Team Fortress 2

Team Fortress 2 is a multiplayer first-person-shooter from Valve Software, launched in 2007. Since release, the game has continually received patches fixing known bugs, exploits, glitches, implementing balance-changes to the game's weapons and game-modes, and adding new content (maps, items, or whole new features). Team Fortress 2 is a sequel to Team Fortress Classic (1999) - a standalone version of the Quake modification, Team Fortress (1996).

Issues and Fixes

Generic fix for issues

A generic way of solving the majority of Team Fortress 2 related problems is as below, proceed down the list if the previous list item fails; or search for your exact problem and find an exact solution.

1. If you're currently experiencing the problem in-game, try these console commands
   • Reload visual resources (start/stop an in-game demo)

     In console, record something;stop

   • Reload sound resources

     In console, snd_restart

   • Re-connect to a server.

     In console, retry

2. Restart the game
3. Validate the game files

   Right click Team Fortress 2 in Steam and select Properties. Navigate into the Local Files tab and select Verify integrity of game cache. Steam will then (re)download any missing or corrupt files.

4. Delete your Team Fortress 2 user folder

   TF2's main game files are stored in the steamapps folder, so you won't need to re-downloading ~10GB. Navigate to your user folder within *steam directory*/steamapps/ (e.g. *steam directory*/steamapps/username) and delete or rename (to keep a backup) your team fortress 2 folder. The folder will be automatically re-created when you next launch Team Fortress 2.

5. Delete your Team Fortress 2 registry settings

   Delete the entire content of HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\Source\tf\Settings in the Windows registry using regedit.

6. Re-install Steam

   Delete (or move/back up) all of your steam directories content excluding the steamapps folder and steam.exe. Launch steam.exe and all the relevant Steam files will be re-downloaded.

7. Contact Steam Support

   Open a new support ticket here, and document your problem and your attempted solutions in as much detail as possible. Steam Support can be slow to respond to tickets, and by providing as much information as you can you negate the need for Support to contact you for more information (and thereby take longer to help solve the problem).

8. Fully re-install Team Fortress 2

   This is pretty extreme, and it is therefore recommended you try and find a case of your problem happening to somebody else and see how they solved it. You will usually never need to do this, unless Steam Support themselves are unable to help with your case.

Cosmetic items do not appear on a player

This is a bug caused by the dynamic-model-loading system implemented in Team Fortress 2. Once a player touches a resupply cabinet the cosmetic items should appear.

Getting disconnected while playing on a LAN with multiple players

This is caused by multiple players trying to connect to a server using the same client port. To fix, each player needs a different client port, by adding this to the launch options: "+clientport N", where N is a number between 27005 and 27032, but not 27015 or 27020.

Game cache files are stuck validating

Defragmenting the cache files may fix this. Navigate to the TF2 properties in Steam, select the 'Local files' tab and 'Defragment cache files'.

Graphical Tweaks

Multimonitor Support

See this Widescreen Gaming Forum article for a limited case script when using multiple monitors.

Changing the Field of View

To change the field of view type the following into console (~)

fov_desired xx

replace the xx with the desired field of view.

To change the viewmodel field of view (making the weapons appear bigger or smaller, type:

viewmodel_fov xx

replace the xx with the desired FOV

Save Game Data

Achievements are stored within the Steam Community, and are thus tied to specific Steam accounts.

Folder Location

• Steam Cloud data - steam\userdata\unique user id\440\remote
• Configuration files - steam\steamapps\steam log-in name\team fortress 2\tf\cfg
• Demo files - the .dem files residing in steam\steamapps\steam log-in name\team fortress 2\tf\

Cloud Support

Steam Cloud

Team Fortress 2 uses the Steam Cloud to store settings, users' in-game sprays and Steam Workshop submissions.

Other Technical Information

Launch parameters

See also: Command-line parameters on the Valve Developer Community

You can launch Team Fortress 2 with launch parameters - these parameters dictating how certain aspects of the game behaves (outside of gameplay).

To add launch parameters:

• Right click Team Fortress 2 within Steam and select Properties
• Select Set Launch Options
• Add your launch parameters and click OK
• Close the properties window and launch the game with the specified launch parameters.

Launch parameters are typically prefixed with - (dash), however you can also set console commands by providing the console command with a + (plus) prefix.

Useful launch parameters

Parameter	Description
-autoconfig	Restores video and performance settings to default for the current hardware detected. Ignores settings inside any .cfg files until this parameter is removed.
-console	Starts the game with the developer console enabled.
-dxlevel xx	Forces the game to launch in a specific DirectX version, where xx is: 80 (DirectX 8 (buggy, use 81 instead for high performance)), 81 (DirectX 8.1), 90 (DX9 with Shader Model 2), 95 (DX9 with Shader Model 3) and 98 (DX9 on DX10 hardware (SM 4)). Remove this argument after starting TF2 once or it will keep reseting your other settings. The overridden DirectX version will still be saved (mat_dxlevel).
-noborder -window	Launches the game in a borderless fullscreen window (i.e. very alt-tab friendly). This may result in a minor performance loss. If you experience stuttering, disable Windows Aero.
-h height or -height height	Forces the engine to start with resolution set to height.
-w width or -width width	Forces the engine to start with resolution set to width.
-novid	Disables the intro video from playing.

Console Commands

See also: List of useful console commands on the Offical TF2 Wiki

Games running on the source engine can utilize Source Engine Console Commands for various tasks. These commands can be saved into *steam apps*/username/team fortress 2/tf/cfg/autoexec.cfg to be executed when the game launches.

Command	Notes
mat_dxlevel xx	Same as -dxlevel (above) but doesn't adjust other settings such as resolution.
net_graph 1	View in-game FPS, ping and more. A higher number (up to 4) shows more advanced information. This can result in a performance loss.
cl_showfps 1	Shows FPS only. 1 is real-time, 2 is averaged over the past second.
rate x	Max bytes/sec the host can receive data. A too low value may result in the server starving the client for data it could otherwise have received. A too high value may result in the server overwhelming the client with too much data and packets being lost. For example, if you can download data at 1 megabit/s, x should be 125000. However do not set higher than the maximum value of 1048576 (just over 8 megabit/s).
snd_async_fullyasync 1	May help you are experiencing freezes when some sounds that aren't cached are playing. Allows sounds to play when ready if loading it is too slow, instead of freezing the entire game until it is.
bind "END" "hud_reloadscheme; snd_restart; record fix; stop"	Works around most common bugs that can be encountered TF2 by pressing the END-key (or any other key of your choice) in-game. This will usually fix invisible players, displaced or invisible props, erroneously looping sounds at full volume, the HUD having the wrong team color or being otherwise broken, and more.
fps_max 59.9	If you have vsync enabled and your mouse feels sluggish then enter this into the console on the menu to resolve the issue. This setting cannot be changed while connected to a server. It's a better idea to just disable vsync if you don't mind tearing.

Options

These are found in each tab listed, in the "Options" section.

Tab	Option	Notes
Video - Advanced	Multicore rendering	Will grant a massive performance boost on multicore machines. Always enable unless it's incompatible with your system. If you're working with in-game demos it may cause crashes even though it works when playing.
Video - Advanced	Windows Aero extensions	Direct3D 9Ex (introduced in Windows Vista) is known to cause problems with the Mumble and possibly other overlays. Disable this option if you are experiencing problems. Doing may degrade alt-tab functionality, see the borderless window launch option for a remedy.

These are found in each tab listed, in the "Advanced..." section.

Tab	Option	Notes
Keyboard	'Fast weapon switch'	This option makes weapon switching not require a left click.
Video	'Field of view' slider	Changes the game's FOV to a desired value between 75 and 90. This value will be adjusted depending on your aspect ratio so if set to 90 on a widescreen it will actually end up higher.
Multiplayer	'Automatically reload weapons when you're not firing'	Reloads even if gun not empty. All reloads can be aborted by firing while reloading. Potentially problematic for the spy, whose reload animation blocks the screen. Change viewmodel field of view to adjust this.
Multiplayer	'Viewmodel field of view' slider	Adjust to change height of the view of your weapon and hands. Values higher than the default may result in some minor graphical bugs since the models are not designed for it.
Multiplayer	'Display damage done as text over your target'
Multiplayer	'Play a hitsound everytime you injure an enemy'	Volume can be adjusted by entering the console command "tf_dingaling_volume #", where # is a number between 0 and 1, such as 0.4 for 40% volume. To change the pitch depending on how much damage was dealt, adjust tf_dingaling_pitchmindmg and tf_dingaling_pitchmaxdmg. The hitsound itself can be replaced by a custom sound by installing it as \tf\sound\ui\hitsound.wav in your TF2 directory.
Multiplayer	'MEDIC: Medigun continues healing without holding down fire button'
Multiplayer	'MEDIC: Auto-call Health percentage'	Adjust to HP percentage level of when you would like teammates to automatically display a red cross on screen for healing.

Low FPS fix

Anti-virus software can interfere with a file in TF2's folder, which gets updated constantly during gameplay.

1. Open anti-virus program.
2. Select settings > exceptions/exclusions.
3. Add the following folder to the scan exceptions:

%ProgramFiles%\Steam\appcache\stats\

• Source thread on the Steam forums from 2009.
• YouTube guide by MafiaGuy76.

Improvements

Skip Introductions, Cutscenes and Videos

The intro logo can be skipped by adding -novid to the launch options.

Borderless Windowed Fullscreen

Supported with the launch commands: -sw -noborder

Controller Support

See also: Xbox 360 controls on the Official Team Fortress Wiki.

Team Fortress 2 can be played using an Xbox 360 controller, however (due to the large amount of PC-exclusive patches) the games menus are not able to be navigated with a controller. To enable full Xbox 360 controller support for gameplay and activate an Xbox-specific HUD, execute the Xbox 360 Controller configuration via the console command: exec 360controller; To disable the changes, input exec undo360controller using the same method.

System Requirements

Real World PC Requirements

• OS: Windows XP or later. Windows Vista/7 supports extra features (better alt-tab support). Also runs on OS X and Wine.
• CPU: Multi-core CPU. TF2 is very highly CPU bound. This will usually be the bottleneck.
• GPU: DirectX 9 capable card. Anything half decent should do.
• Memory usage: Around 1 GB.

See also

• Team Fortress Classic
• Team Fortress
• Source
• Valve

External links

Tweaks

• Chris' FPS Configs for TF2 High performance as well as very high quality (and low performance) configs.
• Fps problems article on Whisper's Wiki - a very detailed guide on how to tweak the Source engine and Steam platform, on which TF2 runs.
• TF2Mate - a TF2 configuration generator with support for various FPS configs, configurable key bindings, and other miscellaneous settings.

Wikis

• Official Team Fortress Wiki - great resource run by the Team Fortress 2 community, and hosted by Valve.