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How to Fix Lag in Minecraft Pocket Edition (PE)

Is Minecraft Pocket Edition (PE) lagging when you’re playing it on your Android or iOS device?

If it is, you need to fix or reduce the lag so that MCPE can run smoothly.

Minecraft Pocket Edition is also known as Minecraft Bedrock Edition.

The most common reason for the lag is that your video settings are too high.

If your video settings are too high, the game may lag because your device cannot handle it.

This is usually the case with older devices.

To reduce the lag, you need to configure your video settings.

Certain video settings in Minecraft Pocket Edition will decrease the performance of the game.

Hence, you need to lower them to allow the game to run smoother.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to fix the lag in Minecraft Pocket Edition (PE)/Bedrock Edition (BE) to make the game run smoother.

How to fix lag in Minecraft Pocket Edition

To fix lag in Minecraft Pocket Edition, you need to configure your video settings.

In your video settings, turn off screen animations, render clouds, beautiful skies, smooth lighting, and fancy graphics.

In addition, you need to set the render distance to the lowest (6 chunks).

You need to turn these video settings off as they are decreasing the performance of the game.

If you leave them on, your game might lag.

Hence, you’re compromising performance over graphics.

MCPE typically lags for older devices because they have outdated processors.

If you want to increase the performance of the game, you can also use a newer device.

Here’s how to fix lag in Minecraft Pocket Edition:

  1. Tap on “Settings”
  2. Turn off screen animations
  3. Turn off some video settings
  4. Set render distance to 6 chunks

1. Tap on “Settings”

Minecraft Pocket Edition Settings

Firstly, you need to open Minecraft Pocket Edition.

Once you’re in the game, you’ll see a couple of buttons.

This includes “Play” and “Settings”.

To reduce the lag in Minecraft PE, you need to turn off some video settings.

To do so, you need to navigate to your video settings.

Tap on “Settings” to go to your settings.

2. Turn off screen animations

How to fix lag in Minecraft Pocket Edition

After you’ve tapped on “Settings”, the settings page will open.

On the settings page, you’ll automatically land on “Accessibility”.

On the left sidebar, you’ll see multiple settings.

This includes “Accessibility”, “Controller”, “Profile”, and more.

Scroll down the left sidebar until you reach the “General” header.

Under the “General” header, you’ll see a “Video” setting.

Tap on “Video” to go to your video settings.

In your video settings, you’ll see several settings including “Brightness”, “Camera Perspective”, “HUD Opacity”, and more.

Above the “HUD Opacity” setting, you’ll see a “Screen Animations” setting.

To begin with, you need to turn off the “Screen Animations” setting.

The “Screen Animations” setting will trigger an animation when you switch UI or menus.

Hence, turning it off will boost the performance of MCPE.

3. Turn off some video settings

Reduce lag in MCPE

After you’ve turned off the “Screen Animations” setting, you need to scroll down the video settings.

Once you’ve scrolled down, you’ll see 4 settings.

This includes “Render Clouds”, “Beautiful Skies”, “Smooth Lighting”, and “Fancy Graphics”.

If you have the “Render Clouds” turned on, it enables the graphics of the clouds.

“Beautiful Skies” is responsible for the sun, moon, clouds, stars, and sky color, while “Smooth Lighting” makes the lighting look better.

Lastly, “Fancy Graphics” makes the graphics of the game look better.

However, these settings make the game run slower.

To reduce the lag in Minecraft Pocket Edition, you need to turn off “Render Clouds”, “Beautiful Skies”, “Smooth Lighting”, and “Fancy Graphics”.

Once you’ve turned those settings off, the game will be less laggy, or not lag at all.

4. Set render distance to 6 chunks

Minecraft PE lag spike

After you’ve turned off “Render Clouds”, “Beautiful Skies”, “Smooth Lighting”, and “Fancy Graphics”, scroll down your video settings.

At the bottom of your video settings, you’ll see a “Render Distance” slider.

The slider allows you to configure the render distance of the game.

The render distance is responsible for the number of chunks that are visible from a distance.

Any chunk further that your render distance will be faded by a fog.

The higher the render distance, the more the lag.

On the other hand, the lower the render distance, the lower the lag.

In technical terms, the lower the render distance, the higher the frames per second (FPS).

Hence, you need to reduce the render distance.

Set the render distance to 6 chunks as it is the lowest.

Then, exit the settings and start playing the game.

This time, Minecraft PE should run much smoother with little to no lag.

Why is my Minecraft so laggy in Pocket Edition?

Minecraft is so laggy in Pocket Edition because your video settings are too high.

It can also mean that you’re connected to a server that has low RAM and high traffic.

If a server has low RAM, it might lag for you because it cannot handle the traffic.

The owner of the server needs to fix the lag by upgrading its hosting plan.

Conclusion

By following the recommendations in this guide, Minecraft PE should stop lagging.

However, if the game is still lagging, try restarting your device.

If you’re using an older device, the game might lag because it has an outdated processor.

Video settings are mainly responsible for the lag.

Hence, you need to turn some of them off to reduce the lag in the game.

You’ve successfully learned how to fix the lag in Minecraft Pocket Edition (PE) on iOS and Android devices!

You can also use the same recommendations to fix the lag in Minecraft Windows 10 Edition.

Further reading

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About the author

Lim How Wei

Lim How Wei is the founder of followchain.org, with 8+ years of experience in Social Media Marketing and 4+ years of experience as an active investor in stocks and cryptocurrencies. He has researched, tested, and written thousands of articles ranging from social media platforms to messaging apps.

Lim has been quoted and referenced by major publications and media companies like WikiHow, Fast Company, HuffPost, Vice, New York Post, The Conversation, and many others. One of his articles about the gig economy was quoted by Joe Rogan who hosts The Joe Rogan Experience (arguably the most popular podcast in the world), in the This Past Weekend podcast by Theo Von.

In his free time, Lim plays multiple games like Genshin Impact, League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Hearthstone, RuneScape, and many others. He creates guides, walkthroughs, solutions, and more on games that he plays to help other players with their progression.