Playpute

Machine types

The named sizes a game server runs at, and what each costs.

projects/{project}/locations/{location}/machineTypes/{machine_type}

A game server runs at a machine type: standard-4, highmem-2. You name one in machine_type, and that decides the vCPUs and memory the server gets. The disk comes from the game.

The catalogue

The same in every project and every region.

Machine type	Family	vCPU	Memory	On demand, per hour	Spot, per hour
`standard-1`	standard	1	2 GiB	$0.030	$0.012
`standard-2`	standard	2	4 GiB	$0.060	$0.024
`standard-4`	standard	4	8 GiB	$0.120	$0.048
`standard-8`	standard	8	16 GiB	$0.240	$0.096
`highmem-1`	highmem	1	4 GiB	$0.044	$0.0176
`highmem-2`	highmem	2	8 GiB	$0.088	$0.0352
`highmem-4`	highmem	4	16 GiB	$0.176	$0.0704

Standard is 2 GiB per vCPU, which suits most games. High memory is 4 GiB per vCPU — a modded Minecraft server, a Source game with a large map: things that hold a world in memory more than they compute on it.

The hourly figures are the vCPU and memory rates from What it costs added up, charged while the server runs. Disk is charged separately, and a stopped or sleeping server is not charged for any of it.

The live price list is in the console. Rates here are current at the time of writing.

List the catalogue, with each type's spot record in your region beside it:

Machine types

Choosing one

Servers → New server → choose a game → Machine type

Leave it empty and you get the smallest type that meets the game's minimum. Every game in the catalogue declares the resources it needs, and that is read as a floor: a game that needs 4 GiB never lands on a type with 2, and you never have to know what a game needs to create a server of it. "Smallest" is by memory first — memory is what a game server is stopped for running out of; vCPU is only what it is slow without.

A type below the game's minimum is refused when you create the server, and the error names the smallest type that fits.

Changing it takes effect on the next start. An update to machine_type on a running server is accepted and recorded; the server keeps its current size until it stops and starts again. The first start at a new size takes longer while the server's world is moved across, and may answer UNAVAILABLE with a retry hint — retry it, and the server starts with its world intact.

A group takes machine_type too, and applies it to every member. See Autoscaling.

`resources` is output only

A server's resources reports what it actually has — the machine type's vCPUs and memory, and the game's disk. A create or update that sets it is refused with INVALID_ARGUMENT, pointing at machine_type.

CPU can burst

A server may use its full vCPU count, and the busy moments — a chunk load, a map change — get it. You are billed on the machine type's vCPUs.