How to play BeamMP: install the launcher and join servers

To play BeamNG.drive online you need three things: a legitimate copy of BeamNG.drive (the Steam version is the one BeamMP supports), the BeamMP launcher from beammp.com, and either a BeamMP account or a server that lets guests in. You start the game through the launcher, never from Steam directly, then open Multiplayer from the main menu, pick a server from the list or type its address into Direct Connect, and wait while the server's mods download. Almost every "it does not work" report comes down to one of four causes: the game was started from Steam instead of the launcher, the game version and BeamMP do not match, a firewall or antivirus got between the launcher and the game, or a large mod download timed out.

This page is written for players, so a server owner can send the link to anyone joining for the first time. The server side - auth keys, ServerConfig.toml, ports and mods - is in the BeamMP server guide.

What you need before you start#

BeamMP is not a separate game. It is a community multiplayer mod for BeamNG.drive plus a small program, the launcher, that keeps the mod up to date, starts the game with it loaded and handles the network connection to servers. Nothing about your single-player game is replaced; if you start BeamNG.drive from Steam afterwards, it runs as it always did.

The performance line is the one people skip. BeamNG.drive simulates soft-body physics for every vehicle on your own machine, and in multiplayer that includes everyone else's cars as well. A server with ten players and two cars each means twenty vehicles running physics on your CPU. A PC that is comfortable with one car in single player can struggle on a busy server, and no amount of server hardware changes that, because the server does not simulate vehicles at all. If your frame rate collapses when people gather in one spot, that is your CPU doing the work it has been asked to do. Smaller servers, or servers with a lower car limit per player, are the fix.

A pirated or cracked copy of the game is not supported, and asking for help with one on the official channels gets you nowhere. Beta branches of BeamNG.drive on Steam are a quieter version of the same problem: BeamMP is built against the public release, so a copy opted into an experimental branch can fail to load the multiplayer mod. In Steam, open BeamNG.drive's Properties, then Betas, and make sure no beta is selected.

Installing the launcher#

1. Go to beammp.com and download the installer. Do not use copies from video descriptions, file mirrors or Discord attachments - the project itself warns that redistributed builds may be tampered with, and a launcher is exactly the kind of program an attacker would like to swap.
2. Run the installer and let it finish. It creates a BeamMP launcher shortcut.
3. Start BeamMP through that shortcut. On first run the launcher checks for its own updates, downloads the BeamMP mod into the game's mods folder and then starts BeamNG.drive.
4. If Windows Firewall asks whether to allow the launcher on private or public networks, allow it. Refusing here is one of the most common reasons a fresh install cannot connect to anything.
5. Leave the launcher's console window open for as long as you play. It is not an installer that has finished its job; it is the bridge between the game and the server, and closing it drops you out of multiplayer.

The launcher keeps itself and the mod current on every start, which is why you should always launch through it rather than through Steam. Starting from Steam loads the game without the launcher running, the Multiplayer screen cannot reach anything, and you get a "launcher not connected" style message.

Where things end up

The launcher lives in the folder the installer chose. Next to it, it keeps a Resources folder used as a cache for mods downloaded from servers, and a small config file. The BeamMP mod itself is placed in BeamNG.drive's user folder under mods/multiplayer. The user folder moved in newer versions of BeamNG.drive - it used to sit under Documents and now normally sits under %LOCALAPPDATA%\BeamNG.drive with a subfolder per game version - so the quickest way to find yours is the "Open user folder" option in BeamNG.drive's launcher or the game's own settings, rather than guessing a path.

BeamNG.drive versions and why updates break things#

BeamMP works by hooking into BeamNG.drive's Lua and networking. Every BeamNG.drive release can change the parts it hooks into, so BeamMP has to be updated after game releases. In practice that produces a predictable pattern:

• The game updates, BeamMP has not caught up yet. The multiplayer mod fails to load, or loads and misbehaves. The BeamMP team announces compatibility on its Discord and site; the answer is to wait for their update, which the launcher then installs on its own.
• BeamMP updated, the server did not. You can launch fine, but joining a particular server fails with a version complaint. That is for the server owner to fix, not you.
• You are on a beta branch or an old copy. Switch off betas in Steam and let Steam update the game.

The version that matters is the one BeamMP currently supports, not simply "the newest". In the day or two after a major BeamNG.drive release, the newest game version may be ahead of BeamMP. Turning off Steam's automatic updates to avoid that is possible, but it tends to leave you behind instead, so most players simply accept a short gap after big patches.

Signing in: account or guest#

When the game opens through the launcher, the Multiplayer screen asks you to log in. You have two choices.

A BeamMP account. This is a forum account on forum.beammp.com, registered once and used to log in from the game. Signing in gives you a stable identity: your name is the account name, and server owners can identify you by your BeamMP account rather than a display name you could change. Owners who run whitelists, bans or role plugins key them on that identity, so if a server says it is whitelisted, it means your account, not your Steam name.

Guest mode. Choosing to play as a guest skips the login and gives you a generated guest name. It is enough to try BeamMP out, but many servers turn guests off - the server setting is AllowGuests - and an owner cannot whitelist, promote or reliably ban a guest. If you intend to play on a particular community regularly, make an account.

If logging in fails while the forum itself works in your browser, check that the launcher window is still open and not reporting an error - authentication goes through the launcher, so a launcher that has stopped or been blocked by a firewall looks like a wrong password from the game's side.

Finding servers, filtering and favourites#

The server browser is the Multiplayer screen inside the game. It lists every public BeamMP server: name, map, player count, and tags the owner set. The interface has changed across BeamMP versions, but the tools have stayed the same:

• Search and filters. Search by name, and filter by map, by empty or full servers and by tags. Owners set tags such as Freeroam, Race or a region, so the tag filter is the fastest way to find the kind of server you want.
• Favourites. Mark a server as a favourite and it stays in its own tab, so you do not have to search for it again. Favourites are saved on your machine, against the server's address and port.
• Recents. Servers you joined recently are listed separately, which is handy when you forgot to favourite one.

Look at the map and the server description before you click. A server on a map mod will download that map on join, and a description that says something like "1.5 GB of mods" is warning you about a long first join. The player count also tells you something about your own performance: twenty players on a server with no car limit is a lot of physics for a mid-range CPU.

Ping shown in a list is a rough guide, not a guarantee. What actually makes other cars jitter is packet loss and unstable latency between you and the server, not a big number on its own - latency, jitter and packet loss explains the difference, and game server ping by region explains why a server across an ocean will never feel like a local one.

Why a server is missing from the list

A server you were told about may simply not be listed. Owners can mark a server as private, which keeps it out of the public list without locking it - anyone with the address can still join. A brand-new server can take a minute or two to appear. And a list that has gone quiet altogether usually means the launcher cannot reach the BeamMP backend, not that every server went offline at once. In every one of these cases Direct Connect is the way in.

Direct Connect#

Direct Connect joins a server by its address, bypassing the list entirely. It is in the Multiplayer screen, and asks for two values:

IP:   203.0.113.10Port: 30814

The address is the server's IP or a domain name the owner set up, and the port is the one the server listens on. 30814 is BeamMP's default, but a hosted server often runs on a different port because several servers share one machine, so use exactly what your server owner gave you. Enter the two in separate fields, without http://, without spaces and without a colon in the IP field.

Direct Connect is the right tool in three situations: the server is private, the list is slow or broken, or you want to test whether a problem is the server or the list. If Direct Connect works and the list does not show the server, the server is fine. If Direct Connect fails too, the problem is between you and the server, or the server is down.

Owners who hand out a name instead of a number point a DNS A record at the server's address - connecting a domain to a game server covers it. You still type the port separately.

What happens when you join#

Joining is not instant, and knowing the stages makes the waiting easier to read:

1. Authentication. The launcher contacts the server, which checks your identity with the BeamMP backend. Servers that refuse guests, run a whitelist or have banned you stop you here.
2. Mod download. The server sends every mod in its client folder that you do not already have. They are stored in the launcher's Resources cache, so the second join is much faster than the first.
3. Map load. The game loads the server's map, which on a large map mod can take a while.
4. Spawn. You are placed in the world and can spawn vehicles up to the server's per-player car limit.

The mod download is where most first joins go wrong. A big mod pack on a slow connection can run into a client timeout and drop you back to the menu. Joining again usually continues from what was already cached. If the same download fails repeatedly, the cached copy may be damaged: close the game and the launcher, delete the server's mods from the launcher's Resources folder (or the whole folder, which only costs a re-download), and try once more.

Common client errors and what fixes them#

Exact message wording changes between BeamMP versions, so match on the meaning rather than the text.

Launcher not connected. Close the game, start it through the BeamMP shortcut, and leave the launcher window open. The launcher and the game talk to each other over a local port on your own machine - 4444 by default, changeable with the launcher's --port option, in which case the game has to be set to match. Another program sitting on that port, or a security suite blocking local connections, gives the same symptom.

Launcher closes immediately or will not update. Antivirus quarantine or a failed self-update. Restore it from quarantine if needed; if the update itself is broken, download the launcher again from beammp.com and install over the top.

Connected, map loaded, nobody moves. BeamMP uses TCP to set up the connection and send mods, and UDP for vehicle positions. If UDP is blocked anywhere between you and the server - a strict work or school network, some VPNs, an aggressive router firewall - you load in and everything stays frozen. Try another network to confirm. If every player has this on the same server, the server's UDP port is not open, and that is for the owner. Game server ports explained covers why games split traffic this way.

Other cars teleport, everyone else says it looks fine. The jitter you see is your own connection's packet loss; the jitter everyone sees around one player is theirs. Wired connections help more than anything else. A VPN rarely helps and often hurts - does a VPN lower ping in games explains when it might.

Crashes on join. Usually a mod from the server clashing with the current game version or with your own mods. Try with local mods disabled, then tell the server owner which server and when, because if it is their mod pack, everybody is having the same crash.

For server owners: what to send your players#

The most useful thing an owner can do is answer the first-join questions before they are asked. A short pinned message in your Discord saves a lot of repetition:

How to join:1. Install BeamMP from beammp.com (only from there).2. Start the game with the BeamMP shortcut, not from Steam.   Keep the launcher window open while you play.3. Log in with a BeamMP account (guests are not allowed here).4. Multiplayer > search "Sunday Night Cruise", or   Direct Connect: IP 203.0.113.10, port 30814.5. First join downloads about 800 MB of mods. Be patient.Rules: max 2 cars, no ramming. Problems? Post in #helpwith a screenshot of the launcher window.

Say the mod pack size honestly, give the address and the port even if the server is listed, and say whether guests are allowed. Asking for a screenshot of the launcher window rather than a description of the game is the single best support tip: the launcher log shows authentication, download and connection errors that the game's interface summarises as "failed". If you want ideas for structuring the help channel, game server Discord setup covers it.

On RE:NODE, BeamMP servers come with the port allocated on both TCP and UDP and the address shown in the panel, so the values in that message are copied straight from the server page. The auth key is your own, pasted in on the Setup tab.

FAQ#

Is BeamMP free?

Yes. The launcher, the multiplayer mod and joining servers cost nothing. You need to own BeamNG.drive, which is a paid game, and anyone who wants to run their own server pays for wherever it runs.

Can I play BeamMP without an account?

Yes, as a guest, on servers that allow guests. Many do not, and guests cannot be whitelisted or given roles, so an account is worth the minute it takes if you plan to stay on one community.

Why does BeamMP stop working after a BeamNG.drive update?

Because the multiplayer mod hooks into parts of the game that change between releases. BeamMP publishes an update after each release, and the launcher installs it the next time you start it. Until then, multiplayer may not load.

Can I use my own BeamNG.drive mods on a server?

Only the server's mods are loaded for everyone. Your local mods can still be active, but other players will not see a vehicle they do not have, and local mods are a common source of conflicts, so disable them when a server misbehaves.

Does BeamMP work on Linux or Steam Deck?

People do run it, but Windows is the main supported platform and the details change with each launcher release. Check the BeamMP documentation and Discord for the current state rather than an old guide.

The server is in the list but I cannot join. Is the server down?

Try Direct Connect with the owner's address and port. If that fails too and other people are playing, the problem is on your side: launcher, firewall or network. If nobody can join, tell the owner.