GMod Prop Hunt Server: Install the Gamemode and Fix the Maps

Running a Garry's Mod Prop Hunt Server

Prop Hunt is hide and seek played with Source props. One team turns into the map's furniture and holds still, the other hunts them by shooting anything that looks wrong. It is one of the most searched Garry's Mod gamemodes and it is not part of the game. You install it yourself, then deal with the map problem behind it, which is the part that actually breaks servers.

What actually ships, and what does not

A clean SteamCMD install of app 4020 (the dedicated server, not app 4000, which is the game) contains exactly three gamemodes: base, sandbox and terrortown. It contains exactly two maps: gm_construct and gm_flatgrass. The launcher agrees: srcds_run defaults to DEFAULT_GAME="garrysmod" and DEFAULT_MAP="gm_construct", so an unmodified server boots sandbox on gm_construct and waits.

Everything Prop Hunt needs is content you add. Stand up a vanilla server first with the dedicated-server setup guide and confirm you can join it, because adding a gamemode to a server you have never connected to makes two problems look like one.

Install the gamemode in the right place

A gamemode is a directory under garrysmod/gamemodes/ holding a gamemode/ subdirectory and a keyvalues text file named after the folder. Facepunch documents the layout on the Gamemode Creation page:

garrysmod/gamemodes/prop_hunt/
    prop_hunt.txt
    gamemode/
        init.lua
        cl_init.lua
        shared.lua

The folder name is the only name that matters. Not the archive you downloaded, not the Workshop listing's title, not the title line inside the keyvalues file. Whatever the directory is called on disk is the string you pass to the server.

Garry's Mod also loads every directory under garrysmod/addons/, and some Prop Hunt builds ship as an addon carrying its own gamemodes/ folder. If yours arrived that way, leave it as the author packaged it rather than flattening it by hand. Two mounted copies is a real failure mode, covered below.

Point the dedicated server at it

./srcds_run -game garrysmod -console \
  +gamemode prop_hunt \
  +map ph_MAPNAME \
  +maxplayers 20 \
  -port 27015

A - argument is a launcher flag. A + argument sets a console variable once the server is up, so +gamemode prop_hunt is nothing more exotic than the gamemode convar assigned from the command line.

Setting gamemode on a running server does not swap the round under people's feet. The value is read when a map loads, so follow it with changelevel or restart. gamemode_reload is a different tool: it re-runs the active gamemode's Lua in place, which is what you want while editing files, not a way to move from sandbox to Prop Hunt. Persistent settings belong in server.cfg per the configuration guide, but keep gamemode and map on the startup line where you can see them.

The map problem is the one that will break you

This deserves more attention than the install did. Prop Hunt is played on ph_ maps, community maps picked for their clutter, and not one of them is in the install. That produces two separate failures, and operators routinely fix only the first.

Server side: if +map ph_MAPNAME names a .bsp the server does not have, it never reaches a round. Prop Hunt will technically run on gm_construct, so a server that boots is not proof the map situation is solved, only proof you fell back to something boring.

Client side: the half that gets missed. Your server owning the map does not give the map to a player. Someone who connects without it is dropped on a missing-map error, or joins a world of ERROR signs and purple checkerboard. That hurts more here than in any other gamemode, because the props players are turned into are exactly the assets that go missing, and a hider rendered as an ERROR sign is not hidden.

The fix that scales is one Workshop collection holding the gamemode and every ph_ map you intend to rotate, pushed with host_workshop_collection. The server downloads and updates it at startup, and the same collection is what clients pull from. Build it yourself in the Steam Workshop, set it public or unlisted, and use its ID rather than copying one out of a forum post. Collection mechanics are in the Workshop addons guide; stalled downloads are in Workshop download troubleshooting.

For files that are not on the Workshop, that is FastDL territory: sv_downloadurl, sv_allowdownload and sv_loadingurl. Delivery paths are in content packs and missing assets; start instead at missing textures and ERROR models if players are already complaining.

Settings that matter for Prop Hunt

Three failures worth recognising

• Players see ERROR props, purple textures, or cannot load the map. This is content delivery, not the gamemode. Work the Workshop and FastDL path above before touching a line of Lua.
• The server boots but a round never starts. Usually the gamemode is nested one level too deep: you extracted the download and got garrysmod/gamemodes/prop_hunt/prop_hunt/gamemode/, so +gamemode prop_hunt points at a folder with no gamemode/ directory inside. The path must be exactly garrysmod/gamemodes/<name>/gamemode/init.lua. The other cause is player count: many builds will not open a round below a minimum, so testing alone tells you nothing.
• Everyone is stuck on one team. Read gamemode and host_map back in the console to see what is running rather than what you meant to run. If it says sandbox, there are no teams to be on and the install did not take. If it says Prop Hunt, check for two mounted copies, one under addons/ and one under gamemodes/: the one that wins may not be the one you edited.

One more check on an older install: the September 2026 update moved the sv_pure default away from mode 0, so confirm what it is set to before blaming the collection. See the September 2026 update guide. Lua errors belong to Lua scripting, in-round moderation to admin commands.

Sizing a Prop Hunt server

Prop Hunt wants people. Six players on a large ph_ map is a long, quiet search; around 16 to 24 is where the gamemode works as designed. That changes what you should buy.

Slots and CPU are the constraint, RAM is not. Each connected player is per-tick work inside a single Source server process, and that process is effectively one busy thread, so your node's per-core clock speed sets the realistic player ceiling far more than the memory behind it. A full round, with a couple of hundred props frozen into the geometry and a hunter spraying into a room, is a CPU event.

Memory matters in one direction only: the Workshop collection has to fit, and a wide map rotation is what grows that footprint. On Windows the 64-bit binaries from the September 2026 update remove the 32-bit address space ceiling that used to crash heavily addoned servers outright. Numbers are in server requirements and sizing, costs in server cost and plan sizing.

Related Garry's Mod guides

• Dedicated-server setup, the vanilla server this gamemode goes on top of
• Missing textures and ERROR models, start here if players already see broken props
• Content packs and missing assets
• Workshop collections and addons
• Startup flags and server.cfg

Want the gamemode folder, the Workshop collection and the slots handled for you? Launch a managed Garry's Mod server and keep this page for the gamemode and map decisions that are actually yours to make.