Sizing6 min read
How many players actually fit on a server
Slot counts are marketing. What really limits concurrency is memory per player, tick budget and what those players are doing when they are online.
Slots are a number in a config file. The real limit is whichever runs out first: memory, tick budget, or bandwidth. A plan advertised as supporting forty players supports forty players doing something specific, and the something is rarely stated.
Memory per player is not constant
In most games each connected player costs a fairly small amount directly and a much larger amount indirectly, because they load the world around them. Ten players in one town are cheap. Ten players in ten different places are not, and that is the case worth sizing for.
- Concentrated players share loaded world and cost less.
- Scattered players multiply the loaded area and cost more.
- Building players cost more than fighting players, permanently.
Test rather than trust
Fill the server once with the people you expect and watch the numbers while they play. Twenty minutes of that tells you more than any table, including this one.