V Rising Server Requirements and RAM Guide

What the server is actually doing with RAM, CPU and disk

Stunlock gives you the server software and the settings, but not an official dedicated-server RAM target for 1.1.x on PC. That is why rental plans look inconsistent at first glance. What matters in practice is how much world state has to stay loaded, how much simulation happens each second, and how often the server writes saves to disk.

RAM is there to hold the live world: connected players, loaded castle territories, servant state, containers, crafting stations, AI state and everything else the world needs to remember without constantly reloading it. CPU time is spent advancing the simulation at the target ServerFps, which Stunlock’s example sets to 30. The busier the world is, the more work the server has to finish inside each of those update steps.

That is also why V Rising is usually more sensitive to single-thread CPU speed than to a big core count. The main world simulation has to keep up in sequence; if that main thread falls behind, combat and raids feel late even when other cores are sitting idle. Extra threads still help with background work and general system breathing room, but they do not replace a strong main thread. If you want the wider hosting context, our game server hardware guide explains why sandbox servers so often bottleneck on the main thread first.

Disk is a different job. V Rising autosaves to compressed .save.gz files, so AutoSaveInterval and AutoSaveCount mostly change write frequency and storage use, not live RAM demand. Short intervals and lots of retained saves put more pressure on disk and can create visible save spikes on slower storage. The dedicated server itself is Windows-only, so for self-hosting you should plan around Windows; if a host runs it on Linux, that is their compatibility layer rather than an official native build.

One thing works in your favour. Stunlock said in March 2026 that content development on V Rising has wrapped up, so what arrives now is balance and bug-fix patches. A big new system is unlikely to change these sizing rules overnight.

The castle maths: why offline bases decide your plan

The easiest mistake with V Rising hosting is to size for player count alone. A quiet server with few castles can hold more people than a build-heavy world with the same slot cap, because castles stay part of the loaded world even when the owners log off. That means floor limits, structures, inventories, servant activity and territory state keep adding to memory use and simulation work.

By default, CastleLimit is 2 and ClanSize is 4. That sounds harmless until you multiply it out. A full default-sized clan can therefore spread across up to 8 castle territories if you allow every member to use both hearts. Multiply that pattern across the whole server and the world gets heavy long before the slot count looks scary.

• 10 players × 2 castles = 20 castle territories
• 20 players with CastleLimit 3 = up to 60 castle territories
• 40 players × 2 castles = 80 castle territories
• 40 players at 1 castle each = 40 castle territories

That last comparison is the key rule. Halving CastleLimit from 2 to 1 roughly halves total castle load, which often matters more than trimming a few slots. It is not perfectly linear because one huge, servant-packed castle costs more than one modest outpost, but the direction is reliable: fewer territories means less world to keep loaded.

Servants add another layer. ServantLimit is set per castle heart level, so a community with lots of fully developed castles will be heavier than a PvP world where players build lean and lose bases regularly. If abandoned castles are cluttering the map, raising CastleDecayRateModifier above 1.0 helps clear unfuelled ruins sooner. The trade-off is obvious: neglected active-player castles also get less grace.

This is the part worth visualising, because the same player count can produce very different world weight.

Practical RAM tiers for renting a V Rising server

Use these as practical allowances from hosts’ guidance, not official minimums. The numbers make sense only when you read them alongside castle load, build style and mods.

The practical reading is simple. 6 GB is the sensible vanilla floor for a real clan server, 8 GB is the safe floor for mods or a server growing towards about 20 players, and 10-12 GB is where many public communities stop worrying about ordinary growth. 4 GB is not useless, but it is a budget edge case, not a comfortable default.

Slots, RAM and CPU are three different limits

Hosts usually sell V Rising plans in one of two ways: by slots or by RAM. Slot-billed plans make the admission cap obvious, while RAM-billed plans make the hardware allowance obvious. Neither tells the whole story on its own.

MaxConnectedUsers is often shown with the example value 40, and Stunlock says the technical maximum supported is 128. That is a connection limit, not a promise that the world will feel good at that number. A 40-slot world full of sprawling castles can be heavier than a stricter 60-slot world with one castle per player and quick decay. Size for peak concurrent players, not for the total headcount in your Discord.

The other common mistake is paying for more slots on the same CPU and expecting raids to improve. Slots only let more people join. If raid lag is caused by the main simulation thread running out of time, adding slots without improving CPU performance changes nothing except how many people can suffer it at once.

Ask what CPU allocation is included. A London plan in our comparison lists 10 GB of RAM, 2 CPU threads and 10 GB of NVMe storage, which is the level of detail you want before you pay. For V Rising, fast per-thread performance matters more than a long thread list.

If you want a simple buying rule, use slots to match expected concurrency, RAM to match world growth, and CPU quality to judge raid smoothness. If one of those is weak, the other two do not cancel it out.

Settings that change the bill more than people expect

V Rising splits server settings between ServerHostSettings.json for hosting details and ServerGameSettings.json for gameplay rules. Defaults live in VRisingServer_Data/StreamingAssets/Settings/, while your overrides go in the Settings folder under the persistent data path. The settings below are the ones that most often change what you need to rent.

Two short examples, using only documented keys and example values:

{
  "Name": "Clan server",
  "Port": 27015,
  "QueryPort": 27016,
  "MaxConnectedUsers": 40,
  "MaxConnectedAdmins": 4,
  "ServerFps": 30,
  "LowerFPSWhenEmpty": true,
  "LowerFPSWhenEmptyValue": 15,
  "AutoSaveInterval": 120,
  "AutoSaveCount": 20
}

{
  "ClanSize": 4,
  "CastleLimit": 2,
  "CastleDecayRateModifier": 1.0,
  "InactivityKillEnabled": true
}

How do you tell a setting change actually helped? Watch the resource that setting targets. CastleLimit and decay changes should reduce world clutter and lower memory growth over restart cycles. LowerFPSWhenEmpty should lower idle CPU only. ServerFps changes show up as reduced CPU pressure, but the trade-off is player-facing responsiveness, so it is usually the last lever to pull rather than the first.

Mods push you up a tier, and PC and PS5 servers are separate

V Rising has no Steam Workshop support for servers. Mods are usually done through BepInEx, commonly distributed through Thunderstore, which means a modded server is not just “vanilla plus extras”. It is more code running inside the same world loop, often with more state to hold and more hooks firing during events and saves.

That is why hosts’ guidance tends to put modded servers at 8 GB+ from the start. Even if the player count is still small, mod frameworks reduce your headroom and make version mismatches more painful. In practical terms, treat a modded server as one tier higher than the same server would need in vanilla.

Patch discipline matters more with mods as well. Back up saves before patching, and remember that some hosts only apply updates on restart. V Rising can run for days, but Stunlock recommends a daily restart anyway, which also helps with memory creep.

Finally, PC and PS5 are separate server branches and do not crossplay. If your community spans both platforms, that is not a settings problem; it is a separate server decision.

Self-hosting on the same PC you play on

If you are thinking about self-hosting a game server from your gaming PC, remember that the V Rising client itself lists 12 GB RAM for both minimum and recommended play. The dedicated server then needs its own share on top of that: 6 GB for a small vanilla world, 8 GB for mods or around 20 players, and more again once castles spread. On one machine, those demands stack rather than overlap.

CPU contention is the other catch. Your local client and the server both want fast cores at the same time, and the server’s main world thread does not stop being important because the player is local. That is why self-hosting can feel fine while building alone and then fall apart once combat, AI and multiple castles are active together.

The official dedicated server is free through Steam Tools or SteamCMD as App ID 1829350, and for self-hosting you should plan on Windows because the official server binary is VRisingServer.exe. Open or forward the UDP game port and QueryPort if you want the server to appear in the list; Stunlock’s examples use UDP 27015 for the game and UDP 27016 for QueryPort. Direct connect only needs the game port, while RCON is a separate TCP service, off by default, and needs a password.

For a clan world, self-hosting only makes sense if the machine can stay on all the time, save reliably, and restart daily at a quiet hour. If you plan to run more than one V Rising world on the same machine, give each one its own -persistentDataPath and its own pair of ports.

Reading the signs before the server outgrows its plan

When V Rising starts feeling bad, the fix is easier if you identify the bottleneck first. Look for the pattern rather than reacting to a single complaint.

Use these thresholds as upgrade triggers rather than waiting for a failure: RAM consistently above 85%, CPU regularly above 80%, or peak population at 75% of slots. On a home connection, network upload can also mimic server lag, but on managed hosting the first checks are usually RAM, main-thread CPU and storage behaviour.

What V Rising server plans cost right now

In our V Rising server hosting comparison, these are the plan shapes and prices that map most clearly to the sizing advice above. Use them to compare billing models as much as raw price.

Conversion used: £1 = $1.33

Tune it or upgrade?

The order matters. Fix castle sprawl before blaming slots, and fix CPU bottlenecks before paying for extra admission capacity. If your ruleset is already lean and the usage thresholds keep being crossed, that is when the upgrade becomes the cheaper option than constant firefighting.

V Rising server FAQ

How much RAM does a V Rising server need?

There is no official RAM figure from Stunlock for the dedicated server. In practical host guidance, 6 GB is a good vanilla starting tier for small groups, 8 GB is safer for modded servers or worlds growing towards about 20 players, 10-12 GB suits many 20-30 player servers, and busy 30-40 player communities often want 12 GB+ or 14 GB+.

Is 4GB enough for a V Rising server?

It can be enough for a very small vanilla PvE server, especially in the 1-8 player range, but headroom is tight. Once players build multiple castles, leave offline bases loaded for days, or add mods, 4 GB becomes the tier most likely to hit the wall first.

How many players can a V Rising server hold?

MaxConnectedUsers is often set with the example value 40, and Stunlock says the technical maximum supported is 128. Real capacity depends less on the headline slot figure than on castle count, servants, raid activity and how strict your rules are on abandoned bases.

Does V Rising need a fast CPU or more cores?

A fast CPU thread matters more than a large core count. V Rising’s world simulation has to keep up at the target ServerFps, so raid smoothness usually depends on how well the main thread holds that pace rather than on how many spare cores exist elsewhere.

Can I run a V Rising server on the same PC I play on?

Yes, but only if the machine has enough spare RAM and CPU after the game client takes its share. The client itself wants 12 GB RAM, and the server needs additional memory on top, so same-PC hosting works best for small private worlds rather than busy community servers.

More V Rising server guides

Compare hosts for your castle world, or read up on server hardware.