How To: Setting up AMX Mod X for Dedicated Counter Strike Server on the Internet

As a follow up to the last week’s tutorial, I would now lay out possibly, the simplest guide to setup a dedicated Counter Strike Server managed by the AMX Mod X. But first lets have a little background on Counter Strike (and more generally, Half Life 1) plugins.

What are plugins by the way? Well in simple words plugins are little programs that reside between the Half Life engine and the game mod you are playing. It provides the functionality to dynamically load and unload content on the server. The most popular and the core plugin in use today is Metamod. Almost all popular plugins for server management require Metamod in order to work. Setting up Metamod explicitly isn’t required if you followed my previous tutorial. But if you don’t have Metamod installed, I suggest that you do that first before continuing.

There are many remote server management plugins available (including AdminMod, ClanMod and WebMod) but we will focus on the most powerful of them all, AMX Mod X. AMXX provides a lot more functionality than simple server management. It includes powerful plugins (its own plugins, not plugins of Metamod) and a scripting engine to make custom content. Most of the stuff you see in Half Life mods today, like Super Heroes or Zombie’s and stuff is because of AMXX.

Ok now how to get AMXX? well there are two options:

1. For Beginners:By this I mean you are new to AMXX (not n00bs to Counter Strike) and have little or no experience using it, you can download the all-in-one installer (direct link for 1.8.1). This automated installer will install the plugin for your mod. This is a two step installer.

1. First phase will Install the Amx Mod X studio and the plug-in installer. Install it anywhere on your hard drive.
2. Once the installation is complete, the Phase two installer would start (If it doesn’t start automatically, goto Start > All Programs > AMX Mod X and click the AMX Mod X shortcut). This installer will install the plug-in to your mod. It presents you with 5 options to install. If you have followed the previous tutorial, then you want to setup a non-steam server. Choose Select Mod Directory and click continue. In the next window, select the folder for your HLDS, and the mod you want to install the plugin for (in this case Counter-Strike). Click next, and you are done.

2. For Advanced Users: By this I mean those guys who have experience with AMXX (I’m surprised you are reading this).  You would want to grab the Base AMXX zip and the Mod Addon zip from the download page.

1. Extract the Base AMX Package into your HLDS/(Mod directory) (eg. HLDS/cstrike). Be sure to extract the full directory structure. Overwrite any files with care (in case you had a previous version installed).
2. Extract the second archive into the same directory (HLDS/(mod)) and overwrite any files as asked.

By now you have a fully working AMX Mod X plugin installed for your Cstrike server. Test the installation buy starting the server, and type meta list in the console. It should say AMXX OK in the result list. This wraps up this tutorial. The next tutorial in the series would be on some advanced configuration of the AMXX, followed by how to setup HL Guard.

If you have some suggestions, problems or comments, share them below and I will help you out.