Vintage Story Chunk Loading Lag Fix
Vintage Story feels amazing when exploration is smooth, but dedicated servers can start hitching badly once several players move fast, generate new terrain, or run heavy block tick systems. The best fixes are usually in serverconfig.json, not in random client tweaks.
Settings That Matter Most
"MaxChunkRadius": 10,
"TickTime": 33.33,
"BlockTickChunkRange": 4,
"RandomBlockTicksPerChunk": 8,
"ChunkUnloadInterval": 4000,
"UncompressedChunkTTL": 10000,
"CompressedChunkTTL": 30000
| Setting | Why It Matters | Safe Direction |
|---|---|---|
MaxChunkRadius |
View distance and chunk traffic | Lower it for busy multiplayer servers |
BlockTickChunkRange |
How far active block logic runs | Reduce if farms or machines cause stutter |
RandomBlockTicksPerChunk |
Background world activity cost | Lower it on overloaded worlds |
CompressedChunkTTL |
How long chunks stay around before unload | Shorten slightly if memory pressure is high |
What Causes the Worst Stutter
- Too many players exploring in different directions at once
- Chunk radius set as if the server were single-player
- Heavy farms, animal counts, or machine systems ticking too far from players
- Low-memory hosts that keep too many chunks uncompressed for too long
Good Tuning Order
- Lower
MaxChunkRadiusbefore changing anything else. - Reduce
BlockTickChunkRangeandRandomBlockTicksPerChunkif farms or automation are involved. - Watch whether memory or CPU is the first resource to spike.
- Only touch
TickTimeafter you understand the actual bottleneck.
Practical rule: if the server feels smooth in a base but stutters when multiple players travel outward, you are looking at chunk radius and terrain generation pressure first, not chat mods or permissions.
Need more headroom for larger Vintage Story communities? Deploy a Vintage Story server on Supercraft and start from a cleaner performance baseline.