What is Infernus

The name Infernus comes from the vehicle with the ID 411 in the game (specifically in san andreas).

Infernus is a library built on top of samp-node, which allows calling the game's SDK from the JavaScript layer.

WARNING

Infernus project has entered maintenance mode and will be gradually archived. Future ecosystem development will be led by the omp-node community, and we warmly welcome interested developers to join and contribute.

🚧 Work in Progress

• omp-node is currently in active development, it will replace Infernus in the future.
• If you want to try out omp-node or prefer the native syntax without too much wrapping, check out @open.mp/node.

Comparison

/	Infernus + samp-node	omp-node
Runtime	Windows/Linux: Node.js 22.17+	Windows/Linux: Node.js 18+
Module System	CommonJS/ESModule(experimental)	ESModule
Architecture	x86 only	x86/x64
Implementation	Via sampgdk→fakeamx→native calls	Direct omp-gdk/omp-sdk calls
Performance	Slow	Fast
Compatibility	Third-party plugins via polyfill layer	Requires SDK adaptation
Philosophy	1. Full Infernus rewrite recommended (avoid Pawn) 2. Mandatory Steamer adoption	See official documentation

Limitations

DANGER

Yes, it's important to understand the limitations before getting started.

Several limitations significantly impact the development experience. It is recommended to approach samp-node ecosystem development with an experimental mindset.

Overall, the ecosystem is currently unstable due to various factors.

Ecosystem

INFO

Click to view implemented ecosystem packages. Note that results may differ from original libraries and some bugs are expected.

Existing libraries developed in Pawn, may present two situations if your project depends on them: nobody maintenance or incompatible.

Since samp-node plugin development is based on samp and not omp, certain plugin ecosystems are not compatible. For example, accessing certain plugins' native functions, such as raknet, is not possible.

This greatly limits the development of samp plugins using the node.js ecosystem. It requires joint efforts from the community to address this issue.

Bindings Support

Unfortunately, this project is based on a 32-bit embedded node.js, and the support for bindings is unstable - you may encounter errors.

Before using this project, please note the version requirements:

1. Node Version Matching

   • Make sure your Node major version matches samp-node's requirement
   • e.g. if samp-node needs 22.17.0, only use 22.x versions
   • Incompatible versions like 18.x, 20.x, 24.x won't work

2. For existing projects:

   • First verify your Node version
   • Delete the node_modules folder
   • Run pnpm install again

Environment support: better-sqlite3 module has been tested on Windows

Perhaps this will be resolved in the future with a 64-bit omp-node.

Terminal Blocking

IMPORTANT

This issue has been fixed via monkeyPatch as the current solution.

Due to poor compatibility between the underlying samp-node and certain asynchronous node.js libraries, there may be occasional terminal blocking.

For example, when using orm libraries like typeorm/sequelize, it can cause terminal blocking and the server becomes unresponsive until you manually press enter in the terminal.

Therefore, it is recommended to adopt a distributed development approach, even though it may sound cumbersome.

One approach is to create another separate node.js project for database operations, such as using NestJS to build an API specifically for CRUD operations. The game server can then access the database logic through HTTP requests, or you can explore more advanced communication methods like RPC or sockets.

The benefit of this approach is that the game server only handles game logic, while the database logic is offloaded to another project. Additionally, you can develop an administration system that shares the same API as the game server.

Composition

In general, you only need to focus on the topmost layer, which is the application development layer.

Infernus primarily works with the second and third layers, depending on samp-node and omp game server.

If you are unsure how to start a project, please refer to the Quick Start.

/	Layer	Description
1	Application	GameMode, such as free-roam or role-play
2	Class Wrappers	Functionality wrapped in classes
3	Functional Wrappers	Wrappers for libraries like samp/omp/streamer
4	Samp Node	Bridge to the underlying SDK
5	Omp Game Server	Underlying game server

Why Development

For programming beginners or front-end developers, using a procedural language like Pawn (which resembles C) for game scripting presents a significant learning curve. Compared to modern object-oriented languages like JavaScript, Pawn's foundational APIs are more cumbersome—elementary operations such as string concatenation or array manipulation require manual implementation, increasing development complexity.

Furthermore, the Pawn language ecosystem exhibits notable limitations:

1. Weak Asynchronous Support: It natively lacks modern asynchronous programming paradigms like Promise/Async found in JavaScript.
2. Internationalization Challenges: Since the Pawn compiler (SA-MP) was developed earlier, its character encoding relies on the operating system's locale settings:
   • Western systems typically use ISO-8859-1 encoding;
   • Chinese systems rely on GBK encoding;
   • This creates incompatibility with the universal UTF-8 standard.

This strong dependency on specific encodings can lead to unforeseen compatibility issues. For instance, directly storing GBK data into a UTF-8 database without proper conversion will result in garbled text.

In contrast, a JavaScript-based approach leverages the full advantages of the Node.js ecosystem:

• Rich Toolchain: Access to robust libraries for date handling (e.g., Day.js), database drivers (e.g., MySQL, Redis, MongoDB), and more.
• Standardized Asynchrony: Native support for Promise/Async for managing asynchronous operations.
• Encoding Uniformity: End-to-end use of UTF-8 encoding, effectively avoiding internationalization compatibility problems.

By transitioning to the JavaScript technology stack, developers can significantly reduce the learning barrier while gaining more robust internationalization support and access to modern development tools.