default. This means they made the game think their skin is the default, Steve’s or Alex’s.

RELATED:

How to Fix ‘Invalid or Corrupt’ Skin Error in Minecraft?

They used to do this by changing the resource/texture pack folder, finding the default Steve or Alex skin, and switching it up with your chosen skin. Unfortunately, it’s been a while since you could do this.

petra pralica game horizon

Petra Pralica has been a content writer for over three years and is based in Zagreb, Croatia. She studied economics in high school and went to college to get her English language and literature degree but decided against proceeding with her studies after three years since an opportunity arose for her to work as a content writer full-time. Petra’s interests span wide, which is clear from her content writing history. She spent around a year and a half writing content about animals and animal products for Petovly, making sure to educate people about the responsibilities that come with pet ownership, especially when it comes to non-traditional pets like parrots, rats, and ferrets. Then she went on to write about all things related to kitchens. After that affair ended, she educated herself on advertising through social media and search engines. Still, she decided to postpone a career change for the future since she got the opportunity to write about another one of her old passions: games. Whether it’s a board game or a video game, Petra will play it. She’s more into the old-school games she used to play on her PS1 and PS2 and her old computer brick. After video games went online and started to focus more on the PvP aspect like many MOBAs and battle royale games do, she decided to stick to her guns but in a different format. Nowadays, she mostly plays games where she can write out a story or live through a story on the PC screen. Part of the reason she likes League of Legends so much is because of the game’s lore, and part of the reason she enjoys Minecraft so much is that you are free to do whatever you want and write out your own story. She’d spend hours in high school playing games like Skyrim, GTA San Andreas, Need for Speed Most Wanted, Crash Twin Sanity, and Assasin’s Creed. This is a salad of genres, but they all have one thing in common: they all tell a story. Although Petra likes to live in fantasy worlds and fantasize about how epic it would be to live out her life through these alternate worlds, her writing isn’t all that creative and imaginative. She’ll write about facts and try to make things easier to understand and figure out. Of course, she’ll never pass up on an opportunity to write about her favorite characters and why they’d win or lose in a fight with a character from a different universe. She will give you direct answers to all of your questions and then present you with a bunch of if’s, but’s, and what if’s. After all, she can’t completely let go of her creative and imaginative nature.

How Long Is a Fortnite Match?

petra pralica game horizonByPetra Pralica Published on
How Long is A Fortnite Match
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In today’s world, we’re surrounded by shorter content that gets us that dopamine high so that we can get it all over again once we change the channel, so to speak, to get another dopamine high all over again. Besides, the world is getting increasingly fast-paced, and we no longer have as much time to grind out our favorite games. With all these things considered, would you have the time to throw in a quick round of Fortnite, though? How long is a Fortnite match, exactly?

Numerous factors affect how long a Fortnite match is, but on average, you’ll have to set aside an average of 20 minutes for a single game of Fortnite. Of course, this is the time it’ll take you to end the match if you plan on winning or at least want to get close to winning.

So how is one Fortnite match conceived, and is there any way that a match might last longer than that? What was the longest Fortnite match ever, and is there a limit to how long a match can last? Let’s find the answers to these and many other questions in the rest of this article.

The longest Fortnite match

We must mention a few notable matches before getting into the longest Fortnite match in history. In 2020, a new record for the longest Fortnite match was set. It was made by Lazarbeam, an Australian Youtuber and professional gamer who played a match of Fortnite that lasted 1 hour, 15 minutes, and 39 seconds.

After the record was set, the X2Twins beat it quickly, but only by 2 minutes. The record was broken once more shortly after by Creamy and Lachlan, which made the X2Twins try and beat the record again. The record to beat was 10 minutes longer than their first set world record. Crazy enough, they beat the record again by over 30 minutes.

In total, the twins were in a single Fortnite match for 1 hour, 52 minutes, and 48 seconds and there is a chance that this record will never be broken again, but why is that?

Storm sickness

Storm sickness is a mechanic in Fortnite that gives players a debuff. It’s fairly simple to understand. When you enter a storm area, you will begin losing health until you enter a safe zone. The storm area grows and shrinks the playing area. Essentially, it forces the players to end the match early.

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10 Reasons Why You Are Bad at Fortnite (& How to Fix Them!)

There are 12 phases to the storm, but after the ninth circle, the storm no longer has a grace period nor a shrink time. The storm eye is the safe zone you can be in during the storm. So keeping in mind that eventually, the storm will kill all players in a match, how long will it take for the storm to completely close in and kill all players and end the match prematurely?

The Storm

Maximum Fortnite match duration limit

Well, every storm cycle has a grace period: the time it takes for the storm to start moving and closing in and a shrink time that decreases as you go through the storm cycles.

The storm forms 1 minute after the battle bus reaches its last stop. Let’s round it up and say that the battle bus reaches the last stop in 1 minute. In the first storm cycle, you have a 2-minute grace period and a 2-minute shrink time. The 2nd cycle has a 1-minute 30-second grace and shrink period; the third cycle has a 1-minute 45-second grace period and a 1-minute 30-second shrink period. The 5th, 6th, and 7th cycles all have a 1-minute grace and shrink period. Overall, the storm will completely close in without any storm eye to protect you in a little under 25 minutes. From then on, it’s just a matter of you surviving the storm, but that’s hardly likely.

So the duration limit depends on how fast the storm closes in. The storm duration and how fast it closes in can change as new versions are released. For example, in previous versions, the storm only had nine cycles, and the first cycle grace period was 3 minutes and 20 seconds. I won’t go into all the details, but the match duration will depend on the developers and how they think the game should be balanced regarding playtime.

The shortest Fortnite match

Funnily enough, the shortest Fortnite match lasted only 1 second. Of course, this can’t mean that the match was actually played. Instead, a player named GlitchKing, as his name would suggest, exploited an error that made him win the match after all the other players left.

Match length depends on skill level

This claim might frustrate some people, but that match length will indeed, individually, depend on skill level. Once you’re killed in Fortnite, you won’t respawn and continue playing like in Deathmatch game modes in other games. Once you’re dead, you’ll be presented with the score and your final placement. After that point, you leave the game, so for all you know, in your personal experience, a match can last 5 minutes.

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How to Take Off Bush in Fortnite? (Or See Through Them)

The better you are at the game, the higher the chance for you to finish first, which means you’ll play the entirety of the match. If not, you’ll play for a shorter amount of time.

petra pralica game horizon

Petra Pralica has been a content writer for over three years and is based in Zagreb, Croatia. She studied economics in high school and went to college to get her English language and literature degree but decided against proceeding with her studies after three years since an opportunity arose for her to work as a content writer full-time. Petra’s interests span wide, which is clear from her content writing history. She spent around a year and a half writing content about animals and animal products for Petovly, making sure to educate people about the responsibilities that come with pet ownership, especially when it comes to non-traditional pets like parrots, rats, and ferrets. Then she went on to write about all things related to kitchens. After that affair ended, she educated herself on advertising through social media and search engines. Still, she decided to postpone a career change for the future since she got the opportunity to write about another one of her old passions: games. Whether it’s a board game or a video game, Petra will play it. She’s more into the old-school games she used to play on her PS1 and PS2 and her old computer brick. After video games went online and started to focus more on the PvP aspect like many MOBAs and battle royale games do, she decided to stick to her guns but in a different format. Nowadays, she mostly plays games where she can write out a story or live through a story on the PC screen. Part of the reason she likes League of Legends so much is because of the game’s lore, and part of the reason she enjoys Minecraft so much is that you are free to do whatever you want and write out your own story. She’d spend hours in high school playing games like Skyrim, GTA San Andreas, Need for Speed Most Wanted, Crash Twin Sanity, and Assasin’s Creed. This is a salad of genres, but they all have one thing in common: they all tell a story. Although Petra likes to live in fantasy worlds and fantasize about how epic it would be to live out her life through these alternate worlds, her writing isn’t all that creative and imaginative. She’ll write about facts and try to make things easier to understand and figure out. Of course, she’ll never pass up on an opportunity to write about her favorite characters and why they’d win or lose in a fight with a character from a different universe. She will give you direct answers to all of your questions and then present you with a bunch of if’s, but’s, and what if’s. After all, she can’t completely let go of her creative and imaginative nature.

Minecraft 1.20 Update ‘Trails & Tales’ Has an Official Release Date

valentina kraljik game horizonByValentina Kraljik Published on
Minecraft 1.20 Update Trails Tales Has an Official Release Date
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Following a lengthy silence, fans of the planetary popular sandbox game Minecraft can rejoice as the release date for the long-awaited ‘Trails & Tales’ update has been revealed. 

‘Trails & Tales’ will arrive on June 7, 2023, Mojang revealed on social media.

The ‘Trails & Tales’ Update introduces several new features to Minecraft 1.20. It includes a new biome called the cherry grove, which is rare but beautiful with its pink appearance. Two new wood sets, bamboo and cherry, will be added, allowing players to craft and build with them. The bamboo wood set includes a raft that can be crafted with or without a chest.

A new mob called the camel will be introduced, which can be ridden by one or two players. The camel has long legs that allow it to travel anywhere, providing a safe mode of transportation as melee mobs cannot reach the rider. 

The second mob added to the game is the Sniffer. This was decided during Minecraft’s 2022 community mob vote. This gentle giant was once extinct but can now be brought back to the Overworld by finding its eggs, hatching them, and watching the snifflet grow into a full-grown sniffer. 

Cherry Blossom biome Minecraft

Players will also be able to share their stories through wearable storytelling. Armor trims are being added, which can be found in different dimensions of Minecraft. These trims can be dyed in ten different colors and added to armor using a smithing table, allowing players to showcase their victories and accomplishments to others.

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New Soundtrack Released for the Upcoming Minecraft Trails & Tales Update

New features also include the ability to hang signs, providing a way to leave notes for friends or deceive enemies. Players can now create playable mob sounds by placing a mob head, including the new piglin mob head, on a note block. 

For those who want to document their adventures, a new chiseled bookshelf will be added, where players can safely store books, enchanted books, and even books and quills. Redstone can be added to the bookshelf for added movement, creating a dynamic library experience.

The update also brings calibrated skulk sensors, which are more sensitive and offer exciting possibilities for redstone contraptions.

The ‘Trails & Tales’ update will be available for download on June 7 for Minecraft: Java Edition on Windows, macOS, and Linux; and Minecraft: Bedrock Edition on Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android, and Chromebook. 

You can find out more about the update on the official Minecraft site. 

valentina kraljik game horizon

Valentina Kraljik is a writer and editor at Game Horizon with a deep love for everything related to video games. With a degree in Information Sciences, she brings a well-informed and unique perspective to her work. Valentina's writing is known for covering a wide range of video game genres, but she truly shines in her expertise in open-world RPGs. From offbeat euro-jank games like "Gothic" to critically acclaimed titles like "The Witcher," Valentina is well-versed in this exciting genre. Her passion for imaginative storytelling is reflected in the topics she writes about, with favorites like "Disco Elysium," "Elder Scrolls: Morrowind," "World of Warcraft," and "Mass Effect" influencing her tastes in games. Even though nothing beats a good high-fantasy setting, she often wanders into the realm of first-person shooters, occasionally even hitting the target. With a commitment to objectivity and insightful analysis, Valentina strives to bring a fresh perspective to the subjects she covers, even when exploring genres that may be unfamiliar to her. Her blend of academic rigor and creative flair sets her apart in the world of media writing.

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