A gaming VPS is sized differently from a web server, and the number that decides everything is RAM per player slot. Get that wrong and no amount of CPU rescues the session.
Xenax KVM VPS starts at ₹599 a month in an Indian data centre with 100 Gbps DDoS protection — which for a game server is not a bonus feature, it is the thing that keeps you online when someone loses.
How much RAM per player, honestly
These are working figures for a vanilla server. Mods change them completely — a heavily modded Minecraft server can want three or four times this.
| Game | Players | RAM |
|---|---|---|
| Minecraft (vanilla) | up to 10 | 2-4 GB |
| Minecraft (modded) | up to 10 | 6-8 GB |
| Counter-Strike 2 | 10-12 | 2 GB |
| Valheim | up to 10 | 4 GB |
| Rust | 50-100 | 8-16 GB |
| ARK | up to 20 | 8-16 GB |
Two things people get wrong here. Running out of RAM does not slow a game server down gracefully — it swaps, then stalls, then the kernel kills it mid-session. And most game servers are single-threaded on the tick loop, so eight slow cores lose to four fast ones.
Latency is about distance, not the plan
Ping is mostly the physical distance between the player and the machine, and no amount of CPU changes it. A server in India serves Indian players at 20-40 ms. The same server serves European players at 120-160 ms and American ones at 200-250 ms, because that is how far the light has to travel.
So put the server where your players are. If your group is in India, an Indian server is not a compromise — it is the only way to get the ping that makes fast games playable. If half your group is in Europe, someone is going to have a worse time whatever you buy, and it is worth deciding in advance who.
Why DDoS protection matters more here than anywhere
Game servers get attacked. Not by sophisticated adversaries — by a player who lost a round and found a booter service for a few dollars. A web host may never see this; a Minecraft server with a public IP will.
What matters is that the filtering happens upstream at the network edge rather than on your machine, because a VPS being hit at 10 Gbps cannot filter its way out of it. Xenax filtering is at the edge, rated to 100 Gbps.
What to look for in a gaming VPS
- Clock speed over core count. The tick loop is usually one thread.
- NVMe, not SATA. World loading and chunk saves are disk-bound and players feel the stutter.
- Dedicated RAM, not shared or burstable. A game server that swaps is a game server that dies.
- Upstream DDoS filtering, with a stated capacity rather than the word “protected”.
- Full root. You will be editing configs, installing mods and restarting on a schedule.
Sizing it in practice
Start one tier above what the table suggests for your player count, run a full session, and watch memory rather than CPU. If you never touch 70% of RAM you can size down at renewal; if you touch 90% during a busy evening you were already too small. Fifteen days is enough to find out, which is the length of the money-back window.
See VPS plans and specifications — from ₹599 a month, full root, NVMe, Indian data centre.
Questions people ask
How much RAM do I need for a game server?
For vanilla Minecraft with up to ten players, 2-4 GB. Modded, 6-8 GB. Counter-Strike 2 runs comfortably in 2 GB, Valheim in 4 GB, and Rust or ARK want 8-16 GB. Mods and player count both push these up quickly.
Is a VPS good enough for a game server?
For most community servers, yes — a KVM VPS gives dedicated RAM and full root, which is what a game server needs. Very large populations or heavily modded worlds eventually want a dedicated machine for the consistent disk and CPU.
What ping will Indian players get?
Roughly 20-40 ms to a server in India, which is comfortable for fast-paced games. European players on the same server see 120-160 ms and American players 200-250 ms, set by distance rather than by the hardware.
Do I need DDoS protection for a gaming VPS?
Yes. Game servers are attacked far more often than websites, usually by players rather than anyone sophisticated. What matters is that filtering happens upstream at the network edge — a server under attack cannot filter its own traffic.
