Performance

ChatControl is highly optimized — if you configure it with respect to your hardware and player base.

TL;DR

• Set Rules.Case_Insensitive to false in settings.yml
• Set Private_Messages.Toasts to false to eliminate disk operations
• Disable PacketEvents integration in settings.yml if you don't need the [X] message removal feature
• Review your regular expressions and JavaScript variables for efficiency

Understanding Performance Impact

For every chat message, ChatControl:

• Compiles each format part and adds gradients
• Executes JavaScript for format conditions
• Replaces variables (including JavaScript ones)
• Checks each word against all rules
• Logs the message and sends it to spies

All of these operations can be configured or disabled.

Key Performance Factors

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

The plugin's performance is ~80% dependent on your configuration.

Optimizing Performance

Rules

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

JavaScript Variables

Each JavaScript execution requires compilation and interpretation with limited caching. Limit JavaScript variables on performance-critical servers.

Troubleshooting Performance Issues

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 and open a GitHub issue with the report attached

Database Performance

If you experience lag related to database operations:

1. Use MySQL over SQLite for servers with 50+ players. SQLite uses file-level locking which blocks concurrent reads/writes.
2. Keep your database server close — ideally on the same machine or within the same datacenter. High latency to MySQL causes delays on player joins, chat messages, and data saves.
3. Increase connection pool size if you see "connection timeout" errors in console. Check database.yml for pool settings.
4. Prune old data — large log tables slow down queries. ChatControl automatically removes old data but you can adjust the retention period.
5. Lag on player join is often caused by loading player data (nicks, channels, warning points, toggle states) from the database. Ensure your database has proper indexes (ChatControl creates these automatically).