Performance

ChatControl is an extremely optimized plugin, if you understand how it works and configure it with respect to your hardware and player base.

TL;DR - Quick Performance Tips

• Set Rules.Case_Insensitive to false in settings.yml
• Disable Private_Messages.Toasts to eliminate disk operations
• Disable ProtocolLib.Enabled if you don't need the [X] message removal feature
• Review your regular expressions and JavaScript variables for efficiency
• Keep your hardware in mind - more rules and conditions need more processing power

Understanding Performance Impact

The magic lays in the word "if". For every chat message, ChatControl performs several operations:

• Compiles each format part
• Adds gradients if used
• Executes JavaScript for format conditions
• Replaces variables, including JavaScript ones
• Checks each word against all rules
• Logs the message
• Sends it to spies (where many of these operations apply again)

All of these operations can be configured or disabled completely based on your needs.

Key Performance Factors

The following plugin components have the most significant impact on performance:

Component	Performance Impact
Rules (rules/ folder)	Rule quantity, complexity of conditions, and regex patterns
Formats (formats/ folder)	Format options, especially JavaScript conditions
Messages (messages/ folder)	Message quantity and conditional logic
Variables (variables/ folder)	Variable quantity and complexity of conditions

Important: The plugin's performance is approximately 80% dependent on your configuration. Claiming ChatControl has poor performance while running hundreds of inefficient regex patterns and complex JavaScript conditions on modest hardware doesn't represent the plugin's true capability.

Optimizing Performance

Configuration Recommendations

Here are specific settings you can adjust in your settings.yml to improve ChatControl's performance:

Performance Configuration

1. Rules Section

   • Set Rules.Case_Insensitive to false to disable case-insensitive message evaluation
   • Minimize complex regex patterns

2. Messages Section

   • Set Private_Messages.Toasts to false to eliminate disk operations for advancement popups

3. ProtocolLib Section

   • Consider setting ProtocolLib.Enabled to false if you don't need the [X] message removal feature
   • This eliminates message decoding/encoding operations that can be costly on busy servers

4. General Optimization

   • Review the Performance section and disable features you don't need
   • Use simpler formats with fewer conditional parts
   • Limit JavaScript usage when possible

ProtocolLib Considerations

When ProtocolLib.Enabled is set to true, each message must be decoded and saved. This process:

• Relies on ProtocolLib APIs that call NMS and Adventure methods
• Supports the [X] message removal feature
• Can significantly impact performance on servers with heavy chat load
• Is not optimizable by ChatControl as it depends on external libraries

Optimizing Rules

The efficiency of regular expressions directly impacts performance:

1. Rule Complexity: Larger, more complex regular expressions require more processing cycles
2. Testing Tools: Use regex101.com to test expression efficiency
3. Correct Flags: When testing, enable "insensitive" and "unicode" flags for accurate results

JavaScript Variables

JavaScript variables can significantly impact performance because:

• Each JavaScript execution requires compilation and interpretation
• Complex scripts take longer to process
• There's limited opportunity for caching due to dynamic nature

JavaScript Impact

If performance is critical for your server, consider limiting the use of JavaScript variables or optimize your scripts for maximum efficiency.

Troubleshooting Performance Issues

If you're experiencing performance problems despite optimization:

1. Install the Spark profiler
2. Run your server under normal conditions for at least 30 minutes (2+ hours for smaller servers)
3. Generate a full report
4. Open a new issue ticket on our GitHub with the report attached

This will help us identify specific bottlenecks and provide targeted optimization advice.