TF2 Graphics (2011 vs. 2008)

Was there some sort of graphics update in TF2 between 2008 and 2011?

I played a little bit back then and from what I can remember I was able to run it fine (I'm running a 9500m GS) but now I find my system struggling a bit when there's a lot of action going on (like big fights on the bridge in 2fort), even with everything turned down at 1280x720 it dips down to ~15fps.

 

There was in a sense, but nothing too significant if you never had it turned on in the graphics options. I'd suggest you stick to medium low to around 720p or less resolution. I never had my 8400M GS back then run TF2 above that and it ran fine.

 

The thing is, at 720p and everything on low I still get these major dips when things get busy. I don't recall having this issue in the past.

 

It's possible your laptop is just slower. They said that software gets slower when older and they've added a lot of things to the game outside of graphic tweaking, such as hats, gestures, more mods, items, crafting, etc which may be the final straw that pushes it into spiky game play.

I would consider having your laptop cleaned up, it's possible that if it's been going since 2008, little bits may have being building up slowing down your kit by unnoticeable amounts at first, but now may be visible.

 

What CPU do you have? TF2 likes CPU power.

 

Since 2008, the game's graphics themselves have not changed, but there has been so much content added to the game. Literally hundreds of new weapons, hats, miscellaneous items and an in-game store, trading and crafting system. It's not exactly a surprise that the game doesn't perform quite the same as it did when it was a simpler game.

 

Also bear in mind that all the item polys are precached so that they never have to load should someone equip one. Given how many hats and other random bits of pointless junk there are, it's not surprising that it's running slower.

I wish they'd get round to properly fixing multicore support already though, that would probably help a lot.

 

Interesting, what problem do you have when multicore is enabled? I have mine enabled all the time and don't seem to encounter any problems, mind you I'm not sure if there's a performance boost as I have vsync enabled to prevent any tearing from fast turns. The system I've got is capable of running the game at maxed out settings (all except shadows which appears to only go up to Medium, no options above that and I don't know why), 1920x1080, stable 60fps , on a 32 player server also.

 

Given how CPU dependant the game is, it really doesn't scale well when you go from single thread to multi. I don't think they've got round to making it take advantage of any more than 3 threads at the moment as well.

 

I think you are correct.

Here is a post about how most hats do not have lower quality models to switch to, but there is an effort underway by modders to create these lower quality models.

I've tried the method outlined in this post, and while I haven't tested it too much yet, I think it might have gotten rid of the fps-drops I had been experiencing.

 

You guys should try this config: Chris' FPS Configs for TF2 | Home

It's the best config for TF2 out there.

 

Had TWO updates today, one for steam and one for TF2.

Now TF2 looks like a slide show.

What the hell STEAM?!?!?!?!

 

Didn't happen to me. Try right clicking TF2 and verifying the integrity of the game cache under the "Local Files" section?