Looking for some info on top command

[Eyeball114]

Hello I run centos 6.6 on my home server where I host a few midded minecraft servers

Recently I have been having an issue where in the MC server it tells me the system cant keep up.
Upon checking top I noticed the cpu spiking. Can someone please explain what I'm exactly looking at?
I notice at the top it says my CPU is around 16% but the MC server pid shows it spiking over 100%.


So I guess what Im looking for is whats the difference between the two CPU percentages?

[versluis]

As far as I know the value at the top gives the total average CPU usage used by all processes on the system. The values on the bottom show you the CPU usage per process. Since top updates every second, a temporary spike may not affect the average global usage too much. But if a single process is at 100% all the time then it would account for your the minecraft server being unable to keep up with the demand.

Popularity has its price you know

[Eyeball114]

Ah yes it does yes it does haha.

The bottom percentage never stays at a ridiculous number. Its a very short spike and then back down. Sometimes it steps down. But It can go from say 40% then spike to above 110% then back down.
Watching my console I see no events happening at the time. Usually you see a spike on player login or during an automated backup. But nothing seems visually out of place during the spike.
Just didn't expect to see it start happening on this CPU. I am almost willing to bet that its a resource hungry mod or a bug in a mod causing it.
We have hosted plenty more people that what Im seeing now in the past with no issues. But I guess this is the minecraft world. Where the points are made up and optimization isn't a thing.