MSPT (milliseconds per tick)
Milliseconds per tick: how long the server needs to process one game tick. Above 50 ms, TPS drops below 20.
MSPT stands for milliseconds per tick. It measures how long the server spends computing one game tick: moving entities, growing crops, running redstone, processing player actions and everything else that happens in the world.
The 50 ms budget
The server aims for 20 ticks per second, which leaves 1000 / 20 = 50 milliseconds per tick. As long as a tick finishes within 50 ms, the server waits for the rest of the time slot and TPS stays at 20. When ticks take longer than 50 ms, the server falls behind and TPS drops.
Why MSPT is the better number
TPS is capped at 20, so it only tells you when you are already lagging. MSPT shows how much headroom you have before that happens:
- Low values mean the server has plenty of spare time per tick.
- Values approaching 50 ms mean any extra load, such as a new player exploring, will cause lag.
- Values above 50 ms mean TPS is already below 20.
Look at the average and the peaks. A server with a fine average but regular spikes will still feel choppy.
Checking MSPT
- Paper and its forks have an
/msptcommand. - The spark profiler shows MSPT and, more importantly, which parts of the game use that time.
Practical tip
Watch MSPT while you change something. If you build a new farm or install a plugin and MSPT jumps, you know the cause right away. Because a single tick runs mainly on one thread, reducing MSPT is about less work per tick or a faster core, see single-thread performance, not about adding cores or RAM.