Garry's Mod April 2026 Update: Faster Networking, New Games, and More

Garry's Mod received a major update in April 2026. The headline change is a significant rework of the networking system, but there is plenty more besides. Here is a breakdown of what changed and what it means for your server.

Network protocol changes

This is the big one. The update brings significant under-the-hood changes to the game's networking, enabling faster network transfer speeds to reduce server join times. A whole host of unnecessary networking done by various entities has been removed, which should reduce overall bandwidth usage - especially on initial player spawn.

The update also switches many game systems to use double precision time. This should help servers avoid needing to restart or change maps as often, and improve overall game feel after playing for a long time on the same map. If your server has been suffering from physics weirdness or timing drift after long uptime, this addresses the root cause.

New mountable games

Two new games are now mountable in Garry's Mod, added with community effort and permission from the respective developers:

• Black Mesa - the acclaimed Half-Life remake. Own it on Steam to use its maps and models in Sandbox and other gamemodes.
• Military Conflict: Vietnam - a fast-paced FPS set in 1968 Vietnam. Same deal: own it on Steam to mount its content.

As with other mountable games, players need to own them on Steam first.

HUD improvements

Several default HUD elements received polish:

• The ammo HUD now correctly displays ammo for modded weapon types that use secondary clips.
• The default weapon selector can display more slots and scroll when too many weapons are equipped.
• HUD scaling at 4K resolution has been improved - elements like Sandbox notifications and voice chat no longer overlap the ammo HUD.

New content and content fixes

The Combine APC is now a built-in vehicle in the spawnmenu, fully driveable by the player. There are also numerous bug fixes to existing models - props going pitch black when resting on the ground, fire effects not displaying correctly, and wrong gib models spawning when props break.

Performance and memory

The update includes optimisations to performance and memory usage. Smaller, but worth noting - every bit counts on busy DarkRP servers.

What this means for ZerosRP

We updated the ZerosRP DarkRP server immediately after this patch dropped. The networking improvements should mean faster join times for new players. If you were experiencing rubber-banding or timing issues after the server had been running for a while, the double precision fix should help.

Full change list available at the official Facepunch blog post.