VanillaTF2

Torden — It might not sound like a big detail, but for many, this update may very well be the most important one all year. Previously most of us have been forced to make a choice: A. Run in full screen and the game will crash if you alt-tab, whether you meant to tab out or not; B. Run in window mode, with a slightly reduced performance and no viable options to change resolutions.

Along with memory fixes, tonight’s update finally fixes this and allows alt-tabbing virtually as fast as by running window mode. It’s a best of both worlds scenario. For yours truly, I’m finally back to proper full screen with a lower resolution and double fps – It’s that good.

How well does it fare for you others? Is there any performance to be gained running at the same resolutions?

• Dramatically improved the dynamic model loading system’s memory usage, performance, and stability
• Reduced memory usage on systems running Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7
• Improved alt-tab handling under Windows Vista and Windows 7

Source: Team Fortress update news

Martn — Midnight update! We added a nice section called ‘Media’ to our website. For now it will be the place where you can find all video on demands VanillaTV and some other people have produced. Later it will also swallow up our demo section and not long there after, we will add maps, configs and huds to our collection. But for now, we chose to start with a collection of videos.

The vod section will not be exclusive to VanillaTV, instead it will be open to any producer that can come up with quality material. If you think you have what it takes, then please contact me on irc (martn @quakenet #vanillatf2) and I will set you up.

Team Fortress 2 has just received an update. Now, before you go “Oh god, what did they do now?”, the latest update is actually a community map pack. The 233MB update adds three new maps; PLR_Nightfall, PL_Frontier and KOTH_Lakeside. The update also fixes a server exploit in the Source engine itself. The map pack update has it’s own dedicated page, you can check it out here.

We’ve been listening to our community’s famished cries for content, and damn it, we decided to do something about it. Unfortunately, the button that bans everybody in the community at once doesn’t seem to be working (every time we press it we just get sparks and the smell of burnt fur). So we went with our tried-and-true Plan B: an all-new map pack, featuring some community favorites including a new map from the guy behind cp_mountainlab, the winner of TF2Maps.net‘s Art Pass Contest.

- a.

ED: We decided to hold this article for a week, to make sure any unsuspecting cheaters were rightfully caught. In the meantime, ETF2L has released their latest list of banned people.

Now, the cuddly folks at VanillaTF2 are not in the habit of reporting on anything related to cheating as we firmly believe that those things are better left in dark and mysterious places like Trollville. However, this is a rare one-time exception as it’s kinda important, if not now, then certainly in the foreseeable future. All the modern games that have used Valve’s proprietary anti-cheat, VAC – Valve Anti Cheat – have been using v2.0. However, it appears Valve has silently rolled out a major update to their AC by updating it to version 3.0. This info comes from a very respected reverse engineering website and there’s actual evidence posted if you have the blackhat skills and want to take a look, under the hood.

VAC3 appears to be here. Valve is apparently streaming code to steam now.They’re manual mapping now instead of using LoadLibrary as they did with VAC2. As for how it is loaded, they are streaming it on connection to a secure server. It appears to be active in Source Engine games, COD games, streamed from SteamService.dll in steam.exe.

What all this essentially means is, better protection for the end-users from all those scrubby hackers. Well, hopefully anyway. Valve have not officially announced this, no doubt because of security concerns. Though one can argue how effective that method is given that the cat is out of the bag is out already. Whatever the case maybe, the ramifications of this update will not immediately be visible – so the next coming weeks should be interesting. Should definitely will be interesting to see how effective VAC3 is in catching cheaters compared to VAC2.

Note: This info has strictly been posted for informational purposes only.

- a.

Ah, the ever generous Valve, churning out content update and fixes like there’s no tomorrow! Well pre-pubescent boys and fat girls in their mid 20s, Valve has released a special Halloween update for Team Fortress 2 — including two custom maps and goody Halloween-exclusive stuff! Put that razor blade away and read on, here are the interesting changes:

• Added TF2Maps.net Art-pass contest winners:

1. Mountain Lab
2. Mann Manor

• Significantly improved engine vertex compression (large reduction in per-model memory usage)

Halloween 2010 Event -

• Mann Manor is haunted by the Horseless Headless Horsemann.
• Random gift drop in Mann Manor.
• 4 new Halloween achievements.
• Added new Halloween hats.
• Added a new Halloween weapon.
• Added Gift Wrapping of gifts to the store.
• Added a health penalty to the Rocket Jumper.
• Added the Sticky Jumper for Demomen to practice jumping.

CP_Coldfront also gets a slight facelift with some tweaks from the creator, Icarus.

A complete changelog can be read here. As always, launch Steam to acquire the update.

- Abhorrence

A heads-up up to everybody, the latest Team Fortress 2 update has finally fixed the age-old annoying Sniper scope bug. Furthermore, the update adds additional compatibility for demo playback and fixes the crashing. Here are the juicy bits from the changelog -

• Fixed an issue that caused some old demos to crash.
• The server browser now sorts by ping by default.
• The Sydney Sleeper no longer penetrates targets.
• Fixed spectator bug where spectating a Sniper looking through scope didn’t zoom fov
• Added Remove Name and Remove Paint features.

Read the full update-log here.

- Abhorrence

Seemingly out of nowhere have Valve decided to unleash the mighty powers of a huge update on us. There are a lot of things happening so I will try and keep this post updated as we figure everything out.

Official update statement can be found here: link

Highlights are amongst many other things:

• Added 65 new items (hats, weapons, tools, minigames, gifts, crates).
• Added the Mann Co. Store & Catalog.
• Added Trading.
• Added Item customization.

You can find more info about the Mann-conomy here: link

One of the most intriguing features are the new item sets which come with added set bonuses, you can read everything about the items here: link

In the wake of the update Valve have also put together a FAQ to answer some of the many questions we all have: link

Happy reading.

*Update – Some recipe’s for the new weapons found: here

- YoungBlood