Hytale Performance Saver Plugin

This plugin ensures stability of a Hytale server by lowering the resource consumption of the server when it is under resource pressure.

Purpose of this Plugin

The resource usage of a Hytale server, even without mods, can fluctuate heavily based on player behavior. For example, a large group of players in a small area has a relatively small resource footprint, whereas a small amount of players each independently exploring the world can cause a significant amount of CPU load and RAM consumption.

It is not always reasonable or cost-effective to run a Hytale game server on the hardware specifications it might need when players do unexpected things, since that means that those hardware resources will remain unused for the vast majority of time. However, simply running a game server on limited resources may lead to bad performance or server crashes in these rare high load scenarios.

This plugin's primary goal is to handle resource pressure in an intelligent manner that keeps the game enjoyable for players.

Main Features

The plugin takes the following measures to optimize resource usage:

TPS Limiting

Based on how networking and client prediction work, lower, but stable TPS is generally better for the player experience than high, but fluctuating TPS. The plugin allows to limit the server TPS to a configurable amount (default: 20 TPS).

The plugin also limits the TPS of a server that is empty (default: 5).

Dynamic View Radius Adjustment

The plugin detects CPU pressure through low TPS, and RAM pressure by observing the JVM's garbage collection attempts. If either resource is under pressure, the view radius is dynamically adjusted to free up those resources again. When the resources recover, the view radius is gradually increased again. This measure is able to prevent resource-related server crashes even under stress test scenarios.

Additional Garbage Collection

Java generally does not free up unused memory on its own. This plugin therefore observes the number of loaded chunks and explicitly triggers an additional garbage collection if it is highly likely that memory can be freed up.

Usage

Installation

Place the plugin JAR into your server's mods/ folder.

Configuration

The plugin is configured via a JSON configuration file at mods/Nitrado_PerformanceSaver/config.json. If the file does not exist, it will be automatically created with default values on first startup.

Below are all available configuration sections and their options.

TPS Adjuster (Tps)

Controls the server's TPS limiting behavior.

Option	Type	Default	Description
Enabled	boolean	true	Enable/disable TPS limiting
TpsLimit	integer	20	Maximum TPS when players are online
TpsLimitEmpty	integer	5	TPS limit when no players are online
OnlyWorlds	string[]	[]	Restrict TPS adjustment to specific worlds (empty = all worlds). Use "__DEFAULT" to refer to the server's default world.
InitialDelaySeconds	integer	30	Delay before TPS adjustment starts
CheckIntervalSeconds	integer	5	How often to check/adjust TPS
EmptyLimitDelaySeconds	integer	300	Delay before applying empty server TPS limit

View Radius (ViewRadius)

Controls dynamic view radius adjustment based on resource pressure.

Option	Type	Default	Description
Enabled	boolean	true	Enable/disable dynamic view radius adjustment
MinViewRadius	integer	2	Minimum allowed view radius
DecreaseFactor	double	0.75	Factor to multiply current view radius when decreasing
IncreaseValue	integer	1	Amount to increase view radius when recovering
InitialDelaySeconds	integer	30	Delay before view radius adjustment starts
CheckIntervalSeconds	integer	5	How often to check resource pressure
RecoveryWaitTimeSeconds	integer	60	Time to wait before attempting to increase view radius
RequireNotifyPermission	boolean	false	Only send view distance update notifications to players with the permissions nitrado.performance_saver.notify.increase or nitrado.performance_saver.notify.decrease

GC Monitor (ViewRadius.GcMonitor)

Monitors JVM garbage collection to detect memory pressure.

Option	Type	Default	Description
Enabled	boolean	true	Enable/disable GC-based pressure detection
HeapThresholdRatio	double	0.85	Heap usage ratio threshold to trigger pressure detection
TriggerSequenceLength	integer	3	Number of consecutive high-heap GC events to trigger adjustment
WindowSeconds	integer	60	Time window for analyzing GC events

TPS Monitor (ViewRadius.TpsMonitor)

Monitors TPS to detect CPU pressure.

Option	Type	Default	Description
Enabled	boolean	true	Enable/disable TPS-based pressure detection
TpsWaterMarkHigh	double	0.75	TPS ratio above which view radius can recover
TpsWaterMarkLow	double	0.6	TPS ratio below which view radius should decrease
OnlyWorlds	string[]	[]	Restrict TPS monitoring to specific worlds (empty = all worlds). Use "__DEFAULT" to refer to the server's default world.
AdjustmentDelaySeconds	integer	20	Delay between TPS-triggered adjustments

Chunk Garbage Collection (ChunkGarbageCollection)

Triggers JVM garbage collection when chunk unloading indicates memory can be freed.

Option	Type	Default	Description
Enabled	boolean	true	Enable/disable chunk-based GC triggering
ChunkDropRatioThreshold	double	0.8	Chunk reduction ratio threshold to trigger GC
MinChunkCount	integer	128	Minimum chunk count before GC triggering is considered
GarbageCollectionDelaySeconds	integer	300	Minimum time between triggered GC runs
InitialDelaySeconds	integer	5	Delay before chunk GC monitoring starts
CheckIntervalSeconds	integer	5	How often to check chunk counts

Full Configuration Example

Below is a complete mods/Nitrado_PerformanceSaver/config.json file with all default values:

{
  "ViewRadius": {
    "Enabled": true,
    "MinViewRadius": 2,
    "DecreaseFactor": 0.75,
    "IncreaseValue": 1,
    "InitialDelaySeconds": 30,
    "CheckIntervalSeconds": 5,
    "RecoveryWaitTimeSeconds": 60,
    "RequireNotifyPermission": false,
    "GcMonitor": {
      "Enabled": true,
      "HeapThresholdRatio": 0.85,
      "TriggerSequenceLength": 3,
      "WindowSeconds": 60
    },
    "TpsMonitor": {
      "Enabled": true,
      "TpsWaterMarkHigh": 0.75,
      "TpsWaterMarkLow": 0.6,
      "OnlyWorlds": [],
      "AdjustmentDelaySeconds": 20
    }
  },
  "ChunkGarbageCollection": {
    "Enabled": true,
    "ChunkDropRatioThreshold": 0.8,
    "MinChunkCount": 128,
    "GarbageCollectionDelaySeconds": 300,
    "InitialDelaySeconds": 5,
    "CheckIntervalSeconds": 5
  },
  "Tps": {
    "Enabled": true,
    "TpsLimit": 20,
    "TpsLimitEmpty": 5,
    "OnlyWorlds": [],
    "InitialDelaySeconds": 30,
    "CheckIntervalSeconds": 5,
    "EmptyLimitDelaySeconds": 300
  }
}

Contributing

Community contributions are welcome and encouraged.

Security

If you believe to have found a security vulnerability, please report your findings via security@nitrado.net.