Can TF2 still run on Pentium 4-era hardware? \ VOGONS

Can TF2 still run on Pentium 4-era hardware?

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First post, by mr_bigmouth_502

Posted on 2013-06-18, 16:37

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I remember a few years back (around mid-2010) I built this random Pentium 4 box with a 3.06GHz HT Prescott, 1GB of ram, and what I believe is a Radeon X300 PCI-E (I've never been able to identify the exact model, but I think it came from a random Dell box, and those are the drivers it works with). Anyhow, just for the hell of it I installed TF2, and it was surprisingly playable, though it only really worked well for playing the Sniper as opposed to the other closer-ranged classes.

Anyhow, TF2 has changed significantly since then, and since I've come across some of my old parts from that rig, I've been thinking of doing that experiment again for old time's sake. What I'm wondering is if I should even bother.

Reply 1 of 5, by Jorpho

Posted on 2013-06-18, 16:49

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mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:
Anyhow, TF2 has changed significantly since then, and since I've come across some of my old parts from that rig, I've been thinking of doing that experiment again for old time's sake. What I'm wondering is if I should even bother.

Whether you should bother doing something for old time's sake is entirely up to you.

TF2 may have changed significantly, but if I'm not mistaken it's still the same old Source engine underneath it all. I reckon you can even still run it with "-dxlevel 81".

Reply 2 of 5, by bucket

Posted on 2013-06-18, 20:40

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Sure, but I'd put an extra gig of RAM in there.

Reply 3 of 5, by leileilol

Posted on 2013-06-18, 21:32

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Since the SteamPipe refresh of the game earlier this year (i.e. moving everything into common/team fortress 2/ and repacking into vpk files), i'd probably want to give it one more try. TF2 was really, REALLY REALLY REALLY EREALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY sluggish before that (especially when the MvM update happened causing huge amounts of precache just for that), however i'm not sure if it still has a DirectX 8.1 backend anymore.

I say that because you can play Left 4 Dead 2 okay on a late Pentium IV and it uses the same kind of virtual filesystem 😀

Also engineer is a decent class to play for players with very low framerates.

and finally I haven't released the latest tf297 soundpack yet (which I personally use to decrease loading times since it'll load 11khz mono wavs (which the engine will resample to 44100hz anyway, but still saves memory since it's mono, and it's the part of loading a much smaller file that counts - the pack is 14mb right now 🤣)

long live PCem

Reply 4 of 5, by Jorpho

Posted on 2013-06-19, 04:20

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Well, I tried running it with "-dxlevel 81" just now, and it didn't crash or anything, but there didn't seem to be any way to tell whether or not it was just quietly ignoring that option.

(Naturally, it took about half an hour to re-pack itself before I could actually play. Go figure – Steam will go right ahead and download hundreds of megabytes of updates whenever it feels like it, but Steam won't actually leave it in a condition where it is ready to play.)

Reply 5 of 5, by subhuman@xgtx

Posted on 2013-06-19, 18:03

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Jorpho wrote:
Well, I tried running it with "-dxlevel 81" just now, and it didn't crash or anything, but there didn't seem to be any way to tell whether or not it was just quietly ignoring that option.

(Naturally, it took about half an hour to re-pack itself before I could actually play. Go figure – Steam will go right ahead and download hundreds of megabytes of updates whenever it feels like it, but Steam won't actually leave it in a condition where it is ready to play.)

Go to graphics options and see if it says Hardware/Software level Directx 8.1

I remember back in 09 when I was playing HL2 Deathmatch (before the big engine update) I could force DX all the way down to 6.0