official Team Fortress 2

[Mike]

Well, they are perfectionists with their games, and I'd wager that they haven't gotten it working to their delight just yet. All in due time ;)

If they are, it really doesn't show. How many updates have they released that have caused problems?

[Xilo]

Well, you guys gotta understand. It's not easy to add support for a full blown scalable multi core update to an engine as big as Source. Hell, it's not easy period.

Something of that difficulty takes quite a while to fully design, develop, and test.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Well, they are perfectionists with their games, and I'd wager that they haven't gotten it working to their delight just yet. All in due time ;)

They have it working in Half-Life 2: Episode Two and Portal. It uses the same version of the Source engine as Team Fortress 2. Actually, I think Team Fortress 2's version is slightly more up to date. Nonetheless, there shouldn't be any reason not to add it.

[Athernar]

The L4D engine (Protocol 37, TF2/OB is P14) has a proper multicore implementation and from what it seems a slew of other improvements ontop of that.

However they won't just transition everything over to P37 because it would mean everyone sub-DX9 gets dropped. (Buggers should upgrade) I get the feeling it was intended for the Scout-pack, but some sort of showstopper came up and FUBAR'd everything at the last minute.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

According to the STEAM Hardware Suvey in January, a mere 13% of STEAM users have DirectX 8 GPUs. The number is dropping by the day. Heck, there are more people with DirectX 10 GPUs on Windows XP alone then DirectX 8 GPUs on Windows XP and Windows Vista. Scalable multi-core support in Team Fortress 2 will mean better performance for people with multi-core processors. That will benefit 63.65% of STEAM users. I know Valve likes to do things that cater to the majority of users. But seriously, people with outdated video cards need to upgrade. It's holding the beautiful yet aging Source engine back.

[Blackhearted]

Last night I was going up against a scout and he used the sandman against me. I dashed to the left before he hit the ball and I saw it go to my right, yet I was stunned. After a few more instances of getting stunned and seeing people getting stunned, I think the hitting range of it is too broad.

Or it could just be the poor netcode. This game is notorious for letting things that completely missed you, or were completely out of range(gogo 50ft. away melee) hit you.

Well, you guys gotta understand. It's not easy to add support for a full blown scalable multi core update to an engine as big as Source. Hell, it's not easy period.

Something of that difficulty takes quite a while to fully design, develop, and test.

Multi-core support already exists in the game, it's just broken. See mat_queue_mode 2. It may take "quite a while" to add multi-core support to something that has never had it, But i see no reason why it would take the same "quite a while" to simply fix code that already exists. Fixing anything is much simpler than making new.

[Xilo]

Hmm, didn't know multi-core was already in other versions of the source engine. And actually, it generally takes longer to debug and fix code then it does to write new code. I do dev work for a living. New code is generally easier to put in depending on complexity while fixing some bugs can make you want to shoot yourself and take weeks to finish. Most dev work is spent fixing bugs.

I've got a problem though. TF2 NEVER saves my options. Every time I shut the game down and reopen it, my settings get reverted. How the hell do I fix this?

Edited February 26, 2009 by Xilo

[Nagisan]

Well, anyone can take out an unassisted sentry when out of its range. Scouts are about as effective at that role as enemy engineers.

I'm not talkin out of range, I'm talking right around the corner......if you can hit any part of the sentry you can kill it if no engy is there......

Or it could just be the poor netcode. This game is notorious for letting things that completely missed you, or were completely out of range(gogo 50ft. away melee) hit you.

Thats actually Lag compensation....a "feature" not poor coding.....in short, the server temporarily "rewinds" the action to see if someone with higher latency would have hit someone with lower latency with there shot........this is why you can get killed after getting behind a wall by a sniper, on their end they actually did hit you, so the server rewards them by killing you. From what I can tell this is also on melee weapons (or at least use to be on backstabs), and is where the "facestabs" came from.....the person (on their end) stabbed you in the back, but because of their latency compared to you they appeared to be infront of you at the time of the backstab.

I've got a problem though. TF2 NEVER saves my options. Every time I shut the game down and reopen it, my settings get reverted. How the hell do I fix this?

Are you running Vista/7 and do you have it installed in the standard Program Files directory? If so, try running the game as admin or reinstalling it out of the standard directory.

[Blackhearted]

Thats actually Lag compensation....a "feature" not poor coding.....in short, the server temporarily "rewinds" the action to see if someone with higher latency would have hit someone with lower latency with there shot........this is why you can get killed after getting behind a wall by a sniper, on their end they actually did hit you, so the server rewards them by killing you. From what I can tell this is also on melee weapons (or at least use to be on backstabs), and is where the "facestabs" came from.....the person (on their end) stabbed you in the back, but because of their latency compared to you they appeared to be infront of you at the time of the backstab.

Yes, i know what it's called. Ping(or lag) compensation is one of my most hated "features" in any game. The main problem is that in any case, regardless of ping, it's stupidly inaccurate. The same things(ex. thru-wall sniper shot) that happen vs. someone with a 300 ping, still happen vs. someone with a 20 ping. Even when i ping the same 20ms or less myself. Quite frankly, ping compensation shouldn't exist period. Games without it always feel so much better. And If you can't play on servers in your own country/continent(or upgrade from dialup), your gameplay deserves to suffer because of your bad choice, not others. Learning how to lead shots wont kill someone(it's rather easy infact).

Also, on the facestabs... it's not entirely due to the netcode. The backstab code itself has always been sketchy. As i've been killed by a facestab called backstab before when the spy was in front of me the whole time, never behind my back. I've seen the same thing on others too.

[Mike]

Also, on the facestabs... it's not entirely due to the netcode. The backstab code itself has always been sketchy. As i've been killed by a facestab called backstab before when the spy was in front of me the whole time, never behind my back. I've seen the same thing on others too.

I've had it happen to me, saw the whole spy backstab animation in front of me yet i got backstabbed ><

[Xilo]

I'm not talkin out of range, I'm talking right around the corner......if you can hit any part of the sentry you can kill it if no engy is there......

Thats actually Lag compensation....a "feature" not poor coding.....in short, the server temporarily "rewinds" the action to see if someone with higher latency would have hit someone with lower latency with there shot........this is why you can get killed after getting behind a wall by a sniper, on their end they actually did hit you, so the server rewards them by killing you. From what I can tell this is also on melee weapons (or at least use to be on backstabs), and is where the "facestabs" came from.....the person (on their end) stabbed you in the back, but because of their latency compared to you they appeared to be infront of you at the time of the backstab.

Are you running Vista/7 and do you have it installed in the standard Program Files directory? If so, try running the game as admin or reinstalling it out of the standard directory.

No, I'm on Windows XP and I'm running as admin user. I also keep all my games on another drive.

Edit: Did a validation and it seems to have fixed it.

Edited February 27, 2009 by Xilo

[Nagisan]

Yes, i know what it's called. Ping(or lag) compensation is one of my most hated "features" in any game. The main problem is that in any case, regardless of ping, it's stupidly inaccurate. The same things(ex. thru-wall sniper shot) that happen vs. someone with a 300 ping, still happen vs. someone with a 20 ping. Even when i ping the same 20ms or less myself. Quite frankly, ping compensation shouldn't exist period. Games without it always feel so much better. And If you can't play on servers in your own country/continent(or upgrade from dialup), your gameplay deserves to suffer because of your bad choice, not others. Learning how to lead shots wont kill someone(it's rather easy infact).

Also, on the facestabs... it's not entirely due to the netcode. The backstab code itself has always been sketchy. As i've been killed by a facestab called backstab before when the spy was in front of me the whole time, never behind my back. I've seen the same thing on others too.

I completely agree.....I had a good friend years ago when dial-up was just starting to die in gaming and he got so good at leading his shots in CS that he was actually a very high-end player (top 20 or so in tournies). He actually hated when he switched to DSL because he was not use to the lack of lag, so he had to adapt to not leading his shots near as much.

I can see why they want lag compensation as it helps everyone be on a similar level because those with lag actually hit targets that, without the lag, they would have never hit....and I agree in saying that it is a terrible feature, but its a little late in the Source engine's lifespan to even try to change that entire system. :p

[Srugie Veteran]

Any ideas of which character they will be updating next?

[Mathachew Veteran]

Any ideas of which character they will be updating next?

My guess is Spy.

[Nagisan]

My guess is Spy.

Agreed since from what I can tell they have always updated the least-played class at the time.......before the scout update was out spy was the next on the list after scout.

Then again maybe the faster backstab animation and tweaks to the disguises (equipping different weapons) will move the spy further up the list.

[Ayepecks]

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

According to the STEAM Hardware Suvey in January, a mere 13% of STEAM users have DirectX 8 GPUs. The number is dropping by the day. Heck, there are more people with DirectX 10 GPUs on Windows XP alone then DirectX 8 GPUs on Windows XP and Windows Vista. Scalable multi-core support in Team Fortress 2 will mean better performance for people with multi-core processors. That will benefit 63.65% of STEAM users. I know Valve likes to do things that cater to the majority of users. But seriously, people with outdated video cards need to upgrade. It's holding the beautiful yet aging Source engine back.

Well, it would have helped the majority of Steam users for quite a while actually, so that really doesn't mean it's going to happen. They've been saying they're going to do it for about 2 years now.

[Blackhearted]

I completely agree.....I had a good friend years ago when dial-up was just starting to die in gaming and he got so good at leading his shots in CS that he was actually a very high-end player (top 20 or so in tournies). He actually hated when he switched to DSL because he was not use to the lack of lag, so he had to adapt to not leading his shots near as much.

I can see why they want lag compensation as it helps everyone be on a similar level because those with lag actually hit targets that, without the lag, they would have never hit....and I agree in saying that it is a terrible feature, but its a little late in the Source engine's lifespan to even try to change that entire system. :p

I was kinda like that back in ut2003/early ut2004. I was still suck on dialup then due to my fathers stupid refusal to upgrade(ugh) and i managed to become quite good with it as well. I was kinda backwards of your friend though, i was already good with a 120-180 ping and didn't have a problem adjusting to it being ~30 now.

Any ideas of which character they will be updating next?

Personally i want to see the sniper updated next. I'd like to see what they come up with for him. That and maybe soldier. My luck though, they'll pick the classes i rarely play, spy or engie.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

HL2: EP2, Portal and TF2 already have multi-core code, but it's limited to Particle Systems only (as in, that's stable enough to be enabled, everything else is disabled, but it's there).

Left 4 Dead has an updated Source engine with even better multi-core support, Valve are back-porting those changes to the older Source engine (i.e. TF2), This is going to take time and they only said they were doing it a month or two ago.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

I'll be happy as long as they're working on it.

[ViZioN]

I'll be happy as long as they're working on it.

Yeah I'm happy they're working on it but I'm still hoping it will be out soon. I still get slowdown when there are large numbers of players. mat_queue_mode 2 had a very positive effect but it's just not stable enough unfortunately.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Yeah I'm happy they're working on it but I'm still hoping it will be out soon. I still get slowdown when there are large numbers of players. mat_queue_mode 2 had a very positive effect but it's just not stable enough unfortunately.

Porting Team Fortress 2 to the Source engine used in Left 4 Dead is my dream come true. Not only would Team Fortress 2 look better, it would play better.

Here's a list of what's missing:

• Scalable multi-core support
  
• "Extended HDR" (based on high precision floating point calculations)
  
• Improved particle system
  
• Physics based animations
  

[Blackhearted]

So is it just me or are taunt animations broken since the update?

[sundayx Veteran]

^Broken.

[Unimatrix Xero]

for the live of me i cant get the arena maps to work on my server, everyone clicks fight but nothing happens, can anyone offer any help please...

thanks

taunts work ok for me and others in my clan

[Mike]

So is it just me or are taunt animations broken since the update?

Randomly broken for me, although, I have the 360 engineer build menu for some odd reason so I can't destroy anything I've built :(