How much RAM does a Palworld 1.0 server need?

How much RAM does a Palworld 1.0 server need? Pocketpair now recommend 16 GB. Here is what that means in practice for the bigger 1.0 map, busier bases and long nights.

Palworld's server load has never been about how many people are online. It is about how much world the server has to keep simulating: bases, automation, spawned Pals and dropped items. 1.0 roughly doubles the map and adds seventy-two Pals, so a group that sat comfortably on a small plan through early access can find it tight after the update. This is the single most common reason a 1.0 server starts to stutter.

The official number went up to 16 GB

Pocketpair's own dedicated-server requirements now recommend 16 GB of RAM, and note that 8 GB will boot but raises the chance of the server crashing when it runs out of memory. That is a shift worth taking seriously, because the requirements sat lower through most of early access. It is the clearest signal that the bigger 1.0 world genuinely asks for more headroom.

Matching a plan to your group

  • A handful of friends, modest bases. Standard (8 GB, 16 slots) still works for casual 1.0 co-op, and it is the floor the engine needs to boot cleanly. If you push automation, expect to outgrow it.
  • An active community with real automation. Pro (12 GB, 32 slots) is the comfortable middle for most groups after 1.0, and where I would start anyone unsure.
  • Large, heavily automated, or busy worlds. Elite (16 GB, 32 slots) matches Pocketpair's recommended figure and adds priority CPU scheduling, which is the part that actually holds your tick rate when bases get serious.

32 players is Palworld's own hard ceiling, so Pro and Elite differ on memory and CPU priority rather than slot count. The full per-tier breakdown is on Picking the right Palworld server plan.

What actually eats the resources

  • Bases and automation. Every working Pal, conveyor and production line is constant simulation. A few sprawling automated bases will out-cost a full lobby of players standing around.
  • World size and exploration. More of the now much larger map loaded and active means more to simulate. Sunreach and the World Tree areas add to this as your group reaches them.
  • Spawned Pals. PalSpawnNumRate and busy biomes cost CPU. See world settings.
  • Save accretion. Long-running worlds pile up dropped items and state. Keeping DropItemMaxNum sensible keeps saves lean.

About the memory-creep reports

Palworld's dedicated server has a history of memory climbing slowly over a long session, and while 1.0's notes mention optimised memory handling, some operators are still watching it creep in the first days. If your server runs fine and then degrades after several hours, that is the pattern, and the standard answer is a scheduled daily restart during a quiet hour. It is a small thing to set and it keeps a long-lived world honest. We are watching the early 1.0 reports and will update this section as a clearer picture forms.

Why non-oversold matters most exactly here

A bigger world is the moment overselling bites. On a packed node elsewhere, your "8 GB" is a slice of a contended machine, and Palworld's base simulation is the first thing to suffer when the CPU is being shared out. On Hostd your RAM is hard-reserved and your CPU runs on Ryzen 9700X cores at 5.5 GHz, so the resources on your plan are the resources you get when a raid kicks off across three bases at once. If a server struggles after 1.0, it is a sizing decision with a real answer rather than a mystery: size up from the dashboard and the new ceiling is genuinely there.

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Last updated 2026-07-10. Notice a mistake? Tell us.

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