tiny-ragemp-launcher

⚠️ Disclaimer

This project exists solely to keep a shutting-down launcher alive. It has no commercial use and no monetization behind it. I respect the rights of Rockstar Games (Take-Two Interactive) and RAGE:MP — if an official objection is raised, I will take the project down entirely. What is done here falls under abandonware preservation.

Tiny ImGui frontend that wraps RAGEMP\updater.exe. Type IP + port, hit Connect, launcher writes HKCU\Software\RAGE-MP\launch2.{ip,port} and spawns the updater with cwd set to the RAGEMP folder. Updater reads the registry, skips its server browser, and starts the game. (Both major Russian server launchers I reverse-engineered work exactly the same way.)

Build

VS 2022 with the C++ workload, then:

build.bat

Output: build\tiny-ragemp-launcher.exe. First run pulls ImGui v1.91.5 via CMake FetchContent. Single ~570 KB exe, no DLLs to ship.

Looks for RAGEMP\ next to itself. Drop a copy beside the exe.

On the RAGE:MP shutdown

About 2-3 days ago the RAGE:MP team announced they're winding the platform down, citing Rockstar/Take-Two's Platform License Agreement which names FiveM as the only authorized GTAV multiplayer modder. Public listing dies June 1, 2026; end-of-support August 31, 2026. Full statement here: https://rage.mp/forums/topic/26561-long-term-eco-system-integration-pt-ii-final-outreach-cd/

A whole ecosystem getting nuked over a licensing dispute the community had no seat at the table for is not great. Years of custom roleplay codebases, server infra, third-party tooling — all expected to migrate to a platform that isn't even API-compatible.

The client and server binaries still exist on every machine that has them, and this launcher proves the protocol still works fine — point it at any live RAGE:MP server, registry write, spawn updater, done.

The catch: RAGE:MP isn't just a server list with a loading screen. Every launch hits the Rage API (cdn.rgsvc.io), talks to the Rockstar Games API, and goes through Easy Anti-Cheat. Pull any one of those down and every launcher in this category, mine included, turns into a shortcut that errors out. The wrapper is only as alive as the things it wraps.

Updater Offline Bypass Patch

The official updater.exe requires CDN connectivity to cdn.rgsvc.io before launching ragemp_v.exe. When offline or when the CDN goes down, it fails.

Six binary patches to updater.exe bypass the CDN check entirely:

#	Offset	Original	Patched	Effect
1	0x9393	A0 0F 00 00	32 00 00 00	Transfer timeout 4000ms → 50ms
2	0x9603	0F 8D BD 02 00 00	E9 BE 02 00 00 90	Skip manifest retry loop
3	0x98CB	0F 85 84 4B 00 00	90 90 90 90 90 90	Bypass connection error
4	0x98D9	0F 85 76 4B 00 00	90 90 90 90 90 90	Bypass connection error
5	0xA04D	0F 8E DE 0A 00 00	E9 DE 0A 00 00 90	Skip file downloads
6	0x99AA	0F 84 96 04 00 00	E9 82 11 00 00 90	Bypass manifest parse

Apply with any hex editor or script. The patched updater calculates upd token correctly, calls ShellExecuteExW("ragemp_v.exe") with proper params, and the client loads offline.

Domain Whitelist (solved)

ragemp_v.exe has a hardcoded domain whitelist for launch2.ip registry values — only *.gta5rp.com and *.grandrp.com subdomains pass. Custom domains like play.xxxx.com get rejected silently (registry cleared, server browser loads instead of direct connect).

Two ways around it:

1. hosts file — map a whitelisted domain to your server IP:

# In C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
YOUR.SERVER.IP  myserver.gta5rp.com

Set launch2.ip = myserver.gta5rp.com. RAGEMP passes the whitelist check, DNS resolves to your IP via hosts, connects to your server. Can be automated by the launcher.

2. rui editor auto-connect — set auto_connect (raw IP + port) in tools/config.json. The UI calls launchGame(ip,port) directly with an IP, and the whitelist only filters domains — a raw IP isn't subject to it, so any server works.

RUI UI Editor (tools/)

updater.exe renders the launcher UI from RAGEMP\cef\ + RAGEMP\rui\index.rui — a webpack-built Vue SPA packed into a custom two-table archive (265 contiguous files, entries stored raw). tools/ is a config-driven editor that repacks it byte-exact: an unmodified build reproduces the source identically. Pure Python, no deps.

cd tools
# set base_rui / out_rui in config.json to your index.rui paths
python build.py

Edit tools/config.json:

Key	Effect
auto_connect	call launchGame(ip,port) on UI load — auto-join on open
server_list	override:true replaces the shown list (empty it, or list your own); no master / cache4.bin needed
colors	remap theme hex colors (map in palette.png)
texts / title	replace any UI string / window title
images	drop a JPEG into assets/images/img_XXX.jpg — placeholders show which slot is which; originals/ keeps the real ones

The server-list override only changes what the browser shows; clicking a row still connects through the normal rageApi.launchGame path.

Custom server list (3 entries from config.json):

Placeholder image as the loading background (IMG 006 = that slot) + recolored loader bar:

Roadmap

Status	Task
✅	Launcher — registry write + spawn updater
✅	Updater offline bypass — 6 patches, CDN check skipped
✅	RUI UI editor — config-driven, byte-exact repack
✅	Domain whitelist bypass — hosts file or rui auto-connect by IP