How to stop TF2's settings from being your enemy.

I've been playing TF2 for over 10 years, and I have an advantage over you because of your settings. I don't like that, and this guide aims to make it so you and I are on an even playing field.

Introduction

Congratulations for starting your journey in TF2. This is very possibly the greatest multiplayer game ever made, with an infinite skill ceiling and a very low skill floor. This is a fancy way of saying there's always, ALWAYS a way to improve in TF2, and yet at the same time even a very new player can have fun and contribute to their team.

However, a lot of TF2 players who have tweaked their settings are at a very clear, distinct advantage over someone like you, who hasn't. The goal of this guide is to create an even playing field between you and them, so the only factor that decides the fight is who is better at the game, not who has the better settings.

Keyboard

With TF2 running, open the options menu by clicking the "Options" button on the main screen. Don't worry about "advanced options," we'll cover that later



From here, click on the "Advanced..." button, and check both of the boxes. These settings allow you to quickly switch weapons by simply pressing the button. It might take some getting used to, but it simplifies the process of switching weapons.

Mouse

This is a very important screen, but everything you’ll hear from other players about “what to use” is subjective. Everyone prefers something different, but I’d really recommend you change the sensitivity to suit you. The sweet spot for a mouse sensitivity is one where you don’t have to move your mouse off your desk to look at something, but you also don’t have to make microscopic movements to be accurate. 3 is probably fine, but adjust it if it’s uncomfortable (higher values are more sensitive). I highly recommend you do not change any setting except sensitivity.

Audio

Change the “Speaker configuration” to whatever you have. Using headphones? Select headphones. Using 2 speakers? Use that. There are no captions in TF2, so don't worry about that. You can check the box at the bottom if you want, it's up to you.

Video

TF2 is an old game. Frankly, most of these settings won’t do much as far as your performance goes, but if you’re on an older computer, or one that doesn’t typically handle games well, I’d recommend you change most everything to its lowest setting.

HOWEVER. The 3 settings I’d HIGHLY recommend are: keep vertical synchronization to DISABLED (it adds mouse delay and can hurt your gameplay performance), set field of view (FOV) to 90 (it makes it so you can see more), and set “Multicore rendering” to enabled (allows more magic to come out of your computer for better framerate).

The most important setting here is the FOV slider.

This is what you see if you're playing with the default FOV:


This is what you see if you're playing with the changed FOV:

Voice

Hit “test microphone.” Does your mic work? Is it at a comfortable volume? Alright cool, leave it and never touch this screen again.

Multiplayer

This screen contains some of the most important settings we’re going to talk about here. At the top is the “crosshair” section. I’d leave this all default until you’re more comfortable with the game.

The lower area is “spraypaint image.” This is something to play around with later, but I won’t be covering it in this guide, there are plenty out there already.

The one we want is the “advanced” button. Click it, and change the following settings (In order from top to bottom, but only the ones to check/enable are listed)



✔ Automatically reload weapons when you’re not firing
✔ Fast Weapon Switch
✔ Play a hit sound everytime you injure an enemy
✔ Display damage done as text over your target
✔ Damage Text doesn’t prevent overhead effects (e.g. “CRIT!”)
✔ SNIPER: Sniper rifle will re-zoom after firing a zoomed shot
✔ MEDIC: Medigun continues healing without holding down fire button
✔ MEDIC: Display a marker over the player you are healing
✔ MEDIC: Injured teammates automatically call out
MEDIC: Auto-call Health percentage (set it to about 75%)
✔ Turn on colorblind mode (adds a few helpful icons in-game, even if you aren’t colorblind)
✔ Show non-standard items on spectated player
✔ Use glow effects
✔ Enable teammates glow effects after respawn
(Subjective): ✔ Use player model in player class HUD
✔ TargetID - Disable Floating HealthBar
TargetID Alpha: 255.00 (all the way right)
✔ Display ping values as text on the scoreboard
✔ Use the team status display in the HUD
✔ Use minimized view models
✔ Show pop-up alerts while in-game (e.g. trade requests)

cfg

This is pretty much the extent of things you can do while you’re in TF2, you can close out of the game. Now, right click on TF2 in your Steam library, and go to “Properties.”

Then click on “Set launch options” and type in “-novid” (without quotes). This will just skip the Valve intro video for you and go straight to the menu. Disable this by simply deleting the text.


Next, click on the tab that says “BROWSE LOCAL FILES…” this will bring you to your TF2 directory, [C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2] for Windows computers. From here you want to navigate to [Team Fortress 2\tf\cfg]. This is where the magic will happen.



Right click in an empty area and select New > Text Document, and “New Text Document.txt” should appear. Open it with Notepad.



From there, enter these commands (each command on a different line):

cl_vote_ui_active_after_voting 1
cl_interp 0
cl_interp_ratio 1
cl_lagcompensation 1
cl_pred_optimize 2
cl_smooth 0
cl_smoothtime 0.01
rate "800000"
cl_cmdrate "10000"
cl_updaterate "10000"
tf_dingalingaling_repeat_delay "0.05"
tf_dingaling_pitchmindmg "90"
tf_dingaling_pitchmaxdmg "110"

Save the file, now right click on the file and select "Rename." Change the name of the file to "autoexec.cfg" Windows might warn you that the changing the extension might make it not work. Actually, the file ONLY work if you change it. If you already have a file called "autoexec.cfg" you can simply paste the commands into the file.



The biggest impact will be from the slight network tweaking done in this file. Rather than write an essay on what these will do, this video does a fantastic job already.

For simplicity’s sake, I’d recommend you not tweak the numbers in the guide. This is what I use, and I think it works perfectly. There are other "versions" that you can use, and many of them can be found here[cfg.tf]. Experiment and see what works best for you.

Other settings changed are:

• The voting UI element will stay on your screen even after you’ve cast a vote
  
• The “dingalingaling” (hitsound) will only repeat once every 0.05 seconds. Trust me, this will save your ears if you’re playing pyro.
  
• The other two “dingaling” settings make it so the pitch of the sound changes based on how much damage you’ve done. Eventually you’ll be able to tell how much damage you’ve just done based on the sound it makes.
  
  

[aidandapro062]

Also for CFG, if you're on a big screen and it leaves TF2 in a smol rectangle and black border, use -W and -L to change the resolution -w is width, -l is length. Or do what I did and put -windowed

[The Local Goofball]

Hey it's me! Thank you for the help!

[cyan]

Would have commented on your profile, just wanted to say: Sie sind ein sehr guter Sanitäter.

[Vinh]

[Vinh]

Never!

[Dime]

STOP

[Vinh]

Now it's 2021

[seadsea]

yes you did

[Dime]

Jesus Christ, I posted this almost TWO FUCKING YEARS AGO?

[Karmillious]

This is a really awesome guide!