Palworld Dedicated Server: What Actually Matters

Palworld's dedicated server is a straightforward SteamCMD install, but it behaves differently from most survival servers in two ways: it wants a lot of memory up front, and its save data grows continuously as players build and capture Pals.

Installing it

The dedicated server is Steam app 2394010, available anonymously:

steamcmd +force_install_dir /home/container +login anonymous \
         +app_update 2394010 validate +quit

We provision Palworld instances with 8 GB of RAM and 20 GB of disk as the minimum. Both numbers are deliberate — read on for why the disk figure matters more than it looks.

Memory is not optional here

Palworld holds the world state, every base, and every Pal in memory. Unlike Minecraft, you cannot meaningfully trade view distance for memory. A server that starts fine on 4 GB will degrade as bases grow, and the failure mode is ugly — long hitches, then a crash that can roll back progress.

If you are choosing between more RAM and more CPU cores for Palworld, take the RAM.

The save file problem

This is the one that catches people out. Palworld saves grow with everything players do, and large bases with many Pals inflate them quickly. Two consequences:

• Backups get expensive. Keeping thirty daily snapshots of a large world will use real disk. Plan your retention, do not keep everything forever.
• Save time grows. A big world takes longer to write, and the write is noticeable to players.

Twenty gigabytes is enough for the game plus reasonable backups. It is not enough if you keep every backup you have ever taken.

Settings that affect performance vs. settings that affect difficulty

Most of PalWorldSettings.ini changes how hard the game is, not how fast the server runs. The ones that genuinely touch performance:

• Base and Pal limits per guild — this is your real performance dial. More permitted structures and Pals means more to simulate every tick.
• Player count — each additional player brings their own base, not just their character.
• Autosave interval — too frequent and players feel every save; too rare and a crash costs more progress.

Everything else — capture rates, damage multipliers, day length — costs nothing. Tune those freely.

Updates break things, on purpose

Palworld has shipped updates that change save formats. Two habits will save you:

1. Back up before every update, not after. A backup taken after a broken update is a backup of the broken state.
2. Do not auto-update the moment a patch lands. Give it a day and let someone else find the regression.

We check for Palworld updates every 12 hours rather than continuously, for exactly this reason.