Custom HLDS Engine Game Server HostingCustom HLDS Server Hosting for GoldSrc Mods
Run any GoldSrc game or mod on Valve's unmodified Half-Life Dedicated Server engine, hosted in İstanbul.
Choose your Game Server
Select from our wide range of optimized game servers. Each server is configured for maximum performance and comes with DDoS protection.
1. Plan Type
2. Location
3. Choose Plan
Bronze 4GB
Silver 6GB
Gold 8GB
Platinum 10GB
Diamond 12GB
Emerald 16GB
Xtreme 32GB
Which Custom HLDS Engine Game Plan Is Right for You?
Compare recommended use, plan hardware and monthly prices.
| Plan | Recommended for | Hardware | Monthly price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bronze 4GB | 32-player TFC, DoD, HLDM or a mod (recommended)A GoldSrc server runs on a few hundred MB; 4 GB RAM and 50 GB NVMe are plenty. | 4 vCore Ryzen 9950X · 4 GB DDR5 6000MHz · 50 GB NVMe SSD Samsung 990 PRO | ₺240.00/mo |
| Silver 6GB | Content-heavy mod with many mapsRoom for big model, sound and .wad packs; CPU is the same 4 vCores as Bronze. | 4 vCore Ryzen 9950X · 6 GB DDR5 6000MHz · 60 GB NVMe SSD Samsung 990 PRO | ₺345.00/mo |
| Gold 8GB | Large map and demo archive70 GB of disk for long archives; no gameplay performance gain over Bronze. | 4 vCore Ryzen 9950X · 8 GB DDR5 6000MHz · 70 GB NVMe SSD Samsung 990 PRO | ₺440.00/mo |
| Platinum 10GB | More than GoldSrc needsA single HLDS process will not use this memory; only worth it for 100 GB disk. | 4 vCore Ryzen 9950X · 10 GB DDR5 6000MHz · 100 GB NVMe SSD Samsung 990 PRO | ₺530.00/mo |
| Diamond 12GB | More than GoldSrc needs12 GB RAM on the same 4 vCores; this engine gains nothing from extra memory. | 4 vCore Ryzen 9950X · 12 GB DDR5 6000MHz · 110 GB NVMe SSD Samsung 990 PRO | ₺617.50/mo |
| Emerald 16GB | Not recommendedExtra cores do not speed up the single-threaded HLDS game loop. | 6 vCore Ryzen 9950X · 16 GB DDR5 6000MHz · 120 GB NVMe SSD Samsung 990 PRO | ₺840.00/mo |
| Xtreme 32GB | Not recommended32 GB RAM and 12 vCores go far past a 32-player GoldSrc server. | 12 vCore Ryzen 9950X · 32 GB DDR5 6000MHz · 200 GB NVMe SSD Samsung 990 PRO | ₺1520.00/mo |
Why TheCrewHost for Custom HLDS Engine Game?
A server environment built for the whole GoldSrc ecosystem rather than a single game.
Official GoldSrc games ready
The HLDS package can fetch the valve, tfc, dod, gearbox, dmc, ricochet, cstrike and czero folders from SteamCMD. The game folder name alone decides which title gets installed.
Third-party mods welcome
Upload your mod's folder next to the valve folder and point -game at it. The gamedll_linux line in liblist.gam tells the engine which Linux server library to load.
Current or legacy build
The default branch is the current HLDS build from the Half-Life 25th Anniversary update. If an older mod or plugin misbehaves on it, switch to the steam_legacy branch for the pre-anniversary build.
Metamod and AMX Mod X
A stock engine is not a plugin-free engine. Install Metamod-P, or Metamod-r, which also supports original HLDS, then add AMX Mod X for admin tools across most GoldSrc mods.
Fast single-core performance
HLDS runs its game loop on a single thread. On crowded TFC and Day of Defeat maps, the Ryzen 9 9950X's high clock speed keeps server FPS steady.
Mods and content over SFTP
Upload maps, models, sounds and .wad files straight into the right folders over SFTP. Back up in the panel before a big mod update and you can return to the old setup in one step.
Custom HLDS Engine Game hosting at TheCrewHost starts at ₺240.00 ($6.00) a month and gives you Valve's stock Half-Life Dedicated Server (HLDS) on Ryzen 9 9950X hardware in İstanbul. It is not tied to one title: from the HLDS package on SteamCMD (app 90) you can pull Half-Life Deathmatch, Team Fortress Classic, Day of Defeat, Opposing Force, Deathmatch Classic or Ricochet, or upload a third-party GoldSrc mod over SFTP and launch it with the -game parameter. Because the engine files are left untouched, the server behaves exactly like the current build Valve ships. If you want the engine swapped for ReHLDS, see our sibling Custom ReHLDS Engine Game environment.
What is the Custom HLDS Engine Game environment, and what can it run?
Custom HLDS Engine Game is a general-purpose server environment for hosting any game or mod built on GoldSrc, the Half-Life 1 engine. Counter-Strike 1.6 has its own dedicated pages with us; this environment exists for everything else. It installs the HLDS package from SteamCMD (app 90) and uses the app_set_config 90 mod setting to choose which game folder to download.
Valve's official GoldSrc titles install directly this way: valve for Half-Life Deathmatch, tfc for Team Fortress Classic, dod for Day of Defeat, gearbox for Opposing Force, dmc for Deathmatch Classic and ricochet for Ricochet. czero for Condition Zero is on the list too.
The real flexibility is with third-party mods. Take one of the many GoldSrc mods the community has built over the years, upload it with its server files and launch it under its own folder name. Sven Co-op is a special case: it is now a standalone game with its own SteamCMD app, so it is better set up from our dedicated Sven Co-op page.
Game folder and branch: public or steam_legacy?
Two settings decide what your server runs: the app_set_config 90 mod value, which tells SteamCMD which folder to download, and the -game parameter passed to hlds_run. Both must name the same folder; a server that downloads tfc and tries to launch dod simply will not start.
The branch is the less obvious but important choice. With the Half-Life 25th Anniversary update in November 2023, Valve refreshed the public branch of HLDS, so that current build is what downloads by default. The pre-anniversary build is preserved on a beta branch called steam_legacy.
The stock HLDS environment can run either branch, which is one of the things that sets it apart from ReHLDS. Stay on public if you want Valve's latest engine. Move to steam_legacy if an older mod, Metamod plugin or map behaves oddly on the post-anniversary build. And if you think you might move to ReHLDS later, starting on the legacy branch saves you trouble, because ReHLDS only supports that build.
How do you add a third-party GoldSrc mod?
A GoldSrc mod is nothing more than its own folder sitting next to the valve folder in the server root. Upload the mod's server files into that folder over SFTP and change the -game value to the folder name. Inside you will find subfolders such as maps, models, sound and dlls, plus liblist.gam, the file that works as the mod's ID card.
The gamedll_linux line in liblist.gam points to the Linux server library, a .so file, that the engine loads. This is the one make-or-break detail: some older mods were only ever distributed with a Windows .dll. A mod without a Linux server library will not start in this environment, so check that its dedicated server package includes a .so before you commit.
Do not forget the player side. To join a third-party mod's server, players need the same version of that mod added to their own Half-Life install. For custom maps and models, setting an HTTP download address with sv_downloadurl lets missing content arrive over the web, far faster than through the game connection.
How do Metamod and AMX Mod X work on stock HLDS?
A stock engine does not mean no plugins; it only means the engine files are Valve's originals. On GoldSrc, the plugin chain starts with Metamod: the engine loads Metamod instead of the mod's game library, and Metamod then loads the real game library and your plugins. To set that up, you point the gamedll_linux line in the mod's liblist.gam at Metamod's library.
On stock HLDS you have two options. The classic Metamod-P has done this job for many years. Metamod-r is optimized for ReHLDS, but its developers state that it is compatible with original HLDS as well.
Put AMX Mod X on top of Metamod and you get admin menus, map votes, statistics and similar tools. AMX Mod X is not just for Counter-Strike; it includes separate modules for mods such as Day of Defeat and Team Fortress Classic. The limit is plugins that rely on the ReHLDS-specific ReAPI module, which will not load on a stock engine. If you need those, the ReHLDS environment is the right choice.
Which plan is enough for a GoldSrc server?
Bronze 4GB, in almost every scenario. By modern standards the GoldSrc engine barely uses memory; even a full TFC or Day of Defeat server tends to stay around a few hundred megabytes, and most of these games cap out at 32 players anyway.
Single-core speed, not RAM, sets performance. The 4 vCores are identical from Bronze to Diamond, and HLDS only puts one of them to work on the game loop. You can raise sys_ticrate to have the server process more frames per second, but that raises CPU load directly, so after changing it, watch how players feel about the server over an evening.
The only real reason to go bigger is disk. A content-heavy mod with hundreds of custom maps, large .wad files and sound and model packs, or demo and log archives kept for a long time, can use the extra space on Silver or Gold. The additional cores on Emerald and Xtreme do nothing for a single-process HLDS server.
How do players connect to a GoldSrc server?
Players first launch whatever the server runs: Team Fortress Classic for a TFC server, or the mod itself for a mod server. Then they open the console, type connect and enter the IP and port; the default game port is 27015, and the exact address is shown in your panel. For the official games, adding the server to the Favorites tab of the in-game server browser works as well.
With third-party mods, the most common snag is a player running a different version of the mod. When server and client versions differ, the connection either fails outright or drops while the map loads. Sharing which mod version you use, along with a download link, with your community from day one avoids it.
Players connecting from Türkiye get low latency from a server hosted in İstanbul. Classic GoldSrc games live on fast movement and instant hit feedback, so the difference is most noticeable in reflex-heavy titles like Deathmatch and TFC.
How to Set Up a Custom HLDS Engine Game Server
- 1
Start on Bronze 4GB
Nearly every GoldSrc game and mod fits comfortably on Bronze 4GB. Look at Silver or Gold only for disk if your mod ships hundreds of maps and heavy content.
- 2
Let SteamCMD install HLDS
After payment clears, HLDS installs itself through SteamCMD and the server shows up at gamepanel.hostingmerkezi.net.
- 3
Set the game folder, map and branch
In the startup settings choose the game folder to run, such as tfc or dod, and the starting map. Consider the steam_legacy branch if you plan to run an older mod.
- 4
Upload a third-party mod if needed
Upload the mod folder next to valve over SFTP and confirm that the gamedll_linux line in liblist.gam points to a .so file.
- 5
Prepare server.cfg and plugins
Put basics like hostname, rcon_password and sv_password in the mod folder's server.cfg. Optionally add Metamod and AMX Mod X, then confirm in the console that they loaded.
- 6
Share the address and mod version
Give your community the IP:port, the mod version required and a download link, and let players join with the connect command.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions from people setting up a GoldSrc server on Valve's stock HLDS engine.
How much does Custom HLDS server hosting cost?
How much RAM do I need?
Which games can I run in this environment?
Should I choose HLDS or ReHLDS?
Can I install Metamod and AMX Mod X?
How soon can my GoldSrc server go live?
Do players need the mod installed to connect?
How do backups work?
Is DDoS protection included?
Can I upgrade my plan later?
İstanbul Location,
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Our İstanbul datacenter runs on Ryzen 9 hardware, delivering low latency to players in Türkiye and good connectivity to Europe, the Middle East and the Caucasus.
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