How much RAM does a game server need? Minecraft, Palworld, and picking a size that doesn't waste money
How much RAM does a game server need? Minecraft, Palworld, and picking a size that doesn't waste money
Last updated 2026-08-12
Short answer
Minecraft Java can start at 1–2GB for 2–5 friends without mods; plan on 4–6GB for modpacks. Palworld is far heavier — its real minimum is 8GB, growing with the number of Pals in the world. The clearest signs you're short on RAM are rhythmic lag spikes and the server restarting itself.
Contents
Contents
Before you start any game server, the first question to answer is "how much RAM?" — too little and the server stutters until your friends drift away; too much and you're paying (or buying sticks) for nothing, because extra RAM doesn't make a game smoother. This article collects numbers that hold up in practice per game, the symptoms that say RAM is running out, and how to pick a size without wasting money.
How much RAM each game uses
The "minimum" column is what genuinely boots and plays; "recommended" is what runs smoothly for normal use in that scenario:
Game / scenario
Minimum
Recommended
Minecraft Java — 2–5 friends, no mods
1GB
2GB
Minecraft Java — 10+ players, or an older sprawling world
2GB
4GB
Minecraft Java — small-to-medium modpack
4GB
6GB
Minecraft Java — heavy modpack (150+ mods)
6GB
8GB and up
Minecraft Bedrock
1GB
2GB
Palworld
8GB
16GB (the developer's official figure)
Valheim
4GB
4GB and up
Enshrouded
8GB
8GB and up
7 Days to Die
8GB
8GB and up
Core Keeper
2GB
2GB and up
Factorio
2GB
2GB and up
Rows marked "and up" are games whose RAM use grows mainly with world size and what's been built, so no fixed number would be honest — starting at the minimum and growing when symptoms appear (next section) always beats padding in advance.
If you run the server at home, these figures are what must be left over for the server after Windows and everything else take their share. And for Minecraft Java you have to set the JVM's ceiling yourself when launching, e.g. java -Xmx4G -jar server.jar nogui — otherwise the game won't use the RAM you intended for it.
Why Palworld eats several times more than Minecraft
Minecraft only loads the chunks around each player, out to the view distance; regions nobody is in get unloaded from memory. Palworld instead has to keep the state of every captured Pal, every base, and the items in the world resident at all times. The more Pals you catch, the more bases you build, the longer the save runs — the more memory it holds, growing with the save itself. The developer's own official server documentation recommends 16GB, noting that 8GB can run but risks out-of-memory over sustained play — which is why Palworld's 8GB is a real minimum rather than a padded number.
The symptoms of running out of RAM
Rhythmic, regular lag spikes — short freezes repeating every few seconds are Java's garbage collector being forced to run more and more often as free space shrinks. This is the earliest sign of a Minecraft server going RAM-tight.
TPS drops — ticks per second slides down from 20 and the whole world slows: crops grow late, mobs stutter.
The server dies or restarts itself — Java's end state is OutOfMemoryError in the log, while a game like Palworld whose process grows past its ceiling gets killed by the system and started again. A server that keeps dying on a cycle should make you suspect RAM first.
On a home PC — Windows starts swapping instead, and the entire machine turns sluggish, not just the game.
These are distinct from a CPU shortfall: with CPU as the bottleneck the world is uniformly slow all day, rather than stuttering in bursts and recovering.
Player count matters less than you think
What actually consumes RAM is the mods you install, the number of chunks held loaded, the structures and automation in the world, and a world that grows every day it's played. Each player contributes mainly through the chunks they personally keep loaded — ten friends in one town are lighter than four friends exploring different corners of the map, because the number of simultaneously loaded chunks differs several-fold.
So when sizing, don't ask only "how many players" — ask "played how". An exploration-heavy server, or one full of redstone and modded factories, always out-eats a build-together-in-town server.
How to pick a size without wasting money
Oversizing RAM does not make the game smoother — a Minecraft server with a heap far larger than it needs actually spends longer on each garbage-collection pass. The cheapest approach is to start small and grow on evidence:
Start at the "minimum" or "recommended" figure for your scenario.
Play normally for two or three days and watch for the symptoms above.
When a symptom shows up, step up one size.
At home, growing means buying and fitting more RAM sticks. On a host that bills RAM by the hour, like uniz.host, starting small saves real money because you pay for the size you picked only for the hours the server is online — 2GB at ฿0.50/hour, or 4GB at ฿0.90/hour (with a daily cap: even running all day stays under ฿13), while Palworld's 8GB floor is ฿1.70/hour. When a symptom appears you resize in place, no world migration — current prices for every size are on the pricing page (you can start with the minimum ฿20 top-up).
No need — a Minecraft server with far more RAM than it uses can actually garbage-collect slower. Starting small and growing when real symptoms appear is cheaper, especially when RAM is billed by the hour.
How do I recognize that RAM is running out?
Regular rhythmic stutter (the GC running constantly), falling TPS, and at the end of the road an out-of-memory crash — if the log shows OutOfMemoryError, you're past the real ceiling.
How much does player count matter?
Less than you'd expect for most games — the real RAM eaters are mods, the number of loaded chunks and structures, and a world size that keeps growing.