Server Authority and Major Roblox Updates

Last week brought a wave of significant updates to the Roblox platform, headlined by the highly anticipated early access release of Server Authority. This collection of announcements represents some of the most substantial technical improvements to hit the platform in recent months, giving developers powerful new tools while also addressing critical security and performance concerns.

The Big One: Server Authority Makes Its Debut

The most groundbreaking announcement of the week was undoubtedly the early access launch of Server Authority. This feature has been one of the most requested capabilities by the Roblox developer community, and its arrival marks a significant milestone in the platform's evolution toward more secure and reliable multiplayer experiences.

Server Authority fundamentally changes how Roblox handles game state validation. In traditional Roblox experiences, clients (individual players' devices) have historically had significant control over certain aspects of gameplay, which has made experiences vulnerable to exploitation. With Server Authority, developers can now ensure that critical game logic and validation happens exclusively on the server side, where it cannot be manipulated by malicious clients.

This architectural shift is crucial for competitive games, experiences with economies, or any situation where fair play is paramount. Imagine a competitive shooter where players could previously modify their client to gain unfair advantages—Server Authority makes such exploits significantly more difficult by ensuring the server has the final say on what actually happens in the game world.

The early access program means that developers interested in implementing Server Authority need to actively opt in by responding to the official announcement on the Developer Forum. This staged rollout approach allows Roblox to gather feedback from motivated developers and identify any edge cases or issues before a full platform-wide release. For developers working on competitive experiences or games with valuable virtual economies, getting early access to this feature could be a game-changer.

Text-to-Speech API Reaches Full Release

After what has likely been an extensive beta period, Roblox's Text-to-Speech API has officially reached full release status. This update brings with it some significant improvements that make the feature more viable for production use in popular experiences.

The most important enhancements are the increased rate limits and new observability dashboards. Rate limits have been a common pain point for developers working with APIs—nothing is more frustrating than building a feature only to have it hit artificial caps during peak usage. By raising these limits, Roblox is signaling that Text-to-Speech is ready for prime time and can handle the demands of high-traffic experiences.

The observability dashboards are equally important from a development perspective. These tools allow creators to monitor how their Text-to-Speech implementation is performing in real-time, track usage patterns, and identify potential issues before they impact players. This kind of visibility is essential for maintaining professional-quality experiences.

So what can developers actually do with Text-to-Speech? The possibilities are extensive and exciting:

Tutorial Systems: Instead of forcing players to read walls of text, developers can now create dynamic, narrated tutorials that guide players through complex mechanics. The system can respond to player actions in real-time, providing contextual voice guidance without requiring developers to record hundreds of audio clips.

NPC Dialogue: Creating believable non-player characters typically requires voice actors, recording sessions, and extensive audio production. Text-to-Speech eliminates these bottlenecks, allowing developers to implement rich NPC conversations without the traditional production costs. While the synthesized voices may not match the quality of professional voice acting, they're more than sufficient for many use cases.

Accessibility Features: Perhaps most importantly, Text-to-Speech opens up Roblox experiences to players with visual impairments or reading difficulties. Developers can use the API to read interface elements, quest descriptions, or environmental text, making their experiences more inclusive.

Dynamic Announcements: For experiences with events, competitions, or time-sensitive information, Text-to-Speech allows for flexible, on-the-fly announcements without requiring developers to pre-record every possible message.

The full release status means developers can now confidently build features around this API without worrying about it being sunset or significantly changed. This stability is crucial for any feature that becomes integral to an experience's core functionality.

Critical Security Update for HumanoidDescription APIs

While perhaps less exciting than Server Authority or Text-to-Speech, the update to HumanoidDescription APIs addresses critical security vulnerabilities that could impact experience integrity. This is exactly the kind of behind-the-scenes work that keeps the platform secure, even if it doesn't generate headlines.

The change affects two specific APIs: Humanoid:ApplyDescription and Players:CreateHumanoidModelFromDescription. Going forward, these functions will automatically enable server-side checks on avatar assets by default. This might sound technical, but the implications are significant.

Previously, these APIs could potentially be exploited to load unauthorized or malicious avatar assets into experiences. By enforcing server-side validation, Roblox is closing a security hole that could have been used to bypass content restrictions, inject inappropriate assets, or potentially exploit vulnerabilities in asset loading systems.

For most developers, this change will be completely transparent—the announcement specifically notes that experiences using these APIs for their intended purpose (loading legitimate avatar assets like shirts, pants, and accessories) won't need any modifications. The system will simply work as before, but with added security happening invisibly in the background.

However, developers who have been using these APIs in more creative or unconventional ways should review the official announcement. There may be edge cases where the new validation breaks existing functionality, and the "Potential Action Required" designation means it's worth taking a few minutes to verify everything still works as expected.

This update exemplifies Roblox's ongoing commitment to platform security. While adding features like Server Authority makes headlines, the continuous work of identifying and patching potential vulnerabilities is equally important for maintaining a trustworthy platform.

Memory Tracking Changes

Developers received important news this week about changes to memory tracking functionality that will eventually affect all platforms. In an effort to improve performance and eliminate out-of-memory crashes, Roblox is disabling memory tracking by default for most users while introducing a new API to check whether memory data is available.

Memory tracking has traditionally been a useful tool for developers trying to optimize their experiences, allowing them to see exactly how much memory different systems and assets are consuming. However, Roblox discovered that the memory tracking system itself consumes a significant amount of memory and frame time, creating a performance overhead that affects all players.

By disabling it by default, Roblox is prioritizing the experience of regular players over the debugging needs of developers. The system will still track memory for a small, random subset of users to support Roblox's internal telemetry needs, but the vast majority of players will benefit from the performance improvements.

For developers who do need memory tracking, the new MemoryTrackingEnabled API provides a way to check whether data is available before attempting to call memory-related functions like GetMemoryUsageMbAllCategories, GetMemoryUsageMbForTag, and GetTotalMemoryUsageMb. This prevents errors and allows developers to gracefully handle situations where memory data isn't available.

The rollout is happening in three phases:

• Phase 1 (already live) provides a warning and migration period where the API is available but tracking still runs everywhere.
• Phase 2 (end of October) will disable tracking on most Android devices first.
• Phase 3 (date to be determined) will likely extend the disablement to all platforms, though Roblox is investigating whether some platforms could maintain tracking without significant performance impact.

Developers collecting custom telemetry data should update their code to use the new API during this transition period.

One important note: if you explicitly enable the MicroProfiler (a detailed performance analysis tool), memory tracking will automatically be enabled for your session. This means developers can still access all the memory data they need when actively debugging and optimizing their experiences—it just won't be constantly running during normal play sessions.

Avatar Auto-Setup Gets More Flexible

The update to Avatar Auto-Setup may seem minor compared to the other announcements, but it represents an important improvement in developer flexibility when creating custom avatar systems.

The new feature allows developers to control joint placement by providing 15 pre-partitioned body mesh parts that follow the R15 character naming convention. This means creators can now set up avatars with just body parts, just clothing, or any combination thereof, rather than being forced to process complete avatar setups every time.

This granular control is particularly useful for experiences with custom avatar systems or special character creation features. For example, a game might want to let players customize their body type independently from their clothing, or vice versa. The previous system wasn't as flexible in handling these partial setups.

The fact that partitioned bodies can be used in conjunction with other inputs—like rigged bodies and heads—adds even more versatility. Developers can mix and match different avatar components more easily, opening up new possibilities for character customization systems.

It's the kind of quality-of-life improvement that makes developers' lives easier and enables more creative avatar implementations across the platform.

Looking Back at RDC 2025

The week also brought a reminder about the RDC 2025 Youtube Playlist for those who missed the Roblox Developers Conference or want to revisit the presentations. The playlist includes the keynote address, Roblox Innovation Awards (RIA) winners, and various technical talks.

For developers looking to understand where the platform is heading and what new capabilities are on the horizon, these videos are essential viewing. The conference typically showcases upcoming features months before they reach developers, making it a valuable resource for planning long-term project roadmaps.

What This Week Means for Roblox Developers

Taken together, these updates represent a continued maturation of the Roblox platform. Server Authority addresses one of the most fundamental challenges in multiplayer game development. Text-to-Speech provides a powerful tool for accessibility and rapid content creation. The security and performance updates show Roblox's commitment to maintaining a stable, secure platform.

For developers, this week's announcements provide both immediate opportunities and a glimpse at the platform's trajectory. The early access nature of Server Authority suggests Roblox is increasingly willing to let motivated developers test and provide feedback on major features before wide release. This collaborative approach benefits everyone—developers get earlier access to powerful tools, and Roblox gets valuable real-world feedback to refine features.

As the platform continues to evolve, weeks like this one demonstrate why Roblox remains at the forefront of user-generated content platforms. By consistently shipping meaningful improvements while maintaining backward compatibility and developer support, Roblox is building a foundation for increasingly sophisticated experiences.

Whether you're working on a competitive multiplayer game that needs Server Authority, an adventure experience that could benefit from Text-to-Speech narration, or simply maintaining existing projects that need to stay up-to-date with security best practices, this week's updates have something valuable to offer.

The pace of platform development shows no signs of slowing, and developers who stay informed about these changes will be best positioned to create the next generation of standout Roblox experiences.