What just happened? Despite its advanced age and competition from more recent similar titles, Team Fortress 2 is as big as ever and still receives essential updates. The latest patch significantly alters how the game runs under the hood, particularly for enthusiast gamers.
Team Fortress 2 received a patch this week that, while technically minor, introduces meaningful changes to its performance. The game recently hit all-time-high player counts as it approaches its 17th birthday.
The new update's primary effects include performance enhancements for most users and the introduction of 64-bit support on Windows and Linux. Although Valve didn't officially confirm the extent of the expected framerate increase, the official Team Fortress 2 wiki states that the patch raised the default cap from 300 to 400fps.
Playing competitive first-person shooters at three-figure framerates isn't uncommon for players with the latest high-end GPUs and high refresh-rate displays. Many claim it improves latency and motion clarity. Gaming monitor vendors now regularly offer models supporting 360hz at 1440p and approaching 500hz at 1080p. Blizzard increased Overwatch 2's maximum framerate when the GeForce RTX 4090 proved it could run the game beyond 500fps in native 1440p.
Team Fortress 2's new patch also engages raw input by default, which can further reduce latency by circumventing control panel settings to read mouse input directly from the device. Furthermore, the Direct3D-to-Vulkan translation layer is now available on Linux using the "-vulkan" command line option. One bug fix resolves an issue that caused some antivirus programs to flag the game.
Also read: Why Refresh Rates Matter: From 30Hz to 540Hz
Valve's class-based shooter originally debuted in the fall of 2007 on PC and consoles alongside classics like the original Portal and Call of Duty 4, nine years after its initial announcement in 1998. Team Fortress 2 is somewhat of a predecessor to today's more popular stylized team-based shooters like Overwatch, Valorant, and Apex Legends, but maintains a healthy community despite today's crowded market.
The significant content update that the 16-year-old game received last year was long overdue but brought in more players than ever. The summer 2023 package added over a dozen maps and other user-generated content. In-game events have since maintained the momentum, with similar spikes in concurrent players appearing in October and over the holidays. The ozfortress Autumn 2024 event reaches its climax this weekend. Team Fortress 2 remains among Steam's top 20 most-played games, just ahead of Grand Theft Auto V.