Garry’s Mod Goes 64-Bit on Windows: Heavy Servers Should Crash Less

Garry’s Mod has officially moved into the 64-bit era on Windows. The September 2026 Update, released on September 16, introduces 64-bit binaries for the game client, development tools and, crucially, dedicated servers.

For large community servers, this is much more than a technical change. Facepunch says the move reduces the risk of exhausting the limited 32-bit memory address space, one of the situations that could cause crashes when playing on particularly heavy servers or using a large number of addons.

We already covered the September update preview and the testing period for Garry’s Mod server administrators. With the stable update now available, the final changelog reveals just how important the release is for dedicated server hosting.

64-bit dedicated servers are now available on Windows

Until now, the Windows version of Garry’s Mod still relied heavily on 32-bit binaries. The new update provides native 64-bit versions of the client, Hammer and the dedicated server.

Why does 64-bit matter for a Garry’s Mod server? A 64-bit process can access a much larger memory address space than a 32-bit application. For GMod communities running complex gamemodes, large maps and extensive Workshop collections, this gives the server significantly more room before memory limitations become a problem.

It does not magically make every server faster, and addons can still introduce their own performance issues. However, removing the old 32-bit memory ceiling should reduce one important source of instability on heavily modified servers.

Facepunch also cleans up dedicated server operation

The 64-bit transition is accompanied by several smaller changes specifically aimed at dedicated servers and long-running community installations.

Unused Workshop addon files are now automatically cleaned from the dedicated server cache.
Server log filenames have been redesigned to make dates easier to identify.
Lua error log files larger than 100 MB are automatically removed.
Several crashes occurring when servers reach their entity limit have been fixed.
Sound duration caching reduces repeated file parsing, particularly on dedicated servers.
Several SRCDS-specific crashes, errors and incorrect Steamworks API calls have also been corrected.

Facepunch has also added srcds_console.exe on Windows, an alternative version of SRCDS that reuses the existing console instead of opening a new console window each time.

A major quality-of-life update beyond servers

Players also receive a number of visible improvements. The Spawnmenu can now use subcategories, the player model selector has been redesigned, a new Downloaded category has been added to the Addons menu and standalone Insurgency (2014) content can now be mounted in Garry’s Mod.

The update contains a long list of additional bug fixes, optimizations, Lua API changes and developer tool improvements. The full September 2026 Update changelog published by Facepunch details the complete list.

What changes for Garry’s Mod communities?

Garry’s Mod remains one of the most addon-heavy multiplayer games around. DarkRP servers, custom role-play communities and heavily modified Sandbox servers can accumulate substantial amounts of Workshop content over time.

Moving the Windows dedicated server to 64-bit therefore addresses a very practical limitation. Combined with better Workshop cache management and the numerous server crash fixes included in this release, the September update should provide a healthier foundation for large and long-running GMod communities.

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