Garry's Mod Server Hosting - The Ultimate Sandbox Experience

Garry's Mod (GMod) is a sandbox physics game built on Valve's Source Engine, developed by Facepunch Studios — the same studio behind Rust. Unlike traditional games, GMod has no predefined objectives. Players use the Physics Gun to pick up and manipulate objects, the Tool Gun to weld, rope, and constrain them, and can spawn anything from the Source engine's object library. Released in 2004 as a mod and later as a standalone title on Steam, it remains one of the most actively played PC games thanks to its massive modding community. Facepunch's separate project s&box (sometimes called Garry's Mod 2) is a different game entirely — GMod continues to receive updates and maintain a thriving player base.

DarkRP is by far the most popular gamemode — a roleplay framework where players take jobs (police, gun dealer, mayor, thief), earn money, own property, and raid each other's bases. TTT (Trouble in Terrorist Town) is a social deduction mode where traitors secretly eliminate innocents while detectives investigate. Prop Hunt turns hide-and-seek into comedy as one team disguises as map props. Other major modes include Murder, Sandbox (the original freeform building experience), Deathrun (obstacle courses with traps), Jailbreak (guards vs. prisoners), Zombie Survival, Flood (build a boat and survive rising water), and Cinema (watch YouTube videos together in-game). Each gamemode is set via the +gamemode startup parameter.

GMod servers pull addons from the Steam Workshop. Create a Workshop collection containing all your desired addons, then set the collection ID in your server's startup parameters using +host_workshop_collection. The server downloads these addons automatically, and clients download them when connecting. For individual addons, use resource.AddWorkshop("workshop_id") in a Lua file inside lua/autorun/server/. For content not on Workshop, FastDL (a web server hosting raw game files) is the alternative distribution method. Essential addons for most servers include ULX/ULib (the most popular admin mod with kick, ban, slay, and custom commands), Wiremod and Advanced Duplicator 2 for Sandbox building, and gamemode-specific addons like DarkRP Modification for DarkRP servers.

The Source Engine technically supports up to 128 players, but the practical sweet spot for GMod servers is 24-64 depending on the gamemode. DarkRP servers commonly run 32-64 slots since the roleplay economy benefits from a larger population. TTT and Murder work best with 16-32 players for balanced rounds. Sandbox and Prop Hunt servers usually cap at 16-24 to keep physics calculations manageable. The player limit is set via the +maxplayers launch parameter and directly impacts CPU and RAM requirements — each connected player adds load from their spawned entities, addon data, and network traffic. The default server port is 27015 UDP.

A vanilla Sandbox or TTT server with minimal addons runs comfortably on 2-3GB RAM. Most community servers with a moderate addon collection need 3-4GB. Heavy DarkRP servers — with custom HUDs, vehicle packs, weapon bases (M9K, TFA, CW2), printers, entity packs, and 40+ player slots — can easily consume 4-6GB or more. RAM usage scales with the number of Workshop addons loaded, active entities on the map, connected players, and whether you're mounting content from other Source games like Counter-Strike: Source or Team Fortress 2. Monitoring your server's memory usage through the control panel helps determine when an upgrade is needed.

The two core config files are server.cfg and autoexec.cfg, both located in garrysmod/cfg/. server.cfg handles runtime settings like hostname (server name), rcon_password (remote admin access), sv_allowcslua (0 or 1 — controls whether clients can execute local Lua scripts, usually disabled on competitive servers), and sbox_maxprops (prop spawn limit per player). The default tickrate is 66, adjustable for performance tuning. autoexec.cfg runs commands on every server startup. Gamemode, map, and max players are set via startup command-line parameters (+gamemode darkrp +map rp_downtown_v4c +maxplayers 64). DarkRP servers have additional config in the darkrpmodification addon where you define custom jobs, shipments, entities, and door groups.

Set the gamemode to darkrp via +gamemode in your startup parameters, then install the DarkRP Modification addon — this is the correct way to customize DarkRP without editing core files (which would break on updates). Inside darkrpmodification, you define custom jobs in lua/darkrp_customthings/jobs.lua, shipments and weapons in shipments.lua, and entities in entities.lua. Most DarkRP servers also need: a custom HUD and F4 menu from Workshop, ULX/ULib for admin commands (kick, ban, jail, freeze), a money printer addon, vehicle dealer, a map like rp_downtown_v4c or rp_rockford, and weapon bases such as M9K or TFA. All GMod addons and gamemodes are written in Lua, making customization accessible even for beginners.

Yes — GMod can mount content from Counter-Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2 and its episodes, and other Source engine titles. This is configured in mount.cfg located in garrysmod/cfg/. Mounting CS:S is practically essential because a huge number of maps, weapons, and addons rely on its textures, models, and materials. Without CS:S content mounted, players see pink-and-black checkerboard textures and ERROR models. The server downloads these game files automatically via SteamCMD during installation. On XGamingServer, CS:S content comes pre-mounted so your server is ready to go immediately without missing textures or broken maps.