[TUTORIAL] Make TF2 easily minimized (no freezing, crashing)

Anything dealing with the game Team Fortress 2 or the servers we host for it.
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Archer
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[TUTORIAL] Make TF2 easily minimized (no freezing, crashing)

Post by Archer » Sun Sep 21, 2008 5:22 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsxpkYaI3yU

EDIT: Make sure you have TF2 set to a native resolution or the maximum resolution your display supports, otherwise TF2 will not fill the entire screen.

Go to Steam. Click "My Games", right click TF2, click "Properties" then "Launch Options" and type (without quotes) "-sw -noborder". Then click "OK" and "Close". You should now be able to easily minimize TF2 without freezing your system.

Thanks to bl4nk for mentioning the -noborder option. This makes TF2 fall more in line with other applications - you can now get a live preview of your TF2 window in Vista's Alt-Tab. Feel free to fold this mini-tutorial under into larger threads, as I release it under this CC license.

edit by joe:

-sw -noborder +connect tf4.joe.to -console -novid
-sw = windowed
-noborder = no border
+connect = automatic connect to server on game server
-console = enable dev console
-novid = skip intro video

Note: the "+connect tf4.joe.to" part will make TF2 auto-connect to TF4.joe.to on launch.
Last edited by Archer on Fri May 08, 2009 6:54 am, edited 3 times in total.
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AMMO
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Make TF2 easily minimized (no freezing, crashing)

Post by AMMO » Sun Sep 21, 2008 10:37 am

Doesn't -sw turn it into windowed mode?
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The Eternal
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Make TF2 easily minimized (no freezing, crashing)

Post by The Eternal » Sun Sep 21, 2008 1:58 pm

wow.... this works great... *applies it to the rest of my games*

this should be default for steam games i think... sooomuch better.... and i dont really see a downside to it (unless you use alt-tab for combination in game (and it also really helps with the windows key too :( ))
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Make TF2 easily minimized (no freezing, crashing)

Post by Vegetarian » Sun Sep 21, 2008 2:20 pm

I play windowed, but the border doesn't bother me. Shame all my screenshots look like shit, but whatever.
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Make TF2 easily minimized (no freezing, crashing)

Post by KoD » Sun Sep 21, 2008 3:42 pm

Oh yeah, this seems to be working good so far. I didn't do the -sw though because I like running fullscreen and It seems to have improved it anyway.
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Make TF2 easily minimized (no freezing, crashing)

Post by kevkingofthesea » Sun Sep 21, 2008 3:53 pm

It looks just like fullscreen if you do use both tags....
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Make TF2 easily minimized (no freezing, crashing)

Post by The Eternal » Sun Sep 21, 2008 4:02 pm

The Eternal wrote:wow.... this works great... *applies it to the rest of my games*

this should be default for steam games i think... sooomuch better.... and i dont really see a downside to it (unless you use alt-tab for combination in game (and it also really helps with the windows key too :( ))
boo... this doesnt work in mods (like dystopia / sourceforts)
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Make TF2 easily minimized (no freezing, crashing)

Post by KoD » Sun Sep 21, 2008 4:43 pm

kevkingofthesea wrote:It looks just like fullscreen if you do use both tags....
Yeah but it doesn't tab out correctly.. I can't go to my desktop and open firefox, it's weird. probably because I ran it at 1280x1024, same size as my desktop.
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Make TF2 easily minimized (no freezing, crashing)

Post by joe » Sun Sep 21, 2008 4:47 pm

my fps went way down -_-
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Make TF2 easily minimized (no freezing, crashing)

Post by Twine » Sun Sep 21, 2008 7:09 pm

Works really awesomely for me. Thanks for posting this!
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Make TF2 easily minimized (no freezing, crashing)

Post by Archer » Sun Sep 21, 2008 8:59 pm

Updated the tutorial for people with resolution issues.
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Make TF2 easily minimized (no freezing, crashing)

Post by Christy » Sun Sep 21, 2008 11:08 pm

Hmm, dont need this. Just Alt-Tab and all works well, never had any issues.

Thanks though
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Make TF2 easily minimized (no freezing, crashing)

Post by namelessmongineer » Mon Sep 22, 2008 3:55 pm

Thanks guys, I was having trouble with the game freezing when the map was loading if I tried to do anything else, this has really helped.
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Make TF2 easily minimized (no freezing, crashing)

Post by Avvatar » Tue Sep 23, 2008 1:35 pm

Christy_ wrote:Hmm, dont need this. Just Alt-Tab and all works well, never had any issues.
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Make TF2 easily minimized (no freezing, crashing)

Post by Aironz » Wed Feb 25, 2009 5:48 pm

I love you guys for making my life so much easier.
wut
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