Text-mode filling

I came up with a solution!
Just use

Code:

"E:\Program Files\Steam\steam.exe" -applaunch 440 -textmode

as a shortcut's target. (ofc change to path to yours steam.exe)
-applaunch 440 makes it launch tf2.
Don't worry, it won't launch another copy of steam's client, it'll just run tf2 in textmode!
Hope I helped you, guys ;-)

 

You're awesome ^^, now it works.

 

Ok, this is just awesome
Anyone measured the difference in cpu usage using textmode?
You can still continue to switch from server with the steam browser fortunately

To create a startup shortcut:

open a new textdocument, paste the following line in it:

E:\Games\Steam.exe -applaunch 440 -textmode +connect 88.198.69.251:27030 -nosound

Of course adjust to use you specific path to steam.exe

Save the document and rename it to join_am1.bat
So change the .txt extension to.bat
Doubleclick and your done

 

So this way runs tf2 without steam actually loading tf2 up? Instead in a cmd window? If so that's awesome, will try this at home later

 

I just had a quick try and here are the results:

normal mode 800mb memory used and ~16-17% cpu usage
text mode 726mb memory used 2-3% cpu usage

 

No need to do it like that, Doel. Shortcuts (or links as named in some language versions of windows) work without any problems. I guess it's a question whether you want to have "tf2_am1,tf2_am2,tf2_2fort" as little scripts (batch files) or shortcuts. I like shortcuts more, at least I've got the steam icon then.

 

There is something like a noprecache startup option so it won't load any models, bring the memory down as well.

 

Yeah that's what I thought because the memory usage is still quite high

 

Admins should be auto kicked when the server reaches 20/24 or more i believe.

 

Or maybe adding a few more slots for admins (24/24 for players +2/24 for admins or something like that )

 

This textfilling works perfectly.

One thing, is there a way to get it run on a machine where TF2 wouldn't start?
My Hyper-V server has a Standard VGA driver loaded (required) so TF2 refuses to start. Textmode didn't work either so if anyone has a suggestion how to solve this.....
And no, I can't load the manufacturers drivers for the GPU, that would cause my Hyper-V server to stop running its VM's.

 

Admins can take the server up to 32/24 if the join using the console. The auto kick works fine.

 

For those interested in text-mode filling, I found the following launch options:
-nopreload
-nopreloadmodels

Dont really know the difference between them as the missing files seem to be the same in both cases.
Anyway, here are the results
After 5minutes filling with -nopreload : ~580MB memory used
After 5minutes filling with -nopreloadmodels : ~596.6MB memory used

Only 200MB saved in both cases, it's not that much...

 

Shouldn't you be using both at the same time?

 

I tried too, but wasnt interesting. To be honest it was worst, 605MB memory used after 5minutes filling ^^

Edit:

I'm not sure about the solution I'm going to write, but you should give it a shot.
Here are a few things that I found:

 

Khadgar - Does your game say its currently unavailable on the your server?
I had that too when I tried to install it on our server a month or so ago.

Will try this later on - hopefully it will work

 

Qball once made a program for this stuff, it was a nice program, I tested it out.

Qball: Do you still have it? Wanna share it with the rest?

 

Yeah I wrote a small program a while ago, but can't find any trace of it now.
I also wrote GUI which can launch tf2 in text-mode and connect to the server. I'll check if I have it somewhere at work.