Steam Launch Options for Team Fortress 2

Team Fortress 2 or TFT2 is one of the most loved games of the steam community. In spite of being free to play game, it has helped Valve Entertainment earn a lot of fortune. Unfortunately, many gamers who have low and mid-end systems seem to be facing lag and low FPS issues. Well thanks to us you won’t have to anymore. I had previously written a guide on the best graphics settings for team fortress 2. I recommend trying those first. Then you can use this guide for steam launch settings for team fortress 2

Set launch options for Team Fortress 2 (TF2)

How to use steam launch options in TF2

  • Open your Steam App.
  • Open your game library and choose Team Fortress 2.
  • Right-click on Team Fortress 2 and open Properties.

  • In the General tab, select Set Launch Options as shown in the image below

team fortress 2 steam launch options

  • In the command line type following options with spacing:

team fortress 2 steam launch options

 

-novid -nojoy -nosteamcontroller -softparticlesdefaultoff -reuse -nohltv -noipx -nod3d9ex

What these steam launch options do in Team Fortress 2

-novid 

This steam launch will remove the intro valve video for tf2 which can help you save time. It is optional to put in, but helps you save time nonetheless.

-nosteamcontroller

This option disables the Steam controller system and helps with faster startup and uses less memory. Can help systems with low RAM run the game better.

-softparticlesdefaultoff

This option helps disable scene depth blending for particles and sprites. It lowers graphics but helps you get a good FPS boost in gaming.

-reuse

This steam launch option allows network sockets to be reused when busy (sets SO_REUSEADDR), so you get better network performance and lower ping.

-nohltv

Disables all features related to HLTV which can help boost FPS in the low-end systems. It also gives faster startup and less memory usage. (HLTV is a valve service to watch competitive matches online. It does not impact gameplay in any way. )

-noipx

This steam launch option disables the use of the IPX / SPX protocol. It gives a minor FPS boost in TF2 and can help low end systems. Other systems won’t feel a difference.IPX/SPX stands for Internetwork Packet Exchange/Sequenced Packet Exchange. You can read more about what this protocol does on Wikipedia

-nod3d9ex

This launch option removes some options that help you increase FPS by disabling certain options that let you alt+tab faster. With this option on you might have issues with alt+tab  but you will have better FPS.

-nojoy

It just removes joystick support for Team Fortress 2. As far as I know not many people use joysticks and gamepads. You can use this for a minor FPS boost

Extra Launch Options to boost FPS in Team Fortress 2 (Experimental)

-threads

It helps specifies how much cores in your laptop or pc will be focused on running tf2. You need to check how many threads your processor has and use that number.

eg: -threads 4

-r_emulate_gl:

It downgrades DirectX graphics to Open_GL It can help boost FPS at the cost of graphics. I recommend you test it yourself before using it.

-limitvsconst :

It limits the hardware vertex shader constants to 256. It will lower graphics significantly and may even cause lag in some cases. It is meant for low-end GPUs that have fewer shaders. Test it for your GPU.

-r_emulate_gl -limitvsconst
  • If you mess up use the option below to restore default settings.

-autoconfig –

Restores video and performance settings to default/recommended settings for your system. Use this option if you mess up your settings. It ignores settings inside any .cfg files until this parameter is removed.

 

I hope this guide has been informative for you and I thank you for reading. You can always optimize graphics settings in TF2 and optimize your PC for gaming so that you get really good FPS in TF2. If you know any more steam launch options for team fortress 2 then let me know in the comment section below. We would be happy to add them to the list. Happy Gaming

See you in-game

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