Tutorial: Configuring Counter-Strike 1.6 for Garena

Written by me for Associated Content, I would like to share this to all of you on my blog too!

To the New People of Garena Playing Counter Strike 1.6 (also Simply Known as CS 1.6), Unable to Find a LAN Game or Unable to Start Counter Strike is a Common Problem

Introduction:

To the new people of Garena playing Counter Strike 1.6 (also simply known as CS 1.6), unable to find a LAN game or unable to start Counter Strike is a common problem. In this tutorial, you will be shown how to correctly configure Garena for Counter Strike 1.6 and other common techniques to improve game play in this game.

Registering for Garena

To play in Garena, you will need a registered account. Registering is extremely simple, and can be done in Garena.com or in the Garena Game Client. Simply key in your desired username, password, email and you are good to go. The Garena server, however, can sometimes be frustrating slow, so it is advised to register an account a few days prior to your Online Lan Party.


Configuring Your Game

After you open up Garena, you will be at the home screen menu. This is where the common problems of starters of Garena Counter Strike occur. Because newer versions of Steam uses the Counter Strike protocol 48, and Garena uses the older protocol version of 47, these two games will not be compatible LAN-game wise. To play in Garena, what we want is a version of Counter Strike in Protocol 47, or P47. This can be solved by updating the version of the game to the patches of v19 to v23. Remember, only the patches of v19 to v23 will work. Steam, unfortunately, automatically updates games to the newest version, so if you have Steam, your Counter Strike will not be able to work with Garena. Not advocating it, but you will need a pirated non-steam version.

With the correct version of Counter Strike, go back to Garena's home menu page. On the left panel there will be 6 individual tabs: "Game", "Garena TV", "Profile", "Forum", "Support", and "MTV Asia". Go to "Game" and select "Counter-Strike 1.6". Remember, when you pick a room, pick the one closest to you, or you will most likely lag the server out. If you play with friends you know and they are close to you, however, you can play in servers in the middle of nowhere. This is because you are not connecting to people far away, instead, people close to you. Your ping, then, will not be sky-rocket high.

When you are in a room, above the "Start Game" button will be a smaller "Settings" button. Click into it as you will need to configure your Garena before you can successfully launch the game. In settings, browse to Counter-Strike 1.6 and in "Executable Settings", locate your Counter-Strike game. Skip the Game Bootstrap Parameters, as they are most likely only useful in situations such as DotA (Warcraft III) when you want to play in windows-mode. Next, click "update" and you are done

Now "Start Game", "Find Servers", and go to "LAN". If you are in a crowded room, there you go; you will find all sorts of servers. If you don't see any and you are sure you are in a crowded server, check your in-game filters and your windows firewall.