Where are my ropes?

I've posted this in the Steam forums, but not been able to get an answer. Might as well try here.

Basically, ropes/cables do not show up in-game. not in my maps, not in the VALVe maps. I'm guessing it's probably due to my old hardware (DX 8 card).

The same reason facial animations were disabled by default, and gibs would only come in 2 varieties- head and foot. However, both of those issues have been fixed by some scret console commands, so I'm wondering if by any chance anyone knows of one that could get my ropes showing.

 

I see ropes fine but I am running DX9

 

I've already noted that some of the rope capabilites (collision and alteration) don't work in TF2. It is possible that rope entities could be completely disabled with hardware lower than DX9.

 

you cant parent them to anything at the moment either, which angers me (another cause of disappearing ropes)

 

I've put it on my broken entities list.

You can check the list here!

 

wait wait wait, i think i parented my ropes in well classixs...

or maybe I used that logic_movemeasure thing.

i need a good yawning emoticon cause it's late here...

 

<offtopic>
Shameless google search on the web:
</offtopic>

I've never seen any ropes in the original maps, but have to admit I've never searched for any.
And me is having a 8800GTX (DX9, because of WinXP).
Needless to say, I run TF2 on 1600x1200 with every detail full on.

 

There's a rope in the upper part of Red's first spawn room in Dustbowl. I didn't see it in gameplay (I never remember to look) but while looking at how Valve does their spawn rooms, I came across it.

 

Oh there's supposed to be loads. Hanging off light fixtures, and spanning electricity pylons everywhere.

 

Hrmm they work fine for me. In hammer and in game.

 

Yes indeed, there is one:

 

I've posted the screen shots of my map with loads of ropes. They seem to work fine for me.

 

And I remember that screenshot, too.

I'll bet it's a performance thing. On my old computer at home where the game has disabled facial animations and light bloom, and objects fade at an obscenely close distance, I've never seen a rope. But I'll bet I'd come across them with my more powerful computer at work.

 

Like I said, I'm pretty sure it's something just disabled by default for DX8 cards and below. What I'm wondering is if there's a command to "unlock it". There must be!
It was the same situation with facial expressions, gibs and high-res textures.