How to Host Counter Strike 1.6 Multiplayer LAN Server with AMX and MetaMod

Basics of Hosting a CS1.6 Server: Dedicated Server and Listen Server

Listen Server:
You can host a listen server by opening the cs1.6 game and going to the option Create Server. This is called Listen Server. You can give commands in the console while playing in the Game itself. In the beginning you alone will be there in the game, the players join later.

Dedicated Server:
You can host a dedicated server by opening the file hlds.exe in your directory where hl.exe file exists. This will not open a game but it will just create a server with a GUI. You can select the required options in the GUI. Like whether to host a LAN or Internet server. The map. The maximum number of players. The Rcon etc. See whats Rcon and Port in this blog posts. You wont be in the game. You should join the game by opening the hl.exe and then by typing connect loopback:27015 in the console.

Basics of Hosting a CS1.6 Server: The Graphic Card

It does not matter whether you have a graphic card or not, but what you really need is a good Processor and RAM. The game consists of two basic divisions. One is the Graphical User Interface and other is the actual program. The graphic card only takes those responsibilities which are directly related to the graphics. But it wont care about the actual program. In the game if you press a key then that goes to the main processor instead of the GPU - Graphical Processing Unit. This is how the processes vary.

I will give you practical difference. If you are hosting a dedicated server or listen server, no matter how good graphic card you have, you server may lag. This is because of the processor or RAM.

Basics of Hosting a CS1.6 Server: The Commands

You can give commads to change the variables of the game. Like, kicking a player, slapping a player, changing map, changing gravity, changing time per round, changing friendly fire. You can give these in the starting of the server itself in the GUI, but if you want to change them in the middle of the game.

Some commands:

• mp_startmoney "money" - Gives that much money in the starting of the game
  
• mp_friendlyfire "0/1" - 0 for Off, 1 for On
• mp_roundtime "timeinminutes" - time in minutes 2, 2.5, 3 etc
• sv_gravity "number" - Default is 800, 0=players fly, 2000=players cant jump.
• changelevel "map_name" - de_dust2 for dust2 or any other map name.
• sv_restart "timeinseconds" - The time in seconds, game restarts from 0 rounds.

Basics of Hosting a CS1.6 Server: The Mods

CS1.6 server can be equipped with some mods like AMX Mod X, Admin Mod, Chicken Mod, StatsMe etc. These are mods which help in server administration or change the gameplay. AMX Mod and Admin Mod help in server administration, where as Chicken Mod changes the game play, StatsMe allows in-game on-screen statistics of the players.

AMX Mod X:
Installing AMX Mod X allows you to get menus on the screen, which will allow you to change the game variables with out the use of console commands. You will get the AMX Mod Menu if you type this keyword in the console "amxmodmenu".

For more on Mods see other posts of this blog about how to install and how to use.