What is FiveM and what do you need to get started and how do you create a server?

These are a few questions I get asked quit often. So I thought I would answer them for you and give you the links to the relevant Websites and Discord Servers. FiveM is a modification for Grand Theft Auto V enabling you to play multiplayer on customized dedicated servers, powered by Cfx.re. You can join any server you want as long as its not whitelisted but first you will need the fivem client software from the fivem website. If the server is whitelisted you will need to join their discord and ask to be put on the whitelist. Some servers have rules about strict roleplay and have an online form for you to fill out to make sure you understand the rules and what roleplay is. Some servers that are not whitelisted will still have rules in place and if you brake any of those rules you risk being banned. They will have an online ban appeal form so you can appeal your ban. Some servers might be relaxed with a few rules but those servers can be troublesome if you do not like people messing about and just going around shooting and running your character over. You can look up fivem server on the website at servers.fivem.net. You will see hundreds of servers listed with differnat languages. Some might be listed as English (United Kingdom) because the theme is British and some will show English (United States) because there American themed but both are english speaking as will be Australian. Some will be listed as German, French and Portuguese. They will show a flag. If you speak the language you can join them. I have a preview Demo server called Neverstop RP Preview Server. You will see information about it and what resources are used in the left panel. The right panel will show online players and the top panel will show information about the server.

What hardware do I need to host a FiveM Roleplay Server?

You will need a physical server to host your own fivem roleplay server and can be bought online for a reasonable price depending what specifications you want. My server is a Dell EMC PowerEdge T140-MT and runs Windows Server 2019. The photographs can be seen on the computer and servers page. The cost of that server was about £550 but I had to buy extra 8GB of ram from Dell because other ram made by other manufacturers will not work and that cost me £120. The servers can also run other operating systems like linux that is open source and free. My server also runs this website and two other websites so I need a static public IP address to make sure the domain is pointing to my IP address. My internet service provider provide the static IP address free of charge but some UK internet providers might charge you £8 to £14 per month and that can soon add up over a year. If you cannot afford to buy your own server then you might want to consider renting a server from an online hosting service. The will host a VPS server and Dedicated servers. Information about the difference between the two is below in the next section. VPS servers are cheaper because they are a virtual private server on a shared space on the same physical hardware as other vps servers and can cost you from £15 a month. Dedicated servers are one physical server with all the hardware you need and will cost you a lot more from £41 upwards. You also need an operating system to select from like Windows or Linux. If you select a linux operating system it will be free because its open source and does not require a licence to activate. If you select one of the windows operating systems it will cost you more from £21 a month for the licence activation key provided by Microsoft. If you know how to use the linux operating system and all the commands then that might be the better option for you. There might also be a limited bandwidth on the internet use each month so if you go over that limit they will charge you for that. Remember if you have you own server you are respondable for the maintenance of the server and making sure you internet is always up and running. There will be times when the internet goes down for maintenance updates or the server has to go offline to be restarted for windows updates and any maintenance. Its always a good idea to have a good knowledge of windows servers and knowing how to use the server operating system properly. A few will just buy one install the windows operating system and will not know how to use it. You should not use a computer as a server because they have more hardware and use a lot more power that a server. Server are designed to be low powered.

What is a Dedicated Server?

A Dedicated Server as the name suggests, is a type of hosting where the entire server is dedicated to a single client. All the resources of the server like bandwidth, CPU and memory are allocated to the use of the single client. It is apt for websites that experience a high volume of visitors. However, one major downside of the Dedicated Server is that the cost of purchasing an entire server may not be affordable to many.

What is VPS Hosting?

VPS Hosting makes use of the virtualization principle by splitting the resources of the server into multiple virtual machines. Each virtualized environment is connected with the server using an application called a hypervisor. Due to account isolation in VPS Servers, the resource allocation is guaranteed, and the performance of every virtual server is independent of the other websites. Good VPS Hosting providers offer full root access that allows the user complete access over the server configuration. Thus, VPS Hosting is truly an upgrade over Shared Hosting. If your going to use a server of your own at home it can cost you a lot of money to purchase a good server that will have good performance. You will also need a copy of you own operating system like Windows or Linux. Linux is free and open source but you need to know how to use the commands like sudo. You can get a copy of Windows from the Microsoft Website and download it as an ISO file. You can purchase a copy from eBay and usually come with a OEM licence key. From around £20 to £30.

What is difference between Windows 10 OEM and retail?

There are 4 differences between Windows 10 OEM and Retail: The Windows 10 Retail license can be transferred to another PC while the Windows Server OEM license cannot, because it is already locked to one PC. If you replace the motherboard in your PC, the Windows Server OEM will not work. As for the Windows Server Retail license, it will not be affected by any hardware replacement. An OEM Windows 10 license is much cheaper than a Windows Server Retail license. Users who buy a Windows Server Retail license can get support from Microsoft. However, users who have a Windows Server OEM license can only get support from the manufacturer of their devices.

What software do I need to set up a server?

You will need to download the MariaDB Server or MySQL. If you use a service like Zaphosing they provide all of that for you but you will need to know how to use there user interface like phpMyAdmin. You can if you know how to do it gain remote access to the phpMyAdmin but you will need the SQL software on your computer to access it and it can be complicated if you do not know what you are doing. So the best option if use a Deducated or VPS server is to use MariaDB because it is easy to install and use.

What folders and files do I need to get started?

You will need the FiveM Artifacts or Latest Recommended Build from the FiveM website. You will see the most recant build release but it not recommended to use those because they might be unstabe. The next thing you will need to do is get a license key from Cfx.re Keymaster. You will need to created an account if you do not have one. Once signed on click on New Server then fill in the details. You will need to know the public IP address of your hosted server or oven public IP address if you using a server at home. Remember not to give or show the Public IP address to anyone because you risk being DDOSED. The public IP address at home can be found by using your browser and typing My IP Address. The IP address on you network connection of your computer will be different because that is a Local IP address supplied by a DHCP system from you router and starts with 192.168.0 or 192.168.1. They are not they same as a Public IP address and cannot be seen outside of your network.

How do I set up the folders and files?

Make sure your Hard or SSD drive has enough storage. 150GB or more should be enough. The next thing to do is set up a directory. 

What is a folder directory?

Imagine a cabinet of drawers with folders in and you have a drawer with the letter A and another with the letter B on it. In that drawer A will be folders starting with A for example Apple, Andrew. B would have Book, Ball, Ben Beach.

How would this look on a computer?

When you have the folder window open you will see an address bar at the top that has something that looks like C:|Users\your user name\ book\ball\ben\beach. For Fivem I used it and you could use the same? P:\FiveM_Servers\Developemt-Server\qbcore-framework.
Notice a different drive letter P:\ because I have mine stored on another drive. Yours will be C:\ if you have no other drive.

What are the final steps to set up a server?

Once you have created your directory you can then proceed to the next step. Extract to FiveM build server.zip into the folder C:\qbcore-framework that’s the folder before cfx-server-data. The next thing to do is find and double-click on FXServer.exe. 

If you going to run the server on your own Windows server you will need to open the ports on your firewall on your server and open the ports on your router. The ports are 30120 for your server and 40120 for your txAdmin. Ports should already be open on your hosting service but you will have to open them on your own self-hosted server.

Follow the instruction below to set up your server the easy with txAdmin. You can follow the instructions on FiveM documents website or follow mine below.

  1. open up the folder where your server build is located and find FXServer.exe file and double-click on it.
  2. A console window will open on your server with information with a local website address that will look like this http://localhost:40120/auth.
  3. A browser will open on your server desktop if you have Google Chrome. The default explorer will not allow it and block it if using your own server.
  4. The best thing to do is to use your computer and type http://localhost:40120/auth. If your firewall ports are not open you will see nothing so make sure to open the port 40120 and 30120 TCP and UDP for both.
  5. Once your browser opens enter the pin displayed in the console on your server desktop.
  6. Click on Link Account then you will see Autherize txAdmin.
  7. Click on Continue and then you will see Create Backup Password: Create your password and check that I have read and agree to the Cfx.re ToS as well as the txAdmin License.
  8. Then click Create Master Account.
  9. Click on | Login.
  10. Click Next.
  11. Type a name in the Change-me windows and click next. You will then have four options to select from. The best one is Popular Recipies.
  12. There will be four Templates to select from     
  13. 1. CFX-Default Server.
  14. 2. QBcore Framework.
  15. 3 ESX Framework.
  16. 4. Zap Hosting ESX 1.1 Framework. I would recommend QBCore Framework because it runs smoothly and is always being updated.
  17. Click on the Recipe Deployer. You will then see a Review Recipe window. You do not need to do anything there just click Next.
  18. Enter your Key Master License and remember to enter the detail of your SQL information like the Local host. Username. Password and SQL Name. For QBCore the password cannot contain any special characters like #@$£ because you will see an error about the server query error cannot connect to the database with password no.
  19. Click on Run Recipe. Once it is all completed you will see Done. You just need to click Next then Save and Run Server.
  20. You will see the main console window and a few final steps it runs throw like creating the yarns in red for the built chat then when it’s finished you will see complete and that’s it your all done.
  21. Open your five clients and type your server name in the find server window. You can find that on your server.cfg. You can also join via the Local Connect displayed below the FiveM servers window. If not you can join your server by looking at your console and finding a link that looks like https://yourname-jfrgzd4.users.cfx.re/ Open up your F8 console of your fivem client and type connect and then the letter and number after your -name. and .users. yourname-jfrgzd4.users.cfx.re. Then press enter and you should see a server loading window. If you see any error about cfx.re that might be because the main fivem servers are offline. You will have to wait for them to come back online. This can take anything from 20 minutes to 24 hours.

If you need help or assistance setting up your server then join my Discord Server and goto the support category and use the create-a ticket channel and I will be more than happy to help you. Remember when you first join mu discord server you will be a New Member for 15 minutes for security reasons and then given Member Role and you will see all channels for that role.