Game Server Hosting: Minecraft, CS2, Rust — What You Need to Know in 2026

Story is typical: rented a $5 VPS, set up Minecraft server for 10 friends. Week later it was 20 people and lags started. Another week later a DDoS attack from angry banned player hit — provider blocked the IP for 24 hours, players scattered. Month later you're paying $80 to a proper host and happy it at least works.

Game servers aren't a WordPress site. Hardware requirements are harsh, network latency is critical, DDoS attacks are inevitable. Each game has its own specifics you need to understand.

Minecraft: One Thread Against the World

Main beginner mistake — they see servers holding 100-200 players and think "need a CPU with tons of cores". They get an old server Xeon with 24 cores for pennies. Then don't understand why at 30 players the server dies.

Thing is, Minecraft Java Edition uses one CPU thread to process the game world. Everything happening in game — mob spawning, plant growth, redstone circuits, block physics — executes sequentially in one thread. 20 times per second the server must process the entire loaded world and send changes to players. This is called TPS (ticks per second). Normal is exactly 20. If TPS drops below that — players see lag.

That's why for Minecraft CPU frequency matters more than core count. Modern Ryzen 5 5600X with 6 cores at 4.6 GHz will easily beat an ancient Xeon with 24 cores at 2.4 GHz. In real tests on Intel i9-12900K you can hold 200+ players using optimized Paper core. On AMD Ryzen 9 5950X you get 150-180 players. And that same cheap Xeon will pull maximum 80-100 people.

With RAM it all depends on scale. Small vanilla server for 10 friends will survive on 2-4 GB. Server with mods or plugins for 20-50 players requires 8-16 GB. Large server with heavy modpack and hundred players will eat 32-64 GB and ask for more.

Reason for such appetite is chunks — pieces of world 16×16 blocks horizontally. More players spread across the map in different directions, more chunks need to be held in memory simultaneously. Each chunk contains blocks, entities (mobs and items), lighting data, chests and furnaces. Plus Java itself is memory-hungry due to garbage collection.

Disk subsystem plays a huge role. On regular HDD saving a large world takes 30-60 seconds. During this time players experience terrible lag — new chunk generation stops, mobs freeze, blocks break with delay. Moving to SATA SSD improves situation to 5-10 seconds with minimal lag. But NVMe SSD gives save in 1-3 seconds practically without slowdown. For serious server NVMe isn't luxury but necessity.

Network requirements grow proportionally to player count. 10 people online create traffic around 50-100 Mbps. 50 players already require 200-500 Mbps. 100 and more — reach gigabit per second and higher. But it's not just bandwidth that matters, latency too. For Minecraft ping up to 50 ms is considered good, up to 100 ms acceptable, and over 150 ms serious problems start in PvP fights and fast actions.

Counter-Strike 2: When Milliseconds Decide Everything

CS2 is completely different requirements compared to Minecraft. Source 2 engine processes game world at frequency of 64 or 128 ticks per second depending on settings. On server with 128 ticks every 7.8 milliseconds full world update happens — bullets fly along trajectories, players move, grenades explode, damage calculates. Any delay affects shot registration accuracy.

For quality 10v10 server you need CPU minimum with 4 cores at frequency from 3 GHz. RAM sufficient 4-8 GB per one server instance. Disk space will need 20-30 GB for game and map collection. Network channel should stably deliver 100-200 Mbps.

But most important thing in CS2 is latency between player and server. In competitive play difference between 10 and 30 milliseconds ping can decide round outcome. Player with 15 ms ping physically sees opponent earlier and his shots register faster than player with 45 ms ping. Therefore optimal is considered ping below 20 ms, acceptable up to 30 ms, and everything above 50 ms makes competitive play practically impossible.

Where does latency come from? First, physics — light in fiber optic spreads at speed roughly 200 km per millisecond. If player in Moscow and server in New York, minimum physically possible latency is about 35-40 ms one way, meaning 70-80 ms round trip. And that's without accounting real routing through provider nodes.

Second, provider network quality. Cheap VPS at unknown host can have bad peering with backbone carriers. Packets go through extra hops, get lost along the way, delay in queues on congested channels. Specialized gaming datacenters like OVH Game use premium routing with direct connections to major providers which reduces latency by 10-30%.

Third, server load itself. If CPU works at limit processing game logic, network packets delay in buffers. Important to keep CPU utilization below 80% so there's headroom for activity spikes.

Interesting CS2 feature — on one powerful server you can run multiple game instances simultaneously. Machine with 8-12 cores and 16-32 GB memory will easily handle 4-8 CS2 servers parallel, each on its own port. Game files can be shared between instances saving disk space, but RAM each needs its own.

Rust: Hungry Unity and Thousands of Objects

Rust is built on Unity engine known for its resource hunger. Even small server for 50 players with standard map size will require 8-12 GB RAM. Medium server for 100-150 people will eat 16-24 GB. And large popular server for 200+ players with mods will easily consume 32-64 GB.

Map size linearly affects memory consumption. Map size 3000 (area 9 square kilometers) will take less memory than standard map 4000 (16 square kilometers). Large map 5000 or 6000 will require even more resources. During world generation server creates entire landscape, places resources for mining, places monuments and landmarks, lays roads — all this stores in memory permanently.

CPU needs to be powerful enough because Rust continuously processes huge amount of game objects. Each player building consists of separate building blocks. Each block is object requiring processing. Now add doors, turrets, traps, loot boxes, animals, NPCs, helicopters, airdrop containers. On popular server active object count easily measures in tens of thousands. All require update every server frame.

By the way, Rust server has its own FPS — frames per second. Don't confuse with client FPS, this is performance indicator of game logic processing on server. Optimal is considered stable 30+ FPS. If server FPS drops below 20, players start experiencing object teleportation, noticeable action delays, desynchronization between client and server.

Disk system regularly loads during automatic world state saving. On fast NVMe SSD full save of large server takes roughly 5-15 seconds. On ancient HDD such operation would stretch to minutes and all players would disconnect on timeout. Plus Rust regularly updates — every month comes wipe when map completely clears and regenerates anew. Updates require server restart and installed plugin compatibility check.

Network requirements in Rust are quite serious. 50 players create traffic around 200-300 Mbps. 100 active players already reach level 500 Mbps to 1 Gbps. 200 people on large map will easily eat 1-2 Gbps channel. On latency Rust is of course more tolerant than CS2 but still demanding. Ping up to 80 ms is considered good, up to 120 ms quite playable, but above 200 ms serious desynchronization problems start.

DDoS Attacks: Question Not "If" But "When"

One of most unpleasant surprises for beginners in game hosting is DDoS attacks. Many naively think their small server for 20 friends interests nobody. This is dangerous delusion.

Real statistics show that 60-80% of game servers experience DDoS attacks already in first month of operation. Reasons vary widely. Competition between servers especially noticeable in Minecraft and Rust — owners attack rival servers to steal players. Angry players after ban decide to revenge on administration. Teenagers who found botnet in darknet for $5 per hour decided to have fun. Extortionists demand ransom under attack threat.

Average attack on game server is 10-50 Gbps. This is huge flow of garbage traffic that clogs channel and makes server completely unavailable for legitimate players. Large attacks easily reach 100-300 Gbps. There were cases of terabit attacks on especially popular servers with thousands of players. Duration varies from several minutes to several days or even weeks of continuous bombardment.

Most common attack type is UDP flood. Attacker using botnet generates millions of meaningless UDP packets per second aimed at your server IP. Provider channel instantly clogs with garbage and legitimate game traffic simply cannot get through. Hard to defend because UDP packets structurally look almost identical to normal game traffic.

SYN flood attacks the OS TCP connection table. Millions of artificially created half-open connections exhaust system resources and server stops accepting new connections. Firewall rules and Linux kernel settings help but only up to certain attack scale.

Application layer attacks (Layer 7) are trickiest. Botnet realistically mimics behavior of real players. Bots connect to server, spam in chat, create connection and disconnection flood. Technically distinguishing such attack from sudden influx of real new players is very difficult — requires deep analysis of specific game protocol.

Amplification attacks use vulnerable public services like open DNS or NTP servers. Attacker spoofs source IP address and sends small request to vulnerable server which responds with large packet to victim address. Amplification factor can reach 100 times — sent 1 Gbps of requests, got 100 Gbps of attack on target.

Now about real protection. Cheap $5 per month VPS has absolutely no DDoS protection. First 20 Gbps attack and provider will automatically put your IP in nullroute for 24 hours to protect their own network. Your server becomes unavailable, all players disconnect, start leaving to competitors, reputation goes to hell.

Datacenters with medium protection level offer automatic filtering of attacks up to 10-20 Gbps for additional $20-50 per month. This is noticeably better than nothing but at 50 Gbps attack your server will still fly to nullroute. Advanced protection from companies like Path.net, OVH Game or Voxility can filter attacks up to 50-300 Gbps with smart filtering at game protocol level. Such pleasure will cost $50-200 monthly.

Enterprise level protection from CloudFlare Spectrum or AWS Shield Advanced offers terabit capacities, machine learning for detecting new attack types, global network of points of presence. Cost starts from $200 and can easily reach several thousand per month.

Critically important to understand that DDoS protection isn't option for serious game project. It's absolute necessity. Question isn't whether there will be attacks, but when they'll start and how intense they'll be.

Optimization: +50-100% Performance

Proper optimization of server software and settings can give 50-100% performance gain compared to default installations. These are real measurable numbers confirmed by experience of thousands of servers.

For Minecraft first and most important step is choosing right server core. Official vanilla core from Mojang works but extremely inefficiently uses resources. Paper or more advanced Purpur are modified versions with deep optimization that give 30-50% gain with full compatibility with all plugins. For servers with mods there's Fabric (lightweight and fast) and classic Forge (heavy but with huge mod library).

Settings in configuration file are critically important. Render distance parameter by default stands at 10 chunks, but can safely reduce to 8 or even 6 without noticeable quality loss with serious load reduction. Simulation distance in newer versions controls at what distance game logic of mobs and redstone works — also can reduce. Entity activation radius can shrink for different mob types reducing their update frequency when no players nearby.

Proper Java virtual machine launch flags can give huge gain. Famous Aikar flags are carefully selected parameter set that optimizes G1GC garbage collector work, reduces pauses, improves memory distribution. Instead of simple java -jar server.jar need to use java -Xms8G -Xmx8G -XX:+UseG1GC -XX:+ParallelRefProcEnabled -XX:MaxGCPauseMillis=200 with dozen additional parameters.

Optimization plugins can additionally reduce load. FarmControl limits mob count on automated farms that create insane load. EntityCulling doesn't process entities player physically cannot see. Spark is profiler that shows exact performance bottlenecks.

For Counter-Strike 2 optimization starts with server launch parameters. Update rate (tickrate) 128 gives more accurate shot registration than 64 but requires more CPU resources. Query flood protection parameter prevents certain attack type. Sleep mode option when server has no players saves system resources.

Network settings also matter. Minimum and maximum data transfer rate per player control bandwidth — maximum can remove for lifting restrictions and minimizing delays. Command rate parameters should match server update rate for optimal synchronization.

On powerful dedicated server you can and should run multiple parallel CS2 instances. 4-8 simultaneous servers on different ports with shared memory for game files allows maximally efficient use of available hardware.

For Rust optimization starts with reasonable map size choice. World size 3500 instead of default 4000 gives noticeably less load with quite sufficient play area. Maximum player count should set realistic that your hardware will actually pull. Server FPS limit parameter — 30 FPS quite sufficient and reduces CPU load.

Oxide and uMod plugins need use wisely and carefully. Each plugin adds its load from 20% to 40% in sum. Building decay disable plugin reduces object update count. Stack size increase reduces separate item count in world. Removal tool lets admins remove old abandoned buildings freeing resources.

Game object management is key point for Rust. Game creates thousands of objects: buildings, loot, animals, NPCs. Old destroyed buildings physically disappear but their objects can remain in memory. Regular manual or automatic cleanup is critically important for maintaining performance of long-running server.

Result of proper comprehensive optimization is truly impressive. Same physical server after competent tuning can hold 1.5-2 times more players with same smoothness and stability.

Geography and Datacenter Choice

Physical location of game server relative to your players isn't detail you can ignore. It's fundamental factor that directly determines gaming experience quality.

Light in fiber optic cable spreads at speed roughly 200 km per millisecond. This means distance from Moscow to Frankfurt (about 1800 km) gives minimum physically possible latency about 9 ms one way. In reality accounting for routing through provider nodes ping from Moscow to Frankfurt is 50-60 ms. To Amsterdam slightly less — 40-50 ms. To London 60-70 ms. But to New York on another continent already 120-140 ms, to Los Angeles almost 200 ms, to Singapore all 250 ms.

For players from CIS countries optimal choice is datacenters in Moscow (ping 1-5 ms for locals, 30-50 ms for neighboring countries), Warsaw or Frankfurt. For European audience best fit is Frankfurt, Amsterdam or Paris with their developed network infrastructure. American players divide into east and west coast — for East Coast optimal is New York or Ashburn, for West Coast Los Angeles or Seattle. Asian audience gravitates to Singapore, Tokyo or Seoul.

Large successful game projects with international audience often launch multiple parallel servers in different geographic regions with proxy balancer or automatic nearest server selection system for each player.

Specific provider network infrastructure quality plays no less role than geography. Not all datacenters created equal even in one city. OVH Game known for its special gaming routing with optimized low-latency routes to major internet providers. Cheap no-name VPS host can have terrible congested peering through secondary channels with high packet loss and unstable ping.

Can check real quality with simple tools. MTR (My TraceRoute) shows entire packet route from you to server with delays at each node. Long ping test for 1000 packets will show packet loss percentage — good channel gives 0% loss, bad one can lose 1-5%. Jitter measures ping stability — good server shows spread less than 5 ms, bad one 20-50 ms.

Providers with established good reputation in game hosting: OVH Game (datacenters in France and Canada), German Hetzner (servers in Germany and Finland), American NFO Servers, specialized Path.net, Psychz Networks with focus on DDoS protection.

Conclusions

Game hosting in 2026 is specialized field requiring understanding of technical nuances and readiness to invest in proper infrastructure.

For Minecraft critical is CPU frequency not core count because Java uses one thread for game world. Ryzen 5 5600X at 4.6 GHz will give 1.5-2 times more players than old Xeon with bunch of slow cores. Memory needed from 8 GB for medium server to 64 GB for large ones with mods. NVMe SSD is mandatory — difference between 30 seconds on HDD and 2 seconds on NVMe is difference between lag and smooth play.

CS2 requires minimal network latency — difference between 15 and 40 milliseconds decides round outcomes in competitive play. Server location geography is critical: Moscow for CIS, Frankfurt for Europe, New York for American East Coast.

Rust is hungry for all resources due to Unity engine. 200 players on large map require 16 CPU cores, 32-64 GB memory, fast NVMe, 1-2 Gbps channel. Game object management is critical — thousands of buildings load server and require regular cleanup.

DDoS protection is absolute necessity. 60-80% of servers get attacked in first month of operation. Basic VPS without protection guaranteed will go to nullroute at first attack for day killing entire project. Minimum need 10-20 Gbps protection, optimal 50-300 Gbps from specialized providers.

Optimization gives huge gain if done right. Optimized Paper core instead of vanilla Minecraft gives +30-50% performance. Proper Java flags reduce garbage collection pauses. Reasonable render distance and object activation radius settings cut load in half without game quality loss.

For small server for 10-20 friends optimal is managed hosting for $10-20 per month. For medium project for 50-100 players need VPS with protection for $40-65 or entry-level dedicated server. For large project or server network necessary is powerful dedicated for $75-150 per month with proper DDoS protection.

Use proper hardware for specific game. Don't save on DDoS protection. Optimize settings. Choose quality providers in right locations. Only then your project will be stable and successful.