How to make a Counter Strike Server Using HLDS to play online with friends

Who hasn't played this super fun game. It might be aged for the newer generations with some pesky old graphics, but yet, is considered the game having the most number of players online, even today. Actually Counter Strike is a mod of the game Half Life, but who knew, that the "mod" would be played more than the original game. Counter Strike is one of the classic old games. Everyone of us must have played this game atleast once in our life. Some of us might have also played the game online on some servers. What if you could make a server at your home and play online with your friends over the internet? Wouldn't that be fun? Here's how to make a server using a famous tool called HLDS or Half Life Dedicated Server.


Half Life Dedicated Server is the tool you'll be requiring for this tutorial. It generally comes within the directory and if not present, you can always download it from the internet.

So starting off the tutorial, here are the steps you need to follow:

Step 1:
Open Half Life Dedicated Server. It is named as hlds.exe in the Counter Strike installation directory.

Step 2:
Make Sure the game is set as Counter Strike.

Step 3:
Give your server a name.

Step 4:
Select the map you want to play.

Step 5:
Chose the method you want your friends to connect you to. That is, either by LAN or the internet.

Step 6:
Select the maximum number of players. 32 is the highest value over here.

Step 7:
Leave UDP port as it is, set your RCON password if needed and tick the Valve Anti Cheat option as per your requirements. And finally start your server

Step 8:
Copy the IP address provided in the screen that just opened.

Step 9:
Ask your friends to open their Counter Strike and press the ` key. It is located just below the Esc button.

Step 10:
Ask them to type "connect [IP Address]" and press enter. Just replace [IP Address] with the IP Address you got in Step 8. You have to follow Step 9 and 10 too.

That's it. You guys are online. Time to kick some stuff. Happy Gaming Hours!