TF2 Goes multicore: How to activate it.

YM

LVL100 YM
aa
Dec 5, 2007
7,135
6,056
March 18, 2009 - Team Fortress 2 Update Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Added Multicore Rendering


This initial release is aimed at testing compatibility, so the option is OFF by default

To turn it on, go to the Options->Video->Advanced dialog, and check the "Multicore Rendering" option



Other Changes

Several performance improvements to decals and client bone/flex setup

A variety of alt-tab and mode switch fixes

Improvements to the way the engine initializes surround sound, fixing some specific hardware cases

Fixed a crash on exit in Vista 64

Try out the new options if you've got a multicore processor, this probably wont improve your FPS whilst playing, but it probably will improve your loading times dramatically.
If you only have a single core... well, this will have no benefit to you.. upgrade already!! :p
 
Last edited by a moderator:

YM

LVL100 YM
aa
Dec 5, 2007
7,135
6,056
Did I break the front page for anyone else? since I posted this the whole front page of the forum appears in a tiny area all overlapping.... It could just be that school computers are teh suck though....
 

Armadillo of Doom

Group Founder, Lover of Pie
aa
Oct 25, 2007
949
1,228
Did I break the front page for anyone else? since I posted this the whole front page of the forum appears in a tiny area all overlapping.... It could just be that school computers are teh suck though....

Same here, so I reserve the right to laugh hysterically :p
 

drp

aa
Oct 25, 2007
2,273
2,628
im loking in to it. i think 'quotes' will break it LULZ
 

drp

aa
Oct 25, 2007
2,273
2,628
yea that was it. jesus youme, you gave me a mini heart attack, i thought someone was deleting files, etc.
 

Spike

L10: Glamorous Member
Feb 13, 2008
716
82
I've noticed an increase of 20 FPS but no improvement in loading times. Loading times are RAM related.
 

Uriak

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Apr 27, 2008
543
70
They are mostly Hard drive related. (and I can testify it, since I recently changed only the HD where TF2 was installed, and nothing else)

I was really waiting for such an update, even if I'm afraid of stability issues. TF2 had terrible framerate on several high end hardware setups, like mine, because of its outdated engine. It was so much CPU related that tweaking video options was almost good to nothing, but turning it into an ugly game.

Now, if they could stop turning server admins life into hell with each update, I'll begin respecting them more.
 

drp

aa
Oct 25, 2007
2,273
2,628
I've noticed an increase of 20 FPS but no improvement in loading times. Loading times are RAM related.
actually, it really depends. if you're talking about game startup, ram takes it, but changing/loading maps, thats more harddrive related since the access speed determines how fast your map loads.
 

Spike

L10: Glamorous Member
Feb 13, 2008
716
82
Well yes, it's hard drive related too, both are important on loading times, but everybody uses 7200 rpm HDD so that's why the ram makes the difference between them
 

drp

aa
Oct 25, 2007
2,273
2,628
Well yes, it's hard drive related too, both are important on loading times, but everybody uses 7200 rpm HDD so that's why the ram makes the difference between them
i use a velociraptor 10,000rpm harddrive.
 

Uriak

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Apr 27, 2008
543
70
So, what about stability ?
Mat_queue 2 gave me a boost of about 20fps too, but crashed the game in less than 5 minutes, so I'm quite suspicious, here.
 

clownfish

L1: Registered
Sep 24, 2008
16
2
Uriak I use to use MQM2 as well and ever since this update my performance has been way better then mqm2 I also havent crashed once and I can actually alt tab now with out crashing :]
 

Uriak

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Apr 27, 2008
543
70
Several people report on our forums that they crashed about 1h after, but for some others it was worse. Well, I'll judge by myself in an hour :)
 
Feb 14, 2008
1,051
931
It doesn't work well with FPS configs :(
 

Spike

L10: Glamorous Member
Feb 13, 2008
716
82
I haven't crashed and TF2 has been open for hours
 

Jazz

L5: Dapper Member
Mar 9, 2008
240
23
It has taken me a lot longer to exit from a server ever since I turned this option on... I don't see why it would affect the disconnect times or anything though.
 

Sgt Frag

L14: Epic Member
May 20, 2008
1,443
710
I did have one crash last night. Unfortunately I read about this, turned it on and join a fav server.

I told other people and everyone scrambled to turn it on. Within a few maps my arena map came up. I crashed out first round, and never had crashes or reports of them in my map.
Another guy crashed out and confirmed he was trying it also.
Another guy then decided to try it and said he got 'white bars'. Not sure what he meant.
Another guy crashed about 5+ times. But said it might've been his computer, but he was NOT trying the multicore thing.

We played a few maps before and I never experienced any crashes or heard anyone else talk about crashes.

My arena map has a large pool of water.??? That's something unusual for most maps so maybe there's a water issue.