AFKing - A Better Way

[OoO]

Preface: This guide may look long, but fear not, it is mainly images and detailed descriptions of steps for less advanced users

AFKing on the server offers multiple benefits: helping our beloved community, earning us tokens, and allowing us to join Job Credit Raffles.

With this guide you'll be able to reduce GMod to a simple text box, which will allow you to leave it running on your machine without impact on performance or without your fans keeping you up at night.

(yes this is really what it looks like)

Before starting this guide you may want to consider how you would like to apply this. You can run this on your main machine, it shouldn't impact your FPS in other games or make the fans act up at night, or you can run it on some crappy laptop you have laying around. Extra instructions for laptop users (whether as a main machine like me or as a dedicated AFKing machine) are at the end.

 

Step 1 - Locating hl2.exe

If you already know how to find Garry's Mod files on your PC skip this step.

Go to your steam library, right click on Garry's Mod, and click Properties.
Under "Local Files" you will see "Browse...", clicking that should open a File Explorer window in the GMod folder.


You should be able to see a file called hl2.exe in this folder.

This is the actual Garry's Mod app, you can launch GMod by double clicking on that file.

 

Step 2 - Creating & Testing a Shortcut

Windows not-11

Right-clicking on hl2.exe should prompt you to "Create shortcut"

Windows 11

Right-clicking on hl2.exe then on "More Options" should open a menu where you can find "Create shortcut"

 

To check if you've done everything right so far, you can try running(double-clicking) the shortcut, which should look like this:

GMod should open up like usual, this means everything is going well so far.

 

Step 3 - Editing the Shortcut

If you right click on the shortcut, then click properties, a small window should pop up with multiple different tabs.

Clicking on "Shortcut" you should be able to see the "Target" box with the path to your gmod file. We are now going to add modifiers after this path.

Copy and past the following modifiers after the path you see:

-64bit -textmode -single_core -nojoy -low -nosound -nod3d9ex -sw -noshader -noshaderapi -nopix -novid -nopreload -nopreloadmodels +connect s1.cloud-gaming.co.uk

It should look something like this:

Notice the space between .exe and -64bit, make sure it's there.

These modifiers make it so the game will load in text-mode and using as few PC resources as possible, and will make this client load into CG automatically leaving your PC free to do other things.

 

 

Step 4 - AFK

Click on the shortcut you made, a lot of text will scroll past as GMod loads your addons and connects to CG, but soon enough you should only be seeing a few console messages every now and then. You are successfully connected to Cloud Gaming and AFKing on the server.

It may use around 1gb of RAM but other than that should have minimal impact on CPU, and should not be using your GPU.

If your wifi fails or you get disconnected or any other problems arise just close the app in the top right with X and open the shortcut again.

 

Extra Step - Desktop Shortcut

Instead of going to your GMod folder every time, you can move it to your desktop and have it as a button there:

And/Or have it as a button on your taskbar:

 

To have it on your desktop, simple right click on the shortcut you made, and click the scissors (Windows-11) or Cut (Windows-not11), then go to your desktop, right click your background and click on the clipboard (Windows-11) or paste (Windows-not11).

To rename it, right-click the shortcut and click on the box with a text cursor (Windows-11) or rename (Windows-not11), you can then name it "GMod AFK" or whatever else you like.

To have it on your taskbar, right click the shortcut, (in your gmod folder or on your desktop) and click on More Options then Pin to Taskbar (Windows-11) or Pin to Taskbar (Windows-not11)

 

Extra Step - For Laptop Users

While Desktop users can just unplug/turn off their monitors, we need to find a way to close our laptops without disconnecting us from the server.

Open "Control Panel" (can be found by using the windows search bar), and search "power". You should see the following:

Click on "Change what closing the lid does" and change it to the following:

This allows you to close your laptop without disconnecting you from AFKing. Before leaving the laptop for long periods of time close whichever apps you don't need running (eg discord or chrome) and just shut the lid of the laptop. This will turn off the screen but leave you connected to CG. When you reopen the lid you should be right back where you left off.





If you have any questions, concerns, or issues, leave them in the comments below so I or someone else can answer.

[Hydraaa]

WOWZA THIS IS AWESOMESAUCE THANKS NATSIRT

[SYMMIJ]

Very well written (urgently need you to go od rn)

[SCxBeeKid76]

I wanna play turf on the chatbox gmod setting fr

[keepalive]

Thank you now i can do cool things with text mode

[amfetamiin]

15 hours ago, SCxBeeKid76 said:

I wanna play turf on the chatbox gmod setting fr

 

8 hours ago, keepalive said:

Thank you now i can do cool things with text mode

from my experience you can't do shit in textmode once it is actually open, it's mostly there to just afk on

[Davidd]

please go OD, its so urgent french boy

(thank you for the lid settings)

[SCxBeeKid76]

6 hours ago, amfetamiin said:

 

from my experience you can't do shit in textmode once it is actually open, it's mostly there to just afk on

You see Paul, I was doing a funny

[keepalive]

15 hours ago, amfetamiin said:

 

from my experience you can't do shit in textmode once it is actually open, it's mostly there to just afk on

but you can see and read conmsole yesyes

[amfetamiin]

11 minutes ago, keepalive said:

but you can see and read conmsole yesyes

barely, you see money notifs, name change notifs, but nothing else

[rubymite]

Where did you learn this? I am quite interested. Also thanks this is a million times better ~xoxo<3

[bruhbruhlol]

its very nice to see another computer nerd make a way to afk better
i have a similar thing done but for linux so  i can run it on a raspberry pi to afk for the cheapest cost in electricty possible

[Davidd]

51 minutes ago, bruhbruhlol said:

its very nice to see another computer nerd make a way to afk better
i have a similar thing done but for linux so  i can run it on a raspberry pi to afk for the cheapest cost in electricty possible

that's class, might do that lol

[yousifgaming]

does this give you tokens?

 

[OoO]

21 hours ago, yousifgaming said:

does this give you tokens?

yeah that's the point of it, you get tokens and potentially job credits (with job credit raffles)

[yousifgaming]

7 hours ago, OoO said:

yeah that's the point of it, you get tokens and potentially job credits (with job credit raffles)

alright thanks i like it

 

[Dorc79]

thx frenchie 

[learnmore]

I dont quite get it to work.

When i try to print in the commands/flags beside the pathway, i just get a error "The name: *my pathway* specified in the Target box is not valid. Make sure the path and file name are correct"

What i have in my Target box:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\GarrysMod\hl2.exe -64bit -textmode -single_core -nojoy -low -nosound -nod3d9ex -sw -noshader -noshaderapi -nopix -novid -nopreload -nopreloadmodels +connect s1.cloud-gaming.co.uk"

As i understod it, i was suppose to have the "" marks arround the whole thing, so i dont know if that can be the issue.

[Medo230]

1 hour ago, learnmore said:

I dont quite get it to work.

When i try to print in the commands/flags beside the pathway, i just get a error "The name: *my pathway* specified in the Target box is not valid. Make sure the path and file name are correct"

What i have in my Target box:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\GarrysMod\hl2.exe -64bit -textmode -single_core -nojoy -low -nosound -nod3d9ex -sw -noshader -noshaderapi -nopix -novid -nopreload -nopreloadmodels +connect s1.cloud-gaming.co.uk"

As i understod it, i was suppose to have the "" marks arround the whole thing, so i dont know if that can be the issue.

just copy and past this with everything

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\GarrysMod\hl2.exe" -64bit -textmode -single_core -nojoy -low -nosound -nod3d9ex -sw -noshader -noshaderapi -nopix -novid -nopreload -nopreloadmodels +connect s1.cloud-gaming.co.uk

[OoO]

17 hours ago, learnmore said:

As i understod it, i was suppose to have the "" marks arround the whole thing, so i dont know if that can be the issue.

I don't have " at all, if you do I'm pretty sure it's only around the path, as Medo showed. Should work both ways.

[nani]

On 6/10/2023 at 9:10 AM, learnmore said:

I dont quite get it to work.

When i try to print in the commands/flags beside the pathway, i just get a error "The name: *my pathway* specified in the Target box is not valid. Make sure the path and file name are correct"

What i have in my Target box:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\GarrysMod\hl2.exe -64bit -textmode -single_core -nojoy -low -nosound -nod3d9ex -sw -noshader -noshaderapi -nopix -novid -nopreload -nopreloadmodels +connect s1.cloud-gaming.co.uk"

As i understod it, i was suppose to have the "" marks arround the whole thing, so i dont know if that can be the issue.

Are you sure that pathway is actually where the game is? Right click gmod on steam, Properties, Local Files, Browse. Then click the pathway at the top of file explorer and copy it.

[Hazard]

It gives me an alert saying "specified in the Target box is not valid. Make sure the path and file name are correct."

[nani]

Anyway to make this so it functions as a console, I.E. I can input commands?

[Zytred]

On 9/23/2023 at 5:12 PM, nani said:

Anyway to make this so it functions as a console, I.E. I can input commands?

bluds gonna AFK OD in -textmode 🥸

[Kwapi]

Well written and I like it