Server Tutorials
Hey guys, sorry for the delay but I've been busy. My goal is to finish these in the next two months.
I'm going to try and make this basic, yet still comprehensive. A lot of sites will explain one aspect of getting your server running, for example setting up hlds itself. I would like to start from the very beginning and explain why you should perform each step.
I will try to label this with steps, as some will not be necessary. When sections need to be skipped it will be mentioned, so please do not skip them otherwise!
To make this easy, I'm going to try and follow the steps I took to set up this server. I will go through the game server, web server and stats page. The major sections of setting up a game server will follow in this order: Operating System, HLDS, Service, Routing, Mods.
Game Server Setup:
Windows version
First, will this be a dedicated server? I will focus about 99% of this tutorial on dedicated servers because listen servers are not very useful and very easy to get running.
- A dedicated server is one that runs by itself, usually on a separate machine, and will continue to run even if no-one is connected. It is usually set up as a service and runs when the server computer is started. The benefits to a dedicated server are best looked at in terms of gameplay. You can have more players with better pings. For now just take my word for it!
- A listen server is run on the same machine as the game client (the person running the game server) and is basically the same process as the person's game. That means that if they close their game, the server goes down and everyone else is disconnected. Listen servers are really not useful at all unless you are testing features or playing on a lan for a few hours with friends.
Operating System
The Steam version of HalfLife Dedicated Server (HLDS) can be run on Windows 2000,
XP or Vista. I will be using XP for this tutorial.