GG to the farming fans. I don't think I won a single fight against your scouts. That was a really fun, intense game.

I've never done it, but I understand that you use the +clientport launch option. Some random post in the Steam forums claims valid options are from 27005-27032, not including 27020. I have no idea whether that's credible.

The normal advice applies. Have you tried turning it off and on again? Steam, that is. I've known people with a recurring problem along these lines that was sometimes solved by restarting Steam. If that doesn't work, have you tried restarting your computer?

I'm not promising results, but those are always the first things you should try. Also, how often does the problem happen? Have you only seen it once? Is it constant? Intermittent?

Have you tried getting a new IP if yours is dynamic? Changing your clientport? Disabling firewalls?

You should really look into getting file extensions. It'll make this kind of thing easier to deal with in future, and help you avoid running image.exe. The option will always be in something like view -> folder options in Windows Explorer. In win8, it's in that bar on the with file/home/share/view/play/whatever. Click view, press the arrow under options on the right, change folder and search options, click view in the new thing that opens, and uncheck "hide extensions for known file types."

God, Windows has become a mess.

I may have fixed it. Posting an update in case anyone else ever has the same issue and stumbles across this thread.

It wasn't caused by the client - even with it completely uninstalled, the issue persisted today on pub and local servers. But disabling Steam overlay solved the problem, and fps skyrocketed past where it was before on top of that - I never dropped below 600 running around an empty process server. Hoping this solves the issue permanently.

nvm not fixed. It's back after a restart. I'm still confused.

OKAY. Experimented some more on a local server today and I've figured it out sort of, but I haven't fixed it and have no idea how to. The fps will consistently cycle between 70 and 300ish. Spends a second or so at 70 and then spikes for maybe a quarter of a second. Capping the fps below 70 will get rid of the input lag, but also means I'm playing at 70 fps, which is terrible.

BUT. If I disconnect from the internet, I immediately spike to 1000 fps and don't really drop below 500. I don't understand how or why, and this obviously isn't really a solution, but it's something I guess? Reconnecting causes the problem to start again immediately. If anyone has any idea what might be causing this, please let me know. I'm so confused and I'd really like to solve this.

Also, running in borderless windowed mode causes the game to report a much higher fps (around 200 consistently, no drops to 70,) but it doesn't feel any different, and it very clearly isn't actually displaying that kind of framerate. It's definitely much lower.

Just checked L4D2. Exact same problem there too (except capped at exactly 60, not 70,) and exact same response to yanking wireless card/plugging it back in. This isn't strictly TF2 related. Unsure whether it's Source only, and not sure how to check, Just checked with DXHR. This is happening with everything. Right now I strongly suspect Steam is the culprit. This happens whether or not I'm signed into friends fwiw, and I don't see anything in the console that might suggest anything.

I'll take a look at that. Thank you.

I'd be incredibly grateful for any suggestions about possible causes/what to do. My game is fine without the ESEA client - smooth, responsive, constant 150+ fps, etc. No it isn't, but the issues started after restarting to install the client, and haven't gone away after uninstallation. When I joined the server tonight, I had a constant 67 fps, unless I moved my mouse really quickly, in which case it would spike to 300ish for a fraction of a second before going back down. Although the game claimed the framerate was consistent, it didn't feel that way at all, and worse, I had a huge amount of input lag. Enough that my screen was still noticeably moving after I stopped moving my mouse.

I'm on Windows 8.1, dx8, etc. Have a i7 2600, Radeon 6770. I know for a fact it wasn't caused by these things:

Windowed mode (I play fullscreen)
Antivirus (turned it off)
Windows update (turned it off)
Steam downloading things (I checked)
Something eating CPU cycles/hard drive activity (I kept an eye on process manager)
Messing with fps caps (sort of - I normally play capped at 130, but uncapping it had no impact)

I also tried messing with affinities - giving TF2 and the client specific and separate cores. Didn't see any impact from that. I haven't had any issues like this for quite some time, and everything seemed flawless this season. That said, in past seasons, on my older computer, I have had issues where after starting the client and joining a server, I had very low fps for a time - around 15ish. I don't remember having input lag nearly this bad though, and that eventually went away, and this didn't.

I'll love you forever if you have any sort of insight that leads to me maybe solving this. It's pretty frustrating. Thanks for your help.

LOL OKAY I GOT IT IT WAS A FUCKING BITCOIN MINER DON'T I FEEL SILLY NOW

I figured it wasn't anything malicious because virus scans were showing nothing, and there wasn't really any CPU activity, but this explains it pretty well. Windows task manager doesn't monitor GPU stuff, so I just never saw it. Good news is it doesn't look like it's really got any tentacles into my machine - it just set up a folder deep in %appdata%\roaming and ran a fake WinDefend process. Deleting it seems to have solved the issue.

What I'm still really curious about though is how consistent the bad performance was. Like it wasn't just "my frames have dropped like a rock, wtf." It was as if there was a specific fps cap that got removed briefly like once a second. That still has me wondering what's up with it. But the problem is solved.

Is anyone else very suddenly having issues with the client this week? I had about a quarter second of input lag and super low fps on client this match. Went gunslinger engie at one point because I didn't know what else to do, and was seriously considering full time pyro. Everything is fine without the client, so I'm pretty confident that's the problem. :/ Wondering if it's just me having issues.

GG to Razer. Was a fun game.

So last week's game against ROPE is now probably no longer the best/closest game I've ever played. Great game to Depressed Weeaboos, and I hope we see you guys against at some point. That was intense and so fun.

While I agree with you, I don't think there's anything wrong with warning other teams about it. When a team posts in the forums about an issue they had with another, it may provoke drama, but they're also doing the community a service. When complaints about one team in particular accumulate, they begin to get a reputation, and it makes it easier for everyone to decide whether they want to risk scrimming that team or not, and makes it less likely there'll be any surprises.

I dunno. I think Slice had a great take on everything with his advice that boils down to "take what you can from the scrim." You should always make the best of every situation. But once you're done doing that, there's nothing wrong with airing grievances in the community, even if it does lead to arguments. Stupid drama is bad, but the posts themselves are a net positive IMO.

I don't want to tell you that you guys are terrible people and everything you do is intended to BM, because that's obviously not true. Most of you actually seem really nice to me. I've really liked you guys the few times we've scrimmed you. But I hope you do understand why your team isn't gonna get the benefit of the doubt from many people going forward. You've earned a reputation for BM, screwing around, and wasting time. This means the community won't tolerate things from you that they would from other teams. What people will dismiss as one team experimenting, they'll take as BM/time wasting from your team. This isn't unfair or a double standard. It's because of your actions. You chose to be this team, and you need to take responsibility for the choices you make.

I dunno. If it's true that you're having to resort to alts in discord just to get scrims, that really says a lot. This situation also easily could've been avoided with some communication. The other team specifically asked you not to meme. You could have taken that as an opportunity to say "sure, but we are gonna be trying something a little unusual. We're experimenting, not memeing." You didn't, and now you're getting kind of snippy on the forums because Entropy (quite reasonably) thought you guys were just doing what you have a reputation for doing.

According to the wiki, the crossbow heals from 75-150. Sounds like 150's the magic number.

But maybe the 112 thing comes from someone doing some math and determining that 105-120 is the range at which arrow building outpaces normal building or something. I dunno.

If it's not showing buffs, that would explain why a scout doesn't also have disproportionate heals from building. Mystery solved?

Honestly, I almost suspect something's up with those logs. It's definitely true that 12k is absolutely ridiculous, and it's the sort of thing that really should be obvious in game. But I didn't see Entropy getting tanked to an absurd degree. Scouts and demos were typically buffed during fights. He probably did take more heals than he should have once fights got started, but I'm really not convinced it's possible for a pocket to take 12k and have any left over for anyone else, and everyone else was definitely getting healed too.

I dunno. ESEA isn't known for quality.