Eco Server Lagging – Fix Performance & Reduce Lag

This guide shows you how to optimize your Eco server performance. Eco simulates a complex world with economy, ecology and dozens of players simultaneously – this can push even strong hardware to its limits. With these settings, your server will run more stable and faster.

Eco's Special Feature: Everything Is Simulated

Unlike most games, Eco truly simulates everything – every animal, every plant, every tree, every water source and every weather event. On top of that, there's a complete economic simulation with supply and demand. This makes Eco unique, but also extremely resource-intensive.

1. Identifying the Biggest Performance Hogs

Check Server Performance in Real Time

# In the Server Manager:
# "Status" tab shows tick rate and player count

# Via console (Linux):
htop

# Important values:
# CPU: Consistently above 80% = action needed
# RAM: Above 80% = more RAM needed
# Load Average: Higher than CPU core count = server overloaded

Eco's Own Performance Statistics

# In the Server Manager under "Graphs" tab:
# - Tick Time: Should stay below 50ms (20+ ticks/second)
# - Entity Count: Shows number of simulated objects
# - Active Threads: Shows running background processes

2. Adjust World Size

World size is the biggest lever for performance. Every doubling of world size quadruples the area to be simulated:

For most servers, 1-2 km² is completely sufficient. Bigger isn't always better – a smaller world with higher density often plays more intensely.

3. Reduce Plant and Animal Spawns

Plants and animals make up a large part of the server load:

# In the server configuration (Configs/Server.eco):
"PlantGrowthRate": 0.5,      // Default: 1.0 – halved = less CPU load
"AnimalSpawnLimit": 150,     // Default: 300 – reduces animal count
"TreeSpawnLimit": 5000,      // Default: 10000 – simulate fewer trees

4. Optimize Economic Simulation

# In the server configuration:
"EconomicSimulationInterval": 60,    // Default: 30 – update less frequently
"MaxStoreOffers": 100,               // Default: 200 – simulate fewer offers
"CurrencySimulationEnabled": true,   // Set to false if no currency is needed

5. Restart Server Regularly

Eco often runs for weeks on a server. Over time, data accumulates and performance declines:

# Set up daily restart (crontab)
0 4 * * * /path/to/eco-restart.sh

# restart.sh content:
#!/bin/bash
# Warning to players (5 minutes before)
echo "Server restart in 5 minutes!" | wall
sleep 300
# Cleanly shut down and restart server
systemctl restart eco-server

6. Hardware Tips Specific to Eco

• CPU: Eco benefits from multi-core CPUs – unlike most game servers. 6-8 cores are ideal
• RAM: Eco is extremely RAM-hungry. 16 GB minimum, 32 GB for worlds over 2 km²
• Storage: NVMe SSD is mandatory. The world is constantly loaded and saved
• Single-Thread vs. Multi-Thread: Eco uses multiple cores effectively. More cores = better, but high clock speed per core remains important

7. Check Mods for Performance Impact

• Each mod increases server load. Only install what's really needed
• Large mods like Big Shovel or WorldEdit have little performance impact
• Mods that add new simulations (new animals, plants, weather systems) heavily strain the server
• Temporarily disable mods and compare server performance

8. Limit Player Count

Each additional player increases load disproportionately because they explore new areas and influence the economy:

# In the server configuration:
"MaxPlayers": 20,              // Adjust to your hardware
"PrivateServer": true,         // Only invited players
"WhitelistEnabled": true       // Enable whitelist

9. Storage Space Management

Eco worlds grow over time. Check storage regularly:

# Check disk space
df -h

# Check storage folder size
du -sh ~/eco-server/Storage/

# Delete old backups
find ~/eco-backups/ -name "*.zip" -mtime +30 -delete

Quick Checklist

1. Adjust world size to player count (smaller is better than larger)
2. Reduce plant and animal spawns
3. Increase economic simulation interval
4. Restart server daily
5. Deactivate unnecessary mods
6. Limit player count
7. Provide sufficient RAM (16 GB minimum)
8. Use NVMe SSD