Revision history

v1.2: Jul 2026 — Expanded the detailed-settings (PalWorldSettings.ini) location and steps; added the World data migration chapter.
v1.1: Jul 2026 — Updated for the Palworld 1.0 release; added the voice chat (bEnableVoiceChat) setting.
v1.0: Jul 2026 — Initial version

Ordering and logging in to the game panel

Once your payment is complete, your server is built automatically and delivered ready to use. It is usually available within a few minutes to a few tens of minutes, and we notify you by email when it is ready.All server operations are done from the game panel in your browser.

Using the details in your order confirmation email, log in to the game panel.
After logging in, select your Palworld server.
On the "Console" screen you can check the server's status and logs.

The game panel's display language can be changed to Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean and more. Switch it from your account settings after logging in.

Set the admin password

First, set an admin password. This is the most important setting on a Palworld server.The admin password is used for two things:

Using admin commands in-game (/AdminPassword)
Performing management actions from the game panel console, such as kicking players or safely stopping the server

Set it on the game panel's Startup screen. Enter a hard-to-guess string in the "[SERVER] Admin / RCON Password" field (your input is saved automatically and takes effect when the server starts).

The join password Server Password (join) (left) and the admin Admin / RCON Password (right) are separate things. The values in the image are samples.

The admin password is the key to both in-game admin rights and server management. Do not share it or make it public. Never run a public server with the default value — always change it.

Start the server

Once your settings are done, press "Start" on the game panel console screen. The first startup can take a little while as the world is generated.You will see logs scrolling in the console as startup progresses. After a short wait, the server will be ready for players to join.

When changing server settings, it is safest to stop the server first. Changing settings while it is running can cause them to be overwritten at the next save.

Join the server

In Palworld you can join a server in one of the following ways. Your server's connection details (IP address and port) are shown on the server detail screen in the game panel.

Join from the community server list

From the Palworld title screen, open "Join Online" → "Community Servers" and search for the server name you set. Select your server from the results and join. If you set a password, you will be asked for it when joining.

Join by entering the IP address directly

If your server does not appear in the community list, or you want to be sure you connect, a direct connection is convenient. On the "Join" screen, enter the server address in the form IP address:port (e.g. 203.0.113.10:8211) to join.

Cross-play with PS5 and Xbox

Palworld supports cross-play across PC, PS5 and Xbox. Because our servers are listed in the community server list, friends on different platforms can join from that same list.

Set a join password for the server

If you want to play with friends only, set a join password. In Palworld, this is [SERVER] Server Password (join).

Open Startup from the left menu.
Enter a password in the [SERVER] Server Password (join) field (alphanumerics, hyphens, and underscores only). Your input is saved automatically.
Restart the server to apply the change. From then on, the world becomes private and players must enter this password when joining.
To remove the password, clear the field and restart the server.

Variables on the Startup screen. Each card shows the configured value and its description (Palworld example).

If you cannot join, check that the server has fully started and that the server name and password are correct. See the "Troubleshooting" chapter for details.

Main server settings

From the game panel's Startup screen, you can change commonly used settings, each with a plain-language description. The main items available in the panel are:

Server name — the name shown in the community list
Server password — the password required to join (leave blank to let anyone join)
Max players — how many can play at once (Palworld's limit is 32)
Raids (invaders) on/off — toggles invader events

Detailed game balance such as difficulty, EXP rate and capture rate is not available in the panel, so it is changed by editing the config file directly. See "Changing more detailed settings" below for the steps.Changes take effect after you restart the server.

Enable voice chat (new in the 1.0 release)

Palworld's full release (1.0) added in-game voice chat (proximity voice). On our servers you can turn it on with just a few clicks from a startup variable in the game panel.

Newly built servers ship with this set to False (disabled). To use voice chat, switch it to True as follows.

Open the Startup tab in the game panel.
Under Variables, set [SERVER] Voice Chat (bEnableVoiceChat) to True.
Restart the server and voice chat will be enabled.

Setting the Voice Chat startup variable to True on the game panel's Startup tab — Set "Voice Chat (bEnableVoiceChat)" to True on the game panel's Startup tab

Proximity voice means your voice only reaches players near you in the world. To change how far voices carry, edit VoiceChatMaxVolumeDistance (full volume up to this distance) and VoiceChatZeroVolumeDistance (silent at this distance) in the PalWorldSettings.ini config file.

To use voice chat, both the server and each player must also enable it in-game. Leaving the variable blank keeps the game default (off). Also, the Microsoft Store / PC Game Pass (WinGDK) build does not support in-game voice chat.

Changing more detailed settings

Palworld has over 100 detailed settings. Detailed game balance such as difficulty, EXP rate and capture rate is not available in the panel, so you change it by editing the PalWorldSettings.ini config file directly. In the game panel's file browser, open Pal → Saved → Config → LinuxServer, and you will find PalWorldSettings.ini inside.

The DefaultPalWorldSettings.ini in the server's install root is a sample bundled with the game. Editing it has no effect on your settings. Be sure to edit Pal/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/PalWorldSettings.ini instead.

Edit it with the following steps.

Stop the server from the game panel console.
Open Pal/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/PalWorldSettings.ini in the file browser.
Within the single OptionSettings=(……) line, change the value of the item you want to adjust.
Save, and start the server.

Common setting keys are below. Enter values in the six-decimal-place format (e.g. 1.500000).

Difficulty — Difficulty
EXP rate — ExpRate (e.g. ExpRate=2.000000 for 2x)
Capture rate — PalCaptureRate
Pal damage taken multiplier — PalDamageRateDefense
How fast a Pal's hunger drops — PalStomachDecreaceRate

Keep the file in its two-line form: a heading on the first line and OptionSettings=(……) on the second. Adding lines, or breaking the parentheses or commas, will — by Palworld's design — reset all server settings to their defaults.

Our servers validate and repair the config file on every startup, so items you add manually are preserved and are less likely to disappear after updates.

Advanced Tuning for Power Users (To Further Reduce Stuttering)

Diagram: why a Palworld server feels heavy and what helps. Core processing (world sync and base management) tends to concentrate in one place and is hard to distribute, so even with spare total CPU a brief stall causes rubber-banding. Settings tuning directly reduces rubber-banding; a higher plan is the foundation for concurrent players and large-world stability. Different roles, no conflict, best combined. Common to large-scale multiplayer games, not a Palworld-specific problem.

Why a server “feels heavy” — and what helps

① Processing inside the server

Core processingWorld sync and base management

Tends to concentrate in one place (= hard to distribute)

↑ The more bases and Pals, the more this gets congested

Other processingNetworking, loading, connections, etc.

NetworkingLoadingConnections

↑ Split across multiple cores and processed in parallel

Even with spare total CPU, a brief spike in core processing triggers “rollback (rubber-banding)”.

② What helps — two different roles, best used together

Lighten the “core processing”

Settings tuning

Base worker count, save interval, sync distance, etc.
(free, try it right away)

Directly reduces rubber-banding

Add “overall headroom”

Higher plan (cores and memory)

The “foundation” for concurrent
players and large-world stability

Boosts concurrency and total capacity

These two don’t conflict. Tuning directly curbs rubber-banding, and a higher plan raises scale and stability — using both is the most comfortable.

The larger the base, the more core processing gets congested.
※ This tendency is common to games built for large-scale multiplayer and is not a Palworld-specific problem. This diagram reflects observations on our own servers and is not an official statement from the developer, Pocketpair.

Operating a large world with many players and numerous Pals causes each game-engine cycle to take longer, making rubber-banding - those brief rollbacks - more likely. Below are advanced settings to reduce that internal-processing load. If your plan's performance provides the foundation to "run a large world comfortably," these adjustments "lightly optimize that world," and work best in combination. Since some settings affect game rules, please adjust them to your preference (values can be restored anytime).

⚠️ Always stop the server before editing, and start it after editing. Editing while running may cause Palworld to write back the old settings on shutdown, and your changes may not save. See section 5.2 for basic editing steps and file locations.

Edit in order: Stop → edit → Start. First, stop the server.

A. World Settings (PalWorldSettings.ini) - High Impact

Open the same Pal/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/PalWorldSettings.ini as in section 5.2, and modify the relevant values inside OptionSettings=(...).

OptionSettings in PalWorldSettings.ini. Modify the values of BaseCampWorkerMaxNum and AutoSaveSpan (passwords etc. in the image are masked).

Setting Key	Default → Recommended	Effect (Game Impact)
BaseCampWorkerMaxNum	15 → 8〜10	★ Most effective. Reduces Pals working at your base, lightening constant pathfinding load (base automation will be slightly less active).
AutoSaveSpan (seconds)	30 → 300〜600	Lowers the frequency of brief stutters from auto-save (rare rollback points may be slightly older).
ServerReplicatePawnCullDistance	15000 → 8000〜10000	Reduces sync and network traffic from distant Pals (distant Pal appearance changes).
PalSpawnNumRate	1.0 → 0.8〜0.9	Reduces wild Pal spawning.
DropItemMaxNum / DropItemAliveMaxHours	3000→2000 / 1.0→0.3〜0.5	Reduces dropped-item tracking.

📝 The number of concurrent players is set not in the ini, but in the panel's Startup tab at [SERVER] Max Players. The panel value takes priority at startup, so changes to the ini won't apply (same for server name and password - configure those in the panel).

B. Rendering & GC Stabilization (Engine.ini)

Open Engine.ini from the same folder (it exists, but add the following section at the end if these entries are missing), save, and start.

Add rendering, network, and GC stabilization blocks to Engine.ini.

[/script/engine.engine]
bUseFixedFrameRate=True
FixedFrameRate=60.000000
[/script/onlinesubsystemutils.ipnetdriver]
NetServerMaxTickRate=60
[/script/engine.garbagecollectionsettings]
gc.TimeBetweenPurgingPendingKillObjects=60

Reduces CPU spikes from frame fluctuation and momentary stalls from periodic garbage collection (memory cleanup) - a contributor to hitches.

💡 Launch options are already optimized. Server launch options (multithreading, etc.) are optimized by us, so no action is needed on your part.

No improvement? - Please contact support without hesitation. We'll check infrastructure factors and other points beyond your config tuning. See section 07, "Backups and Scheduled Restarts," for operational measures (daily auto-restart, backup frequency).

Console and admin commands

From the game panel console screen, you can send admin commands to the server: check, kick and ban players, announce to everyone, save, safely stop, and more. These operations use the admin password you set in Chapter 02.Examples of common commands:

ShowPlayers — list the players currently connected
Broadcast <message> — send a message to everyone
Save — save the world
Shutdown <seconds> — stop the server after a warning

Palworld commands are case-sensitive. Save works but save does not. Enter them exactly as written.

Backups and scheduled restarts

Depending on your plan, our servers keep 3 to 30 generations of backups. From the backup screen in the game panel you can restore your world with a single click — reassuring if you accidentally lose a base or data.

Palworld servers tend to use gradually more memory the longer they run continuously. Using the game panel's schedule feature to set an automatic restart every 6 to 12 hours helps keep performance stable.How to set up a schedule →

Applying updates

Palworld updates (patches) are applied by simply restarting your server. The latest build is downloaded and applied automatically on startup, so no manual SteamCMD operations are needed.

[SYSTEM] Auto Update on Boot (Startup tab / default: on): toggles auto-update on boot. Turn it off only if you want to pin a specific version.
[SYSTEM] Validate Files on Update (repair) (default: off): re-fetch with a file-integrity check (repair mode). If startup problems occur, turn it on temporarily, restart, then turn it back off.

When the game client updates, players may be unable to join until the server is on the same version. If that happens, restart the server.

Migrating world data

You can also move a world you are already playing to your BESTNET-GSERVER Palworld server. The steps, and how much can be carried over, depend on where you are migrating from.

If you would rather not do this yourself, use our World Migration Import service. Just upload your world data and we will handle the import for you (covers migrations from another dedicated server or from a home-hosted co-op game). It is free for customers switching from another host or signing up as a new customer (standard world sizes; unusually large or custom setups are quoted individually). To request it, open a support ticket and mention that you would like the world migration service. See the Palworld server page → for details.

World migration depends heavily on Palworld's own behavior. We provide guidance and best-effort support within what is possible, but we cannot guarantee that a migration will succeed or that all data will carry over. Before you start, take a backup on both the source and the destination.

What carries over, by source:

Another provider's dedicated server / your own SteamCMD dedicated server — both the world and players carry over (the host character does not need to be recreated).
Steam co-op (playing together via an invite code) / console (PS5, Xbox) or the Microsoft Store / Game Pass build — the host's player character (level, gear, owned Pals, guild) cannot be carried over as-is and is created anew. Community tools may transfer it in some cases, but that is outside our support.

Migration from a dedicated server (another provider, or your own SteamCMD) is done as follows.

Download the alphanumeric-named folder inside Pal/Saved/SaveGames/0/ on the source server.
Start your BESTNET server once and then stop it, to generate the initial save.
With the server stopped, upload the world folder to Pal/Saved/SaveGames/0/ (SFTP is convenient for large data). Do not include WorldOption.sav — this lets our settings take priority.
Set DedicatedServerName= in Pal/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/GameUserSettings.ini to match the uploaded folder's name.
Start the server and check that the world has loaded.

Always do this work with the server stopped. Migration from a console or the Microsoft Store / Game Pass build needs a community tool to carry over the character and the steps differ, so please contact us via a support ticket first.

Troubleshooting

Cannot join the server

Check in the console that the server has fully started; right after startup you may not be able to join. If it does not appear in the community list, try the direct connection (IP address:port) from Chapter 04. Typos in the server name or password are also a common cause.

Settings are not applied

Settings take effect when the server is restarted. Changes made while it is running may not apply, so stop the server, change the setting, and restart. After a world has been created, some game-balance settings may be overwritten by the world's own saved values.

Slow or crashing

There may not be enough memory for the number of players or the state of the world. Set up scheduled restarts (Chapter 07), or consider upgrading to a higher plan. Plan changes keep your data and take just a few minutes.

If that does not resolve it, feel free to contact us via a support ticket. Our Japanese engineers will help.

Next steps

That covers the basic setup. To run your server even more comfortably, take a look at these articles too.