How to Start a Dedicated Server for Counter-Strike

Using a dedicated server will reduce player lag in Counter-Strike.

"Counter-Strike" is an online first-person shooter video game. It is a modification of "Half-Life," and uses the same gaming engine. One of the most frustrating things about playing "Counter-Strike" is lag caused by an inferior client hosting of the game. Dedicated servers run much smoother and are designed to host large games without emitting the lag associated with client hosted games.

Instructions

1. Turn on your PC and navigate to your "Counter-Strike" directory on your hard drive. Look for the server program that was included in basic installation and called "HLDS.exe." Right click the program and copy it.

2. Navigate to your desktop to paste the shortcut of the file previously copied in Step 1. Right click the new shortcut and select "Properties." Be sure to select the "Shortcut" tab. Take note of the various commands you can enter from the original pathway to make things quicker for the next hosting session. Specifically, the "-game cstrike" line can be used to always tell your Half-Life Dedicated Server which mod will be used. Adding that line to your pathway saves you from having to manually choose "Counter-Strike" every time you want to play.

3. Start your server by double clicking the new icon that was created as a shortcut. If you didn't previously add the "-game cstrike" line to your pathway, choose "Counter-Strike" for the game. Otherwise, the server will start a regular "Half-Life" game.

4. Pay special attention to your server booting up and make sure you have obtained authorization from "WON Auth Server." If you see the message, "Outdated server protocol" than you must update your software before proceeding. If necessary, use the in-game update tool to obtain the most recent version of the software.

5. Enter all the commands in rcon that you need to run the "Counter-Strike" game. In the rcon menu, you can change the maps and tinker with all the game settings. These settings will not turn back to default until the server reloads or a new map is selected.

Tips & Warnings

• Check out the link in the Resources tab to find a comprehensive list of all the rcon server commands.

References

• Counter-Server - The Official Counter-Strike Admin Resource

Resources

• Rcon commands