Steeler

I just wanted to publicly thank MagnaCentipede for giving me the noob tutorial this weekend, and for helping me supercharge my ancient single-core Dell XPS laptop from 15 fps to 60+ (the secret? Dx 8.1). Nice officering, Magna. Now stop stabbing me.

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MagnaCentipede

I gave you enough framerate to turn around. That's all it takes to stop me.

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Mahonri Moriancumer

not when ur stabbing from the front magna.

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May God have mercy on my enemies because I won't.

Ingame name is [Zion] DanielLion |TG|!!

MagnaCentipede

Valve re-coded stabbing a long time ago. Facestabs don't work like that anymore. You know if they did I would be mowing people down like a freight train.

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Yoshi MCF

How exactly did you accomplish this - did you need to remove DX9 completely? The option to switch is grayed out for me. I've been getting around 20 fps, but I think my computer should be capable of more. I have an Intel P4 at 3.2GHz, 3GB of ram, and an nVidia 6800. I'm running XP.

Steeler

There were a couple of steps involved, but the main thrust was adding -dxlevel 81 to the shortcut path on the first launch, getting your 8.1 settings to a comfortable place, and then removing the -dx command and launching normally.

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ROCKS

Dont help Yoshi. Its enough he has 30 more kills per round as sniper and has my head dominated at 20 fps. What more do you want, acheive sniper nirvana?

MagnaCentipede

Too late, you're boned.

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Bc2ID

Steeler...Magna is just setting you up to be his next victim. He goes with the "I am a nice guy.." routine...and then he stabs you in the back!

B

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Yoshi MCF

LOL. Was that the time I got 10 headshot kills before my first death on Dustbowl? I can assure that is a fluke, and I have yet to match that performance. Besides, if I get higher FPS, I'll be able to start playing classes that need it, like scout, spy, and pyro.

Seriously, does somebody have a link that'll show me how to run TF2 in DX8? Or am I just going to have to google this myself?

Fish #641

That's blasphemy. I've been running TF2 at 9fps for a while (I have yet to get lower than that, is it capped?), with spy and pyro as my most played class (followed by medic). If you're complaining about 20 fps with whatever "particle effects" you have, then stop.

MagnaCentipede

You rightclick the game's title, Properties, Set Launch Options.

Add -dxlevel 81

Start the game. Remove the dxlevel command before you start the game the next time. (It forces a reset of the video settings, so you can't customise anything and have it stick)

That's pretty much it.

An additional command in console, mat_picmip, sets your texture quality. -1 is super-high, 4 is ugly as mud. Using a higher number improves performance if you're struggling with low video ram.

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Yoshi MCF

Switching rendering engines alone doubled my FPS. Pyro is fun now! Thanks so much!

ROCKS

I have all setting on max including resolution and I NEVER skip a beat. Thats how I pick out all those spy silouettes so easily. My rig is pretty sweet though.

C.V. Soul

Speaking of framerate, my pc seems to be slowing down lately. On bad days I can hit 2 fps between lag times, so I stop playing and reboot three times.
The computer is pretty nice, I know this because it has LEDs. (Dell Inspiron XPS notebook that glows, as far as I can tell) But, as I say so often, it's all Vista's fault. Stupid Vista.

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Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day.
Give a fish a man, and he'll eat for weeks!