Team Fortress 2
From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Solutions
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.
- 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.
- 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/rabscuttle) 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.
- 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
- 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.
- 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).
- 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.
Recommended gameplay tweaks
Launch parameters
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. |
-32bit |
Forces the engine to start in 32-bit mode. Only useful on 64-bit Operating Systems. |
-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)).
|
-noborder -window |
Launches the game in a borderless fullscreen window (i.e. very alt-tab friendly). |
-threads x |
Forces multi-core support, x being the amount of threads you want to use (4 is recommended for quadcores).
|
-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.
|
Console Commands
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. |
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. |
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. |
disconnect;fps_max 59.9;retry |
Same as above, if you're connected to a server. |
net_graph 1 |
View In Game FPS & Ping. |
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. |
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.
- Open anti-virus program.
- Select settings > exceptions/exclusions.
- Add the following folder to the scan exceptions:
%ProgramFiles%\Steam\appcache\stats\
Notes
- Any settings/configuration changes made in-game will synch with the Steam Cloud (if Steam Cloud is enabled - it is by default).
See also
External links
Team Fortress 2 on the Steam Store
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.
Wikis
- Official Team Fortress Wiki - great resource run by the Team Fortress 2 community, and hosted by Valve.
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