America's Army 3 is a first person action game. The dedicated server component can be run as a Windows service using FireDaemon Pro, which allows you to have the dedicated server start automatically at boot prior to login, start multiple instances of the dedicated server and more. This HOWTO will show you how to set it up. You can also use Fusion to manage FireDaemon and other Windows services via a web browser.


America's Army 3 Steam Setup Under FireDaemon Pro

The easy way to install the dedicated server is through Steam. If you are installing the server on another computer, make a new Steam account; if you use an already existing account, you will be logged out on your computer when the server files are downloaded or updated.

If your server OS is Windows 2003 Server, then you will need to download these files and replace the .dll’s in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\America's Army 3 Dedicated Server\Binaries" to allow your game server to properly authenticate.

  • Download and install Steam from here
  • Create a new Steam account by clicking "Create new account".
  • Enter the new account details you just made. SteamGuard might not let you log in yet because you have to prove you are the owner of the Steam account; Steam will send you an email with a code. Open your email and enter the code where Steam prompts you.
  • At the top of the Steam window, click "Library".
  • Below the library you will see "All Games". Click that and select "Tools".


Look for "America's Army 3 Dedicated Server". Right click it and select "Install Game..." from the context menu. Click Next on the window that appears.


The server files are large, over 2GB! Steam will tell you the approximate download time, which for most is under 1 hour.


Once the download finishes, you will need to run the server (once) to extract all the files so the server can start properly. You can exit the server once it starts; the window will show the logo for "America's Army 3".


America's Army 3 configuration can be done though the server configuration window. Start the server manually and do your initial configuration. Once configuration is done, click the "Save Options" button at bottom and then click "Cancel" to close the server configuration window.


If you want your server to be visible on the internet, you will need to register your server. Click "Global Internet Server" and at the far right click the button "Register New Server".


Now download and install FireDaemon Pro into the directory of your choice, typically C:\Program Files\FireDaemon.


Next start the FireDaemon GUI from the desktop shortcut. Click on the "Create a new service definition" button in the toolbar (or type Ctrl+N) and enter the information into the fields as you see below. Adjust the paths to suit your installation. Note the required parameters.



The most important field on the tab is the Parameters. The Parameters define the initial setup of your server.

To get the parameters for your server, start up the server configuration tool and select all the text after "AA3Game.exe", copy it to your clipboard, then paste it to the Parameters box on Program tab in FireDaemon.

What you pasted should look something like this:

server Alley_day_cloudy?GLOBAL?MissionType=co?MissionSize=large?MissionTourID=inf?MissionVariant=dev?MaxPlayers=12?MaxSpectators=0?AuthServerUserName=YourUserName?AuthServerPassword=YourPassword?AuthServerIP=127.0.0.1 /STEAMSERVERIP=127.0.0.1 MULTIHOME=127.0.0.1



Now click on the Settings tab. If you DON'T want to see your dedicated server running, uncheck the Interact with Desktop check box & select “Hidden” from the “Show Window” dropdown. You can optionally run America's Army 3 Dedicated Server as the user you installed it as. In the Logon Account field type your username (e.g. Administrator) and then enter the user's password twice in the Password and Confirm fields. You can change the Process Priority to allocate more CPU time to the dedicated server or specify which CPU or core the dedicated server will run on (in the case of multi-processor, hyperthreaded or multi-core CPUs).


Now click on the Lifecycle tab. Uncheck Graceful Shutdown as America's Army 3 doesn't respond to it.


Now click OK to finish setup and start America's Army 3!