Palworld Non-Dedicated Server Frame Drop When Friend Joins: How to Fix Co-Op Lag

Palworld is one of those games that can easily steal an entire weekend. You jump in thinking you’ll catch a few Pals, then suddenly you’re redesigning your base for the fifth time while your production line refuses to work the way you planned. Playing solo is already fun, but the game becomes much more entertaining once friends join the adventure. Unfortunately, that’s also when many players discover one of Palworld’s biggest technical frustrations.

I’ve seen this happen countless times. The game starts at a smooth 100 FPS, everything feels responsive, and then the second another player connects, performance completely falls apart. Instead of exploring together, you’re trying to survive a battle against frame drops, random stuttering, and sluggish controls. If this sounds familiar, you’re definitely not the only one dealing with it.

The good news is that this problem isn’t usually caused by weak hardware alone. In most cases, it’s simply the way Palworld handles non-dedicated multiplayer hosting. After reading countless player discussions and testing different settings myself, I’ve found several methods that noticeably improve performance.

Palworld Multiplayer Co-op Not Loading: 7 Proven Workarounds to Fix Stuck Loading Screen

Why Does FPS Drop So Much in a Non-Dedicated Server?

The biggest misunderstanding is thinking that joining a friend’s world only adds another player to the map. In reality, the host’s PC suddenly receives a much heavier workload.

Instead of simply rendering the game, your computer is also responsible for acting as the multiplayer server. Every movement, inventory update, Pal action, combat calculation, crafting task, and AI decision has to be synchronized between every connected player. The more activity taking place, the harder your CPU has to work.

Things become even worse if your world is already well-developed. Large automated farms, dozens of working Pals, breeding stations, production lines, and storage systems all continue running in the background. Add another player exploring different regions, and your hardware quickly reaches its limits.

From my experience, this explains why some players see their frame rate cut in half the moment someone joins, even if they own relatively powerful gaming PCs.

Restarting the Session Actually Helps

It sounds almost too simple, but restarting Palworld remains one of the most reliable temporary fixes.

The longer a multiplayer session lasts, the more memory the game consumes. After an hour or so, performance often becomes noticeably worse than it was at launch. Closing the game completely clears the accumulated memory usage and usually restores the original FPS.

If you’re planning a long co-op session, get into the habit of restarting every hour or two. It isn’t the perfect solution, but it’s surprisingly effective.

Quick Routine Before Continuing Your Adventure

• Save your world.
• Exit to the desktop.
• Close Palworld completely.
• Launch it again.
• Invite your friends back.

It only takes a couple of minutes but can recover a significant amount of lost performance.

Lower the Settings That Actually Matter

Many people immediately reduce texture quality or shadows, expecting huge improvements. Surprisingly, those options often aren’t the biggest problem when hosting multiplayer.

Instead, focus on settings that reduce the amount of world simulation your computer performs.

Recommended Settings

• Use Exclusive Fullscreen instead of Borderless Window.
• Reduce the maximum dropped items allowed in the world.
• Keep Pal spawn rates at default or lower.
• Disable raids if you don’t absolutely need them.
• Avoid increasing world simulation values beyond their defaults.

These changes don’t dramatically reduce image quality, but they can noticeably decrease CPU load while hosting friends.

Your Base Might Be the Real Problem

One thing I underestimated early on was just how expensive large bases become.

It’s satisfying to create a giant automated factory with dozens of worker Pals constantly transporting resources, cooking food, mining ore, and crafting equipment. The problem is that every single Pal continues running AI calculations almost nonstop.

When another player joins, all those background systems still need to function while the game also synchronizes multiplayer data.

If your base feels alive with activity, your processor is probably doing far more work than you realize.

Reduce Base Load

• Store worker Pals you aren’t actively using.
• Remove unnecessary production chains.
• Simplify extremely large building layouts.
• Avoid leaving dozens of breeding farms running continuously.
• Keep inactive bases as minimal as possible.

Personally, trimming one overcrowded production base gave me a larger FPS improvement than lowering graphical settings ever did.

Don’t Ignore Background Applications

Modern gaming PCs are powerful, but they also tend to run dozens of applications in the background without us noticing.

When hosting Palworld, every bit of available processing power matters.

Before launching a multiplayer session, I usually close anything that isn’t necessary.

Applications Worth Closing

• Web browsers with multiple tabs open.
• RGB control software.
• Hardware monitoring utilities.
• Streaming applications.
• Recording software.
• File synchronization programs.

Even overlays deserve attention. Programs like Discord Overlay, Xbox Game Bar, Steam Overlay, or NVIDIA ShadowPlay constantly hook into your game. Individually they may only consume a small amount of resources, but together they can contribute to lower frame rates.

Keep Drivers Updated

Graphics drivers won’t magically solve every performance issue, but outdated drivers can absolutely make things worse.

Both NVIDIA and AMD regularly release updates that improve stability for newer games. If your FPS problems suddenly appeared after installing a recent driver, consider performing a clean reinstall rather than simply updating over the previous version.

Many experienced PC gamers prefer using Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) before installing fresh graphics drivers because it removes leftover files that sometimes create unexpected performance issues. It’s not necessary for everyone, but it’s worth trying if you’ve exhausted the easier fixes.

Watch Your RAM Usage

One thing that surprised me while monitoring Palworld was how much memory it can consume.

Solo play is already demanding, but multiplayer pushes RAM usage even higher. Once the system starts running out of available memory, stuttering becomes much more frequent regardless of how powerful your graphics card is.

Open Task Manager after your friends join and keep an eye on memory consumption.

If you’re regularly hitting your RAM limit, closing browsers and other applications can sometimes recover more FPS than changing graphics settings.

Dedicated Servers Deliver the Best Experience

Eventually, there comes a point where tweaking settings simply isn’t enough.

If you and your friends plan to invest dozens or even hundreds of hours into one world, moving to a dedicated server is probably the smartest decision.

Instead of asking your gaming PC to both render the game and run the multiplayer server simultaneously, a dedicated server separates those tasks.

Benefits of a Dedicated Server

• Smoother gameplay.
• Fewer FPS drops.
• Better world synchronization.
• Reduced stuttering.
• More stable long gaming sessions.

You can host a dedicated server yourself using another computer, create one locally with SteamCMD, or rent an inexpensive server online. Once I switched away from non-dedicated hosting, the overall experience became dramatically smoother, especially during boss fights and large-scale base management.

Final Thoughts

I genuinely enjoy Palworld, and despite its technical quirks, it’s still one of the most addictive survival games I’ve played in recent years. The creature collecting, exploration, automation, and base building all come together in a way that’s difficult to put down. That’s exactly why it’s frustrating when multiplayer performance gets in the way of having fun.

Fortunately, most non-dedicated server FPS issues can be reduced without upgrading your hardware. Restarting the game periodically, reducing world simulation, cleaning up oversized bases, disabling unnecessary background software, and monitoring RAM usage all make a noticeable difference. If your group plans to keep playing long-term, switching to a dedicated server is easily the biggest upgrade you can make for a smoother co-op experience.