How to Host a Create Mod Server

What Is the Create Mod?

Create is a Minecraft mod built around mechanical engineering and automation. Instead of magic blocks that instantly process items, Create uses physical contraptions, gears, shafts, conveyor belts, mechanical presses, fans, trains, and more. Players build actual machines with moving parts that interact with the world visually and mechanically. It is one of the best-looking and most satisfying mods in the Minecraft ecosystem.

The mod was originally built by simibubi for Forge, but a Fabric port (Create Fabric) also exists. Both versions are actively maintained. Create is available as a standalone mod and as the centerpiece of several popular modpacks, including Create: Above and Beyond, Create Astral, and various kitchen-sink packs like ATM10 that bundle it alongside hundreds of other mods.

From a server hosting perspective, Create is unusual because its performance profile is CPU-bound rather than RAM-bound. Contraptions physically move blocks in the world, and the server needs to calculate collisions, interactions, and block updates for every moving piece every tick. A player who builds a massive train network or a factory with dozens of spinning gears generates more server load than ten players mining with pickaxes.

Choosing Between Forge and Fabric

Create is available on both Forge and Fabric, but the two versions are not identical in feature parity or addon support:

• Forge version, the original, most mature, and most widely used. Has the largest ecosystem of Create addons. If you are running a Create-focused modpack, it is almost certainly Forge-based.
• Fabric version (Create Fabric), a port that runs on Fabric loader. Fabric generally has lower overhead than Forge, which can mean slightly better base performance. However, fewer Create addons are available on Fabric.

For a dedicated Create server, either works well. If you plan to add many other mods alongside Create, choose based on which ecosystem has the mods you want. For Create-specific modpacks, use whatever loader the pack requires.

Server Requirements

Version and Java

Create's latest versions target Minecraft 1.20.1 (Forge) and 1.20.1 (Fabric). The Minecraft version determines your Java version: Java 17 for 1.18–1.20.x, Java 21 for 1.21+. Check the Create download page for the exact Forge or Fabric version required.

RAM Allocation

Setup	Minimum RAM	Recommended RAM
Create standalone (1–10 players)	4 GB	6 GB
Create + 20–50 mods	6 GB	8 GB
Create modpack (Above & Beyond, etc.)	8 GB	10 GB
Kitchen-sink pack with Create	10 GB	12+ GB

Create itself is not a heavy RAM consumer. The mod adds a moderate number of blocks and items, and its memory footprint is reasonable. The RAM demand scales mainly with how many other mods you bundle alongside it and how many players are active.

Why vCPU Matters More Than RAM

This is where Create differs from most mods. Contraptions in Create are not static block entities sitting in a chunk, they are moving assemblies of blocks that the server simulates every tick. Each rotating gear, each conveyor belt, each train on a track requires tick processing. A single player's factory with 200 moving parts generates more tick load than a hundred static Mekanism machines.

The Minecraft server runs on a single main thread, so raw single-core CPU speed is the bottleneck. When choosing a host, prioritize plans that advertise high single-thread CPU performance (high clock speed, modern CPU architecture) over plans that offer many cores. A 5.0 GHz single core will outperform a 3.0 GHz quad core for Create servers.

Installing Create on Your Server

Forge Installation

1. Set up a Forge server for your target Minecraft version.
2. Download Create from CurseForge or Modrinth.
3. Download the required dependencies: Flywheel (rendering engine used by Create) is a client-side dependency. On the server side, you mainly need Create itself and potentially Registrate if not bundled.
4. Place the Create jar in the mods/ folder.
5. Start the server. Create generates its config files in config/create-common.toml and config/create-server.toml.

Fabric Installation

1. Set up a Fabric server with the Fabric Loader for your target Minecraft version.
2. Install the Fabric API mod (required by almost everything on Fabric).
3. Download Create Fabric from Modrinth or CurseForge.
4. Place both jars in the mods/ folder and start the server.

If you have never set up a Forge or Fabric server before, our server startup guide walks through the fundamentals.

Performance Tuning for Create

Limit Contraption Size

The most important server-side setting for Create is the maximum contraption block count. In config/create-common.toml, look for:

[kinetics]
maxBlocksMoved = 2048

The default allows contraptions of up to 2,048 blocks. On a public server with multiple players, this is generous. A 2,048-block contraption moving every tick generates substantial server load. Consider reducing this to 512–1,024 for public servers. Your experienced builders will still have plenty of room, and your TPS will thank you.

Train Network Limits

Create's train system is one of its most impressive features but also one of the most CPU-intensive. Each train on the network runs its own pathfinding and movement logic. A server with 20 active trains chugging along tracks burns measurably more tick time than one with 5. There is no hard config to limit train count, but you can manage this through server rules or by limiting track placement to designated areas.

Tick Rate Monitoring

Install Spark on your server to profile tick performance. Run /spark profiler start, let players use their contraptions normally for 5–10 minutes, then run /spark profiler stop. The resulting report shows exactly how much tick time Create's kinetics engine consumes versus other server tasks.

A healthy Create server should maintain 18–20 TPS. If you see Create's tick handler consuming more than 30 ms per tick, contraption complexity is the bottleneck and you need to either reduce maxBlocksMoved or ask players to optimize their designs.

View Distance and Simulation Distance

Set view-distance=10 and simulation-distance=8. Create benefits from a reasonable simulation distance because players need their machines to keep running when they walk to the other side of their base. However, avoid going above 10 for simulation distance, every extra chunk that ticks means more contraption processing. For more general optimization advice, see our server optimization guide.

Common Crashes

Large Contraption TPS Drops

When a player assembles a massive contraption (hundreds of blocks) and activates it, the server can stall as it calculates the initial assembly. If this causes a watchdog crash (server detects a tick took too long and kills itself), increase the max-tick-time in server.properties from the default 60000 to 120000 or set it to -1 to disable the watchdog entirely. This is not ideal but prevents crashes during one-time assembly events.

Block Update Cascades

Create contraptions that interact with redstone or water can trigger block update cascades that snowball into lag. If players report lag near specific builds, check for contraptions that push blocks into water or lava, or machines that rapidly toggle redstone signals. These are design issues, not Create bugs, educate your players about efficient machine design.

Popular Create Addons

The Create ecosystem has a rich selection of addons that extend the base mod:

• Create Deco, adds decorative blocks that match Create's industrial aesthetic. Purely cosmetic, no performance impact.
• Create Crafts & Additions, adds electricity generation and integration with other tech mods (RF/FE power). Moderate performance impact since it adds new processing machines.
• Create: Steam 'n' Rails, extends the train system with additional rail types and features. Adds more complexity to the already CPU-heavy train system.
• Create Enchantment Industry, automated enchanting with Create's mechanical systems.

Each addon adds tick overhead proportional to how much players use it. Add them based on what your community wants, but keep an eye on the Spark profiler after each addition. If you want a host that handles Create's CPU demands well, Astroworld Hosting runs high-clock-speed processors on every plan.

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