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Team Fortress 2

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Template:Infobox

Team Fortress
Team Fortress (mod) 1996
Team Fortress Classic 1999
Fortress Forever (unofficial mod) 2007
Team Fortress 2 2007

Key points

Runs on low-end hardware.[1]
Receives frequent updates.[2]

General information

Official Team Fortress 2 Blog - Written by Valve
Official Team Fortress Wiki - Run by the Team Fortress 2 community and hosted by Valve
GitHub Issue Tracker for Team Fortress 2 and other Source-based games
Steam Users' Forums
Steam Community Discussions
Steam Workshop for Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2 Subreddit

Availability

Template:Availability Table

All versions require Steam, including retail.

Improvements

Skip intro videos

Instructions

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 C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf\cfg\autoexec.cfg to be executed when the game launches.

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).

Instructions

Game data

Template:Game Location Table

Achievements are stored within the Steam Community, and are thus tied to specific Steam accounts.
The .local file in Linux is likely hidden. In Ubuntu go to your Home folder and press Ctrl+H to toggle hidden files.

Save game cloud syncing

Template:Save Game Cloud Syncing

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

Video settings

File:TeamfortressGraphicsoptions1.jpg
Video settings
File:TeamfortressGraphicsoptions2.jpg
Advanced video settings

Template:Video Settings

Multi-monitor

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

Field of view (FOV)

A FOV slider is available within the options which is limited to a value between 75 and 90. This sets the FOV for a 4:3 monitor. The actual FOV will be adjusted for other aspect ratios, meaning widescreens gain a higher than configured FOV.

Adjustments can also be made in the console with the command: fov_desired X. It is possible to increase the FOV limit up to 130 using plugins such as this one. However it is important to note that, while allowed by the ETF2l, these plugins are not officially supported by Valve so use at your own risk.

The TF2 Tactics video on FOV has more information about FOV in TF2 and in general.

Borderless fullscreen windowed

Instructions

Oculus Rift

Instructions

Input settings

File:Teamfortress2mouseoptions.jpg
Mouse settings.

Template:Input Settings

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.

Audio settings

File:Team fortress 2 audio settings.jpg
Audio settings

Template:Audio settings

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 the hud: In console, hud_reloadscheme
    • Resync the game state with the server (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 C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\
    • multiplayer ob binaries.gcf
    • orangebox media.gcf
    • source 2007 binaries 2.gcf
    • source 2007 binaries.gcf
    • source 2007 shared materials.gcf
    • source 2007 shared models.gcf
    • source 2007 shared sounds.gcf
    • source engine.gcf
    • source materials.gcf
    • source models.gcf
    • source sounds.gcf
    • team fortress 2 client content.gcf
    • team fortress 2 content.gcf
    • team fortress 2 materials.gcf
The items under your steamid are just game cache and are automatically created when you start Team Fortress 2.
So you won't need to re-download ~10GB. Delete or rename (to keep a backup) your Team Fortress 2 folder. The folder will be automatically re-created the next time you launch Team Fortress 2.
  1. Delete your Team Fortress 2 registry settings
  2. *Delete the entire content of HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\Source\tf\Settings in the Windows registry using RegEdit.
  3. Re-install Steam
  4. *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.
  5. Contact Steam Support
  6. *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).
  7. Fully re-install Team Fortress 2
  8. *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.

Game Crashes at Valve Logo on Startup

Instructions

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

Close Steam and delete ClientRegistry.blob in the Steam directory:[3]

  • Windows:
    32 Bit: C:\Program Files\Steam\
    64 Bit: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\
  • OS X: /Users/Username/Library/Application Support/Steam/

Low FPS fix

Linux (Ubuntu 12.10)

Once the game has loaded and the FPS have dropped below playable:

  1. Press Esc. to return to the game menu.
  2. Go to Options -> Video
  3. Switch Display Mode from Fullscreen -> Windowed

From here on, the game should increase dramatically in performance.

  1. Optional: Switch back from Windowed -> Fullscreen
Anti-Virus Exception

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: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\appcache\stats\
Disabling Aero

Alternatively if you are using -noborder -window or just windowed mode:

Windows 7/Vista:

  1. Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\*Your Steam Username*\team fortress 2
  2. Right click on hl2.exe.
  3. Go to the compatibility tab.
  4. Select Disable Visual Themes and Disable Desktop Composition

This will disable Windows Aero when playing TF2 in noborder mode, the same way it would disable it if you were playing in proper fullscreen, this can gain you some FPS.

Issues and fixes (Linux)

Performance

Disable desktop composition while playing a full screen game Linux Install the latest graphics drivers Linux

No audio

It might happen if there is no PulseAudio in your system. If you want to use Alsa, you need to launch the Steam or game directly with "SDL_AUDIODRIVER=alsa". (From SteamCommunity).

Black screen on launch

There are various possible reasons Team Fortress 2 is booting into a black screen on Linux.[4]. Most of the following steps require you to exit out of Steam beforehand.

Instructions
If none of these work, it may be that your graphics card is unsupported. Various AMD and Intel chips will not working with Team Fortress 2 on Linux despite working on Windows.

System requirements

Template:System Requirements

Template:System Requirements

Template:System Requirements

Useful Links

  • 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.
  • Chris' FPS Configs for TF2 - Different configuration files to automatically set all settings to their absolute lowest or highest. It is recommended to troubleshoot before resorting to these as they can cause problems.
  • TF2Mate - a TF2 configuration generator with support for various FPS configs, configurable key bindings, and other miscellaneous settings.


References