Red Orchestra 2 is a historical first-person shooter game. The dedicated server component can be run as a Windows Service using FireDaemon Pro. You can only run the unranked server when hosting it yourself. If you want a ranked server, you will need to rent one from a Game Server Provider. FireDaemon Pro will allow you to start the dedicated server automatically at boot prior to login, start multiple instances of the dedicated server and so forth. 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.


Red Orchestra 2 Dedicated Server Setup Under FireDaemon Pro

First download and extract SteamCMD. The download is small (< 2 MB).


Download the Red Orchestra 2 server files via Valve’s content servers. First before you can download the files, go to the directory where you installed SteamCMD and create a shortcut to "SteamCMD.exe". Next edit the properties of the shortcut and in the target box, at the end of it (with a space before the following), put:

+login USERNAME PASSWORD +force_install_dir "C:\Red Orchestra 2" +app_update 212542 validate +quit
Replace USERNAME and PASSWORD with your Steam login info. The target box should now look something like:
C:\SteamCMD\steamcmd.exe +login USERNAME PASSWORD +force_install_dir "C:\Red Orchestra 2" +app_update 212542 validate +quit


Now click the shortcut you created and let it run to download the server files. It might take a few hours to update everything. You should also stop your server and run the shortcut every week or so to grab the latest server updates.


Red Orchestra 2 uses one configuration file, rogame.ini, to store your configuration preferences. Edit this file to suit your preferences. The official game wiki contains more information on the configuration settings.


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.


  • Executable: The path to your ROGame.exe file. For the purposes of this HOWTO, the path is C:\red orchestra 2\Binaries\Win32\ROGame.exe.
  • Working Directory: The directory containing your ROGame.exe file. For the purposes of this HOWTO, the path is C:\red orchestra 2\Binaries\Win32.
  • Parameters: MAPNAME?minplayers=0?maxplayers=32? -seekfreeloadingserver
    • MAPNAME - the map to use. See the official game wiki for a full list.
    • minplayers - the minimum number of players in a game
    • maxplayers - the maximum number of players in a game
    • -seekfreeloadingserver - this must be included for your server to work.

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 Red Orchestra 2 as the user you installed it as. In the Logon Account field type your username (eg. 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 Red Orchestra 2 doesn't respond to it.


Now click OK to finish setup and start your Red Orchestra 2 Dedicated Server!