Game Server Hosting

How Many Players per GB of RAM?

One of the most common sizing questions is how many players fit on a server per gigabyte of RAM. There is no universal answer, because games manage their worlds very differently. In classic shooters such as Counter-Strike 2 or Team Fortress 2 the map is static: each additional player consumes very little extra memory, and even full lobbies run comfortably on small configurations. Sandbox and survival games behave differently — every player explores new terrain, which keeps additional world data loaded in memory. In simulation-heavy titles such as ARK, Palworld or Satisfactory, the world itself (creatures, bases, factories) consumes most of the memory, almost regardless of how many people are online. The guidelines below are deliberately conservative rules of thumb. Mods, plugins, world size, view distance and even the game version can shift the numbers considerably, so always plan a buffer instead of running your server permanently at its limit.

A concrete example: for a vanilla Minecraft server with around ten players, 4–6 GB is a solid choice — the same group in a heavily modded modpack should rather plan for 8–10 GB. A Palworld server, by contrast, needs its 16 GB even if only four people play, because the world simulation runs regardless of player count. When in doubt, size your server for the busy evening peak, not for the average afternoon.