GTA Forums - Modding Tutorials

GTA V Modding for Beginners: ScriptHookV, SHVDN, OpenIV and Staying Ban Safe

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 16:40:27 +0000

Getting into GTA V modding in 2026 basically comes down to four things: ScriptHookV for running script mods, ScriptHookVDotNet for the huge library of .NET mods, OpenIV for editing game files, and a "mods" folder so you never touch your original install. Set those up in that order, keep it all strictly singleplayer, and you can mod safely without risking your Online account.

I've walked a lot of people through this over the years, and the questions are always the same: what do I actually need, in what order, and will Rockstar ban me. So here's the full beginner rundown in one place.

The core stack, explained

1. ScriptHookV is the foundation. It's a library by Alexander Blade that lets custom .asi plugins call GTA V's native script functions. Almost every script mod you'll ever download depends on it. Get it only from the official page at dev-c.com, never from random reuploads. The download includes the ASI Loader (which actually loads .asi files into the game) and the Native Trainer, a simple built-in trainer you can use to test that everything works.

Installation is just dropping ScriptHookV.dll and dinput8.dll into your game folder next to GTA5.exe. Press F4 in game and if the Native Trainer menu opens, you're set.

One thing beginners always trip over: ScriptHookV breaks after every Rockstar patch. When GTA V updates and your game suddenly crashes on launch, that's not your mods being broken, it's ScriptHookV waiting for a new release. The 2026 builds support both the Legacy version of the game and the newer Enhanced edition, but you still have to wait for Alexander Blade to update after each patch. Either be patient or temporarily pull the .asi files out of your game folder.

2. ScriptHookVDotNet (SHVDN) sits on top of ScriptHookV. It's an ASI plugin that lets mods be written in .NET languages like C#, and a massive chunk of the mods on gta5-mods.com need it. Requirements are ScriptHookV itself, .NET Framework 4.8 or higher, and the Visual C++ redistributable. Grab it from the official GitHub repo and extract everything into the game folder.

Important detail: if you're on game version 1.0.3258.0 or newer, the old stable 3.6.0 release from 2022 won't cut it. Use the nightly builds from the GitHub releases page instead. This catches a lot of people who follow outdated YouTube tutorials. Also, when you update SHVDN, replace ALL its .asi and .dll files together, mixing versions causes weird crashes.

Script mods themselves (.dll and .cs files) go into a "scripts" folder inside your game directory. Create it if it doesn't exist.

3. OpenIV is your tool for everything that isn't a script: car models, textures, weapon replacements, map edits. It opens the game's .rpf archives so you can view and replace files. Official download is openiv.com.

Heads up if you own the Enhanced edition: OpenIV doesn't recognize GTA V Enhanced out of the box. The community has filled the gap with tools like OpenRPF (an OpenIV.asi replacement that makes the mods folder work on Enhanced) and ZEnhanced for installing .oiv packages. If you're on Legacy, standard OpenIV works as it always has. And make sure any asset mod you install actually says it supports your edition, Legacy mods can crash Enhanced and vice versa.

4. The mods folder is the single best habit you can build. Instead of editing the original .rpf archives, you create a folder called "mods" in the game directory, copy the archives you want to edit into it, and install everything there. OpenIV.asi (or OpenRPF on Enhanced) redirects the game to load from the mods folder first. Your original files stay untouched, so a broken mod means deleting one copied file, not verifying 100+ GB through Steam. Never skip this step. Everyone who edits the originals directly eventually regrets it.

Staying ban safe

The short version: singleplayer modding does not get you banned, taking mods into GTA Online does.

ScriptHookV actually protects you here by design: it deliberately closes the game if you try to enter GTA Online while it's loaded. So script mods are largely self-policing. The bigger risk is edited game files sitting in your actual archives, which is another reason the mods folder matters, since the redirect only applies when the .asi loader is active.

My personal rules, and what I'd recommend to anyone starting out:

Keep mods strictly in singleplayer. Never try to bypass the ScriptHookV online block.
Always use the mods folder, never edit original .rpf files.
If you play Online regularly, consider a second copy of the game folder: one clean for Online, one modded for story mode.
Download only from known sources: dev-c.com, openiv.com, the official SHVDN GitHub, and gta5-mods.com. Random "ScriptHookV cracked" sites are malware farms.
After every Rockstar patch, wait for ScriptHookV to update before launching your modded setup.

Frequently asked questions

Can I get banned for using ScriptHookV in singleplayer?
No. Rockstar's enforcement targets GTA Online, and ScriptHookV won't even let you enter Online while it's running, it closes the game instead. Story mode modding has been tolerated since 2015.

My game crashes on startup after an update. What do I do?
Nine times out of ten a Rockstar patch broke ScriptHookV. Remove ScriptHookV.dll and your .asi files (or move them to a backup folder), play vanilla, and check dev-c.com every few days for the updated version. Don't reinstall the whole game.

Does all of this work on the Enhanced edition?
Mostly, with extra steps. ScriptHookV's 2026 builds support Enhanced, and SHVDN nightlies work too, but OpenIV needs community add-ons like OpenRPF or ZEnhanced for the mods folder and .oiv installs. Check each mod's page for Enhanced compatibility before installing.

ScriptHookV or ScriptHookVDotNet, which one do I need?
Probably both. ScriptHookV is the base requirement for nearly everything. SHVDN is only needed for .NET mods, but so many popular mods use it that installing it up front saves you troubleshooting later. Each mod's description lists its requirements.

That's the whole beginner stack. If you're setting this up for the first time and something isn't behaving, post your game version (Legacy or Enhanced), your ScriptHookV version, and the crash symptom below and I'll take a look. And if you've been modding for years, share the first mod that got you hooked, always curious what pulls people in.

How to set up an open.mp server (SA-MP successor): install, migrate, script, host

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 16:33:27 +0000

Setting up an open.mp server takes about ten minutes: download the server package from GitHub, drop your gamemode into the gamemodes folder, edit config.json, and run omp-server. Because open.mp is fully backwards compatible with SA-MP, your old scripts and even old compiled AMX files load straight out of the box, and players can join with the regular SA:MP client.

I have run SA-MP servers on and off since the old 0.3 days, and I moved my last project over to open.mp without any drama. Here is the full walkthrough, including migration from an existing SA-MP setup, a quick Pawn primer for newcomers, and some honest hosting advice.

What open.mp actually is

open.mp (Open Multiplayer) is an open source reimplementation of the SA-MP server. The client side stays the same: people still connect with the SA:MP client (or the open.mp launcher), so you do not lose your player base by switching. What changes is the server binary. You get an actively maintained codebase, a modernized Pawn compiler, a C++ component API for people who want to go beyond Pawn, and a pile of bug fixes the original SA-MP server never got. The project describes itself as fully backwards compatible, and in my experience that claim holds up: an old AMX loads and runs. You can read more on the official open.mp site.

Step 1: Download and unpack

Grab the latest release from the open.mp GitHub releases page. Windows users want open.mp-win-x86.zip, Linux users want open.mp-linux-x86.tar.gz (there is also a dynssl variant if you have OpenSSL issues on your distro).

After extracting you will see a familiar layout if you ever ran SA-MP:

gamemodes: your main .pwn and .amx files
filterscripts: side scripts
plugins: legacy SA-MP plugins
components: native open.mp components (the modern replacement for many plugins)
qawno: the bundled Pawn compiler and IDE, plus the include files
scriptfiles: data files your scripts read and write
config.json: the server configuration

Note the server is a 32-bit binary. On a fresh 64-bit Linux box you will need the 32-bit runtime libraries before it starts (on Debian/Ubuntu that means enabling the i386 architecture and installing the usual 32-bit libc/stdc++ packages).

Step 2: config.json instead of server.cfg

This is the biggest visible change from SA-MP. The old flat server.cfg is replaced by a structured JSON file. The config.json documentation lists every option, but the essentials look like this:

name: the hostname shown in the browser
network.port: default 7777, forward it (UDP) on your firewall/router
max_players: default 50, can go up to 1000
pawn.main_scripts: your gamemode, for example ["mygamemode 1"]
pawn.side_scripts: filterscripts
pawn.legacy_plugins: old SA-MP plugins like mysql or streamer
rcon.enable and rcon.password: the server refuses to start if the RCON password is still "changeme", which is a nice touch

Two things I really like here. First, migrating is painless: run the server with the --dump-config flag and it converts an existing server.cfg into config.json for you. Second, config values support environment variables with ${VAR} and ${VAR:-default} syntax, which is genuinely useful if you deploy with Docker or want to keep passwords out of the file.

Step 3: Migrating an existing SA-MP gamemode

The official installation guide covers this, and the short version is:

Copy your gamemode .pwn into gamemodes and your includes into qawno/include
In the script, replace #include with #include
Recompile with the bundled qawno compiler (F5 in the IDE)
Copy compatible plugins into plugins and list them under pawn.legacy_plugins

If you cannot or do not want to recompile, your existing .amx will still run against the SA-MP compatibility layer. Recompiling against the open.mp includes is still worth it: you get the new natives and better compiler diagnostics. Expect some warnings on old code, mostly tag mismatches and deprecated function names (British spellings like TextDrawColour are now the canonical ones). The docs mention defines like MIXED_SPELLINGS to quiet those down while you clean up gradually.

Plugin-wise, most popular ones have open.mp compatible builds: sscanf, Pawn.CMD and sampvoice all have OMP releases, and FCNPC is superseded by the official open.mp NPC component. The streamer plugin also works fine in legacy mode.

Pawn scripting in 60 seconds

If you are brand new: Pawn is a small C-like language. Your gamemode is one script built around callbacks the server fires. OnGameModeInit runs at startup, OnPlayerConnect when someone joins, OnPlayerCommandText (or a command processor like Pawn.CMD) when someone types a command. A minimal gamemode is maybe 20 lines: set the mode text, add a class with AddPlayerClass, spawn the player in OnPlayerRequestClass. Compile, put the name in pawn.main_scripts, restart, done. The open.mp docs mirror the entire old SA-MP wiki function reference, so anything you learned there still applies.

Hosting: what actually matters

An open.mp server is light. A 100 slot server runs comfortably on a cheap VPS with 1 vCPU and 1 to 2 GB of RAM; the bottleneck is almost never CPU, it is your script doing something silly in a tight timer. My advice:

Get a small VPS instead of shared "game hosting" panels, you will want shell access for the 32-bit libs and for tools like MySQL anyway
Pick a location close to your players, sync quality in SA-MP/open.mp is very ping sensitive
Run the server under a non-root user, open only UDP 7777, and put your RCON password somewhere sane
Use screen, tmux or a systemd unit so the server survives you closing SSH

Frequently asked questions

Can SA-MP players join an open.mp server?
Yes. open.mp is a server replacement only. Anyone with the standard SA:MP client connects normally, the open.mp launcher is optional.

Do I have to rewrite my gamemode?
No. Old compiled AMX files load as-is. For active development you should switch the include to open.mp and recompile, but that is a one line change plus fixing some deprecation warnings.

Does server.cfg still work?
There is legacy support, but config.json is the recommended format and the only one that exposes all the new options. Use --dump-config once to convert and never look back.

What are the minimum server specs?
Very low. Any 1 vCPU / 1 GB VPS handles a small to mid size server. Remember the binary is 32-bit, so install the i386 runtime libraries on 64-bit Linux.

That is everything I would tell a friend setting up their first open.mp box. If you have already migrated a bigger SA-MP project, I would love to hear how the plugin situation went for you, and if you get stuck anywhere during setup, post your config.json and the console output below and I will take a look.

How to set up a FiveM server with txAdmin in 2026 (step by step)

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 16:26:27 +0000

Short answer up front: to set up a FiveM server in 2026 you download the latest server artifact from Cfx.re, run it, and txAdmin (which is now built into every server build) walks you through the rest in your browser on port 40120. No separate txAdmin install, no hand-editing configs before you even get started. Below is the full step by step, plus what to do after the wizard finishes.

I have set up more FiveM servers than I care to admit, both for my own communities and for people who asked for help here, so this is the process I actually use today, not a rehash of a 2021 tutorial.

What you need before you start

A Windows or Linux machine (VPS or dedicated). For a small RP server with a framework I would not go below 8 GB RAM. A vanilla freeroam server runs on much less, but frameworks, MySQL and a pile of resources eat memory fast.
A free Cfx.re account and a license key from portal.cfx.re. The old keymaster site redirects there now. The key is free for a normal server.
Ports 30120 (game, TCP and UDP) and 40120 (txAdmin web panel, TCP) open in your firewall. This is the number one thing people forget, especially on cloud VPS providers where the provider firewall sits in front of the OS firewall.
For a framework server: MariaDB or MySQL installed. The txAdmin recipes can talk to the database during deployment, but the database itself has to exist first.

Step 1: download the server artifact

Grab the latest recommended build from the official artifact listings: Windows builds or Linux builds. On Windows you extract the server.7z into a folder like C:\FXServer\server. On Linux it is:

wget the fx.tar.xz from the artifact page
tar xf fx.tar.xz (install xz-utils if tar complains)

Do not download txAdmin separately. It ships inside the artifact and has for years, so any guide telling you to clone the txAdmin repo is outdated.

Step 2: first launch and the txAdmin wizard

Run FXServer.exe on Windows or bash run.sh on Linux. The console prints a PIN and a link to the panel on port 40120. Open http://your-server-ip:40120 in your browser (localhost:40120 if you are on the same machine), enter the PIN, and link your Cfx.re account. Then you set a master admin password. Write that password down somewhere safe, recovering a lost txAdmin master account is a pain you do not want.

The official walkthrough for this part lives in the Cfx.re docs if you want screenshots.

Step 3: deploy with a recipe

This is where txAdmin earns its keep. Instead of manually cloning cfx-server-data and writing a server.cfg from scratch, the setup wizard offers recipes, which are basically automated deployments. Your main options:

CFX Default: a plain vanilla server. Good for freeroam, testing, or if you want to build everything yourself. No database needed.
Framework recipes (QBCore, ESX Legacy and others): these pull the whole framework, set up the database tables and wire the config for you. You will be asked for your MySQL connection details during deployment, so have that ready.
Custom template: point it at your own recipe or an existing server-data folder if you are migrating.

During deployment you paste your license key from portal.cfx.re. Once the recipe finishes, txAdmin starts the server and you can connect from the FiveM client with connect your-ip:30120 or by finding it in the server list.

Step 4: first resources and basic hardening

After the wizard, do these before you invite anyone:

In the txAdmin panel, set up scheduled restarts (once or twice a day keeps memory usage sane) and enable the ban/whitelist features you want.
Change sv_hostname, sv_projectName and sv_projectDesc in your server.cfg so you do not sit in the list as a default-named server.
Add resources one at a time and restart between additions. When something breaks, and it will, you want to know which resource did it. The txAdmin live console and the resource monitor (CPU and memory per resource) make this much easier than the old tail-the-logfile days.
If you deployed a framework, install ox_lib and a proper inventory early, before you have player data you care about. Swapping inventories on a live server is miserable.

QBCore vs ESX in 2026, the short version

You will hit this decision the moment you pick a recipe, so here is my honest take. ESX is the oldest framework and still has the largest script ecosystem, tons of tutorials, and it is simple to learn. QBCore had a huge run but its original development has largely stalled, and the community energy moved to Qbox, a QBCore fork that ships with ox_lib and ox_inventory and stays compatible with most QBCore scripts. There is a decent side by side in this framework comparison if you want the details.

My rule of thumb: starting fresh in 2026, look at Qbox or ESX. If you are moving an existing QBCore server, Qbox is the natural upgrade path when you next do a big rebuild. If your paid scripts are ESX-only, that decides it for you, check your script compatibility before you pick, not after.

Frequently asked questions

Do I still need to install txAdmin separately?
No. txAdmin has been bundled with every FiveM server artifact for years. Download the artifact, run it, and the panel is there on port 40120.

Is a FiveM server free to run?
The server software, txAdmin and the license key are all free. Your only real cost is the machine it runs on. Note that servers over 48 slots and some premium features fall under Cfx.re subscription tiers, so check portal.cfx.re if you plan to grow big.

Can I run it on my home PC?
Technically yes, and it is fine for testing with friends. For anything public you want a VPS or dedicated server: home upload bandwidth, port forwarding headaches and your PC needing to stay on 24/7 make home hosting a bad long term plan.

The panel on port 40120 does not load. What now?
Nine times out of ten it is a firewall. Check both the OS firewall (Windows Firewall or ufw/iptables on Linux) and your hosting provider's cloud firewall or security group. Also make sure the server process is actually still running, the console will tell you if it crashed on startup.

That is the whole process. If you get stuck at any step, or if you have opinions on the Qbox versus ESX debate (I know some of you do), reply below and I will do my best to help. Also curious what recipes people are deploying with these days.

FiveM quick start: how to install it and join your first GTA 5 RP server

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 22:00:00 +0000

FiveM is how you play GTA 5 roleplay and custom multiplayer servers. Setup is genuinely easy:

What you need

A legitimate copy of GTA 5 installed (Steam/Rockstar/Epic all fine — FiveM verifies ownership)
The FiveM client from fivem.net — that exact domain, nowhere else. Fake FiveM sites are a malware classic.

Install in 4 steps

Download from fivem.net and run it — it finds your GTA install automatically
Let it update itself (first launch downloads a few GB of cache)
Browse the server list, or press F8 and type connect for a direct join
Each server auto-downloads its own mods/resources when you join. First join to a big RP server takes a while; after that it's fast.

Things newcomers always ask:

It does NOT touch GTA Online or risk your Rockstar account — completely separate ecosystem (Rockstar owns FiveM now, officially blessed)
Your GTA graphics mods don't carry over; servers control their own content
Serious RP servers have whitelists and application processes. Start on a casual/public server to learn the controls before applying anywhere strict.

If you've never done GTA RP: it's a completely different game hiding inside GTA 5, and some servers have genuine communities years old. Fair warning, it eats lives. See you in the city.