Palworld Dedicated Server: Hardware Requirements and Performance Optimization

Palworld dedicated servers are notorious for high RAM consumption and CPU load that scales aggressively with player count and base activity. Unlike a typical survival game, Palworld combines creature AI (Pals), base automation, and multiplayer physics — all running simultaneously on the server. This guide covers the tested hardware requirements, the SteamCMD setup process, and the configuration changes that keep your server stable at 4–32 players.

Check our dedicated server comparison table before renting — Palworld’s memory usage alone can disqualify budget plans with less than 16 GB of RAM.

Palworld Server Hardware Requirements by Player Count

Palworld’s official documentation lists minimums that only work for a few players with no bases. Real-world hosting at typical player counts requires significantly more hardware, especially for RAM and CPU. These specs are based on testing on dedicated hardware running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS:

Player Count	CPU	RAM	Storage	Network
4–8	4 cores @ 4.0 GHz+	16 GB	50 GB NVMe	500 Mbps
8–16	6–8 cores @ 4.5 GHz+	24–32 GB	100 GB NVMe	1 Gbps
16–24	8–12 cores @ 4.5 GHz+	32–48 GB	150 GB NVMe	1 Gbps
24–32	12–16 cores @ 5.0 GHz+	48–64 GB	200 GB NVMe	1 Gbps

Why Palworld Consumes So Much RAM

Palworld’s RAM usage is its defining hardware challenge. The server loads the entire world state — terrain, structures, Pals, and player inventories — into memory. Each active base with working Pals adds 1–2 GB of RAM overhead. A 16-player server with several large bases routinely consumes 24–32 GB of RAM. Memory leaks in earlier versions have been partially addressed, but the baseline memory footprint remains high:

• 4 players, 1 base: 8–12 GB RAM usage
• 8 players, 3–4 bases: 16–24 GB RAM usage
• 16 players, multiple bases: 24–40 GB RAM usage
• 32 players, sprawling bases: 40–64 GB RAM usage

Running Palworld on a dedicated server with sufficient RAM is critical — when the server runs out of memory, the OOM killer terminates the process and players lose unsaved progress.

CPU Requirements and Multi-Threading

Palworld’s server makes better use of multiple cores than many survival games. Pal AI, base automation, physics calculations, and networking each run on separate threads. However, single-thread performance still matters for the main world tick. Target CPUs with strong single-core performance and at least 6–8 physical cores for servers above 8 players. AMD Ryzen 7000/9000 series and Intel 13th/14th gen Core i7/i9 are the best choices.

Installing the Palworld Dedicated Server

The Palworld dedicated server is distributed through SteamCMD. On Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04 LTS:

1. Install SteamCMD and dependencies: sudo apt install -y steamcmd lib32gcc-s1 screen
2. Create a service user: sudo useradd -m -s /bin/bash palworld
3. Install server files: sudo -u palworld steamcmd +force_install_dir ~/palworld-server +login anonymous +app_update 2394010 validate +quit
4. The server binary is at ~/palworld-server/PalServer.sh.

Key Configuration Settings

Edit ~/palworld-server/Pal/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/PalWorldSettings.ini to configure your server. The most performance-relevant settings:

• ServerPlayerMaxNum: Set to your actual player target. Each slot reserves memory, even when empty.
• PalNumMax: Caps the total number of Pals in the world. Lower this on RAM-constrained servers to prevent memory exhaustion.
• BaseCampWorkerMaxNum: Limits Pals assigned to each base. Default is 15. Reducing this to 10–12 per base cuts CPU load from base automation significantly.
• AutoSaveSpan: Default is 30 seconds. On busy servers, increase to 60–120 seconds to reduce disk I/O, but ensure you have NVMe storage to handle the save bursts.
• DayTimeSpeedRate / NightTimeSpeedRate: Faster day/night cycles increase Pal activity and CPU load. Keep defaults unless you have headroom.

Performance Optimization Tips

• Restart schedule: Palworld servers accumulate memory over time. Schedule a daily restart via cron or systemd timer to clear leaked memory before it causes issues.
• CPU pinning: Pin the server process to a dedicated set of physical cores with taskset to prevent the scheduler from migrating threads and causing latency spikes.
• Swap configuration: Set vm.swappiness=1 to minimize swap usage. Palworld’s memory access patterns make swap-induced latency particularly painful.
• Backup strategy: Palworld save files are in ~/palworld-server/Pal/Saved/SaveGames/. Set up a cron job to rsync this directory to a separate location or external storage every 30 minutes.
• Monitoring: Use Prometheus and Node Exporter to track RAM usage trends. Palworld’s memory growth is gradual — catching it early prevents crashes.

Summary: What to Rent for Palworld

For a small 4–8 player server, a 4-core CPU at 4.0 GHz+ with 16 GB of RAM and NVMe storage is the minimum viable setup. For 8–16 players, budget 24–32 GB of RAM and 6–8 cores at 4.5 GHz+. For 16–32 players, invest in 32–64 GB of RAM and 8–16 cores. RAM is the bottleneck for Palworld — prioritize it over CPU core count. Never run Palworld on a server with less than 16 GB of RAM, and always use NVMe storage to keep save times under control.

Before renting, compare dedicated server configurations to find a plan with enough RAM and a current-generation CPU for your Palworld community.