Change Player Slots on Your 7DTD Server

How to adjust max players, reserved slots, and admin slots on your 7 Days to Die dedicated server.

Control how many players can connect to your server at once, plus reserve slots for admins and VIPs.

Setting Max Players

Via Startup Tab

Log in to the XGamingServer Panel
Click Startup in the sidebar
Find the Max Players field and set your desired count
Restart your server

Via serverconfig.xml

<property name="ServerMaxPlayerCount" value="16" />

Reserved Slots

Reserved slots are carved from the max count. They let privileged players join when the public slots are full.

<property name="ServerReservedSlots" value="2" />
<property name="ServerReservedSlotsPermission" value="100" />

Example: max 16, reserved 2 = 14 public slots + 2 reserved for players with permission level 100 or lower.

Admin Slots

Admin slots are extra slots beyond the max count. Admins can always join, even when the server is completely full.

<property name="ServerAdminSlots" value="1" />
<property name="ServerAdminSlotsPermission" value="0" />

Performance Considerations

Players	RAM Impact	Notes
2–4	Low	Good for any server
8	Moderate	Default, works well for most setups
12–16	Significant	May need to reduce `MaxSpawnedZombies`
24–32	Heavy	Requires strong hardware and tuned settings

Each additional player increases:

RAM usage (more chunks loaded)
CPU load (more zombie spawns and AI pathfinding)
Bandwidth consumption

💡 Tip: If performance drops with many players, reduce MaxSpawnedZombies from 64 to 48 or 32. This has the single biggest impact on server performance.

⚠️ Crossplay limit: Crossplay servers are hard-capped at 8 players maximum.