Arma 3 server RAM: how much do you need?
In Arma, AI rather than players drives memory, and that makes it behave differently from everything else on this site.
Recommendation
You need a server with at least
8GB
- Engine / Base OS:
- 4 GB
- Player Overhead:
- +4.0 GB
- Estimated Raw Usage:
- 8 GB
- Suggested cores:
- 4
- Disk to allow:
- 40 GB+
AI pathfinding is the bottleneck and is largely single-threaded. Player count barely matters by comparison.
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What uses the memory in Arma 3
A hundred players with no AI is cheap to host. Ten players alongside several hundred AI units, each doing its own pathfinding and decision-making, is expensive. Big dynamic campaigns are the far end of the scale: they simulate a whole theatre continuously, and their cost keeps rising as the campaign state builds up.
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Where people get it wrong
Counting slots. Check the missions you plan to host instead: a persistent dynamic campaign can want several times the memory of a scenario server with an identical player count, and your mod list sits on top of either.