Direct answer

entity-tracking-range determines how far entities are sent to clients; it is different from entity-activation-range, which controls normal entity ticking. Lower tracking distances can reduce network delivery but may make entities disappear sooner.

How to check it

  1. Use the affected world and a repeatable player route to check where entities appear/disappear.
  2. Inspect world-settings.default.entity-tracking-range in spigot.yml and the server’s entity-broadcast-range-percentage in server.properties.
  3. Check actual network bandwidth, player ping and server MSPT before assuming tracking distance causes server tick lag.

What to change

Adjust only the relevant entity category, preserving expected PvP and gameplay visibility. PaperMC documents separate default tracking ranges for players, animals and monsters. These ranges are scaled by entity-broadcast-range-percentage.

# spigot.yml:
world-settings:
  default:
    entity-tracking-range:
      players: 128
      animals: 96
      monsters: 96

Do not set tracking ranges based solely on desired simulation distance; these controls serve different purposes.

Software and version notes

See PaperMC Spigot configuration and server.properties reference. Values for other forks or versions should be checked independently.

Verify the result

Compare entity visibility at the same distances, client traffic, and player experience before/after. If the network is not the bottleneck, restore the original configuration.

References