A game server is unforgiving: players notice every lag spike. The good news is that most game servers have predictable needs. If you get location, CPU and RAM right, almost everything else follows.
1. Location decides ping
Latency depends mostly on distance. Every 1,000 km adds roughly 10 ms of round-trip time at best, and real routes are longer than straight lines.
| Players mainly in… | Host in… |
|---|---|
| US West Coast, Pacific | Los Angeles |
| US East Coast, Europe-facing communities | New York |
| Central US, mixed US audience | Chicago |
| Southern US, Latin America | Miami |
| Mainland China, Southeast Asia | Hong Kong |
| Japan, Korea, Taiwan | Tokyo |
Before ordering, ping the provider’s test IP from your players’ locations. Our USA VPS, Hong Kong VPS and Japan VPS pages list test IPs for every data center.
For competitive games, under ~60 ms feels good; under ~100 ms is fine for co-op and survival games.
2. CPU: single-core speed matters most
Many game servers run their main game loop on one thread. Minecraft (Java), Terraria, Valheim, and many Source-engine games depend heavily on single-core performance. Extra cores help with plugins, world generation, chunk loading and running several servers, but they don’t speed up the main tick.
What to look for:
- Dedicated or guaranteed CPU rather than heavily shared cores.
- KVM virtualization, so your server has its own kernel and resources.
- At least 2 vCPU so the OS, backups and the game don’t compete.
3. RAM by game and player count
Rough starting points (modded servers need much more):
| Game | Small (≤10 players) | Medium (10–30) |
|---|---|---|
| Minecraft Java (vanilla / Paper) | 3–4 GB | 6–8 GB |
| Minecraft Java (modpacks) | 6–8 GB | 10–16 GB |
| Minecraft Bedrock | 1–2 GB | 2–4 GB |
| Terraria (tModLoader) | 1–2 GB | 2–4 GB |
| Valheim | 4 GB | 6–8 GB |
| Rust | 8–12 GB | 12–16 GB+ |
| ARK: Survival Ascended | 12–16 GB | 16 GB+ |
Leave 1 GB or more for the operating system. Watch real usage with htop once players join, and adjust.
4. Storage
SSD storage is essential: world saves and chunk loading are I/O-heavy. Budget space for the game files, worlds (which grow over time) and local backups. 30–60 GB covers most single servers; modpacks and multiple worlds need more.
5. Bandwidth
Game traffic per player is modest — often 50–200 kbps for many games, more for large worlds and voice. A 1 Gbps port with a few terabytes of transfer is plenty for community servers. Downloads of resource packs and mods are the bigger spikes; host them on a CDN if they’re large.
6. DDoS considerations
Popular game servers attract DDoS attacks. Find out what the provider does when an attack hits: whether protection is included or available as an add-on, and whether a server under attack may be temporarily null-routed. For high-profile servers, consider a game-specific protection proxy service in front of your VPS.
7. Operating system and management
- Linux (Ubuntu or Debian) uses fewer resources and is supported by almost every dedicated server binary. Use LinuxGSM or Pterodactyl to manage installs, updates and backups.
- Windows Server is needed for a few games whose servers only run on Windows. It needs more RAM and disk — see our Windows VPS page.
Step-by-step guides:
A quick sizing checklist
- Where are most players? → choose the city.
- Which game, modded or not, how many players? → RAM.
- Main-thread heavy? → prioritize CPU speed over core count.
- How big will worlds get, how many backups? → disk.
- Is the server public and popular? → plan for DDoS.
Our Game Server VPS page shows plans by location. Start with a size that fits your current player count — plans can be upgraded later by ticket as the community grows.