Many interactions in Minecraft run on tickrates, which some players find a bit too slow. It can be complicated to understand, though, and how they work differs depending on whether you’re playing on the Java or Bedrock Edition. In this guide, I’ll break down their differences and show you how to change tick speed in Minecraft.
Explaining the Tickrate Command and How To Change Tick Speed in Minecraft
- What’s a Tick?
- What’s a Random Tick?
- What’s Minecraft’s Tickrate and Tick Speed?
- How to Change Tick Speed in Java Edition
- How to Change Tick Speed in Bedrock Edition
What’s a Tick in Minecraft?
A tick in Minecraft refers to a complete cycle of the main game loop. Video games constantly run big program cycles to keep things updated, and that’s no different here. There are a few different tick-related things that Minecraft has, but a proper game tick is simply one successful loop. These operate at set intervals and can’t be changed.
What’s a Random Tick?
For every tick, a certain number of blocks in a chunk can be selected at random to be updated. Examples of this include the growing stages of crops and trees or the spreading of vines or fire. If you’ve ever noticed how these elements have some slight variance in how they work, it’s because they don’t operate on a fixed rate — they’re all updated through random ticks.
An important distinction to remember is that these can be set to something different by the player, no matter which platform you’re on or whether you’re playing single-player or multiplayer. They have default values and work differently depending on which version you’re playing, but changing them can make a world of difference. I do recommend adjusting them slowly, though, as increasing it can have a huge and potentially detrimental impact on performance.
Related: How to CrossPlay on All Platforms in Minecraft
What’s Minecraft’s Tickrate and Tick Speed?
Tickrate is commonly synonymous with ticks-per-second (TPS), and in Minecraft, it’s a fixed rate of 20. This means that the main game updates every .05 seconds.
Tick Speed can be interchangeable with tickrate and TPS in other titles, but in Minecraft, it refers to the frequency of random ticks. This is primarily due to the randomtickspeed command, which allows players to change how often they occur.
How to Change Tick Speed in Java Edition
To change the Tick Speed in Minecraft, you’ll need to use the randomtickspeed command. The exact steps to take are as follows:
- Enable cheats in your current world or create a new one with cheats on.
- Open the chat menu.
- Type in /gamerule randomTickSpeed x
- Replace “x” with a numerical value.
Tick speed has different default values between the two editions and functions differently. In the Java edition, the normal speed is 3, which means that each game tick will randomly update three blocks. Turning this to a value of 6 will effectively double the default speed, although you likely won’t see a difference due to the random element. Changes become a lot more obvious once higher numbers are being used.
How to Change Tick Speed in Bedrock Edition
The same process is used to change the speed in the Bedrock Edition, requiring you to enable cheats and type in /gamerule randomTickSpeed x in the text chat, replacing the x with a numerical value.
However, in Bedrock, the default value is 1. More importantly, that doesn’t precisely represent how many random blocks will update but instead stands for a general speed with how often they will.
That’s everything you need to know about how to change tick speed in Minecraft. If you’re comfortable using cheats for other things, it can help you with how to find cherry blossom biomes. Our other guides to surviving this blocky world, such as how to change villager jobs and the best helmet enchantments, are available in our collection of Minecraft guides.
