loving the hud. seems like the loose cannon meter and shield charge meter clip, though, at least on 16:9 (1280x720). if you could look into it that would be great. thanks!

I used to use an SMAA injector, and in my experience it adds a good amount of antialiasing with less performance impact than the in-game options. What you get is dithering around text though (however it's barely noticeable on SMAA_PRESET_ULTRA or whatever). I also actually experienced less input lag with it than with in-game AA, strangely, it may just be placebo though because I already have minimal input lag. Something to note is that it only works when in-game AA is off, and it's not as reliable or perfect as MSAA/CSAA seeing as it processes the whole screen including HUD etc. I don't know whether SweetFx has other post-processing antialiasing options or something but honestly SMAA on ultra is the only one worth considering using in TF2, MLAA has issues and FXAA and lower SMAA settings give noticeable blur/blobbiness. The end result is comparable to 4x MSAA.

also as Shifta said, d3d9.dll and injector.txt go in team fortress 2/bin, everythig else in team fortress 2.

I've had a maxframes TF2 config for a while, and when my fps dropped due to the Halloween 2013 update I assumed this made a high-performance config even more necessary. But today I downloaded an ultra-high quality config just for fun and ran it to see what would happen. I lost ~10 fps.

Why is it that my computer runs only nominally better with fully performance-optimized tf2 than with a high-intensity, full-on version of the game? Is it the game or a sign of my computer not functioning properly? I'm happy to enjoy delicious-looking tf2 at ~120fps but I'd prefer having a much higher stable framerate considering I have a 144hz monitor.

why is does m_rawinput 1 make my game slightly jittery? I'm on a BenQ XL2411T (144 hz) and a Zowie FK at 2300 dpi.

I've been waiting for passive reload for a long time, it was the perfect buff pre-reload spped increase. But now it's hard to deny that the crossbow is by far the most viable option for a medic, and while it's not OP in a way that's frustrating for opponents, it's certainly OP in that it removes variety from the medic primary by being the most viable option by far (ignoring the bug). I'm really on the fence as to whether it needs a ban until the reload speed gets nerfed, but there's no doubt that with the bug it's just ridiculous.

i thought this was just a funny ad from somewhere else then i saw it actually on the tf.tv sidebar

I replaced my G400 with an FK and though I definitely prefer it, I kind of regret not getting an EC. If you're right handed and you don't know what to get, an EC is your best bet just because they're really versatile (palm/claw/fingertip, lots of grips feel comfortable) vs FK (really comfortable but only when using a certain claw grip). However any Zowie mouse will certainly have build quality head and shoulders above the rest; and the FK regardless is a great mouse. The tracking is flawless, obviously, and liftoff good if you lift your mouse a lot. The new EC eVo CLs look really cool too, the rubberised coating on the FK is delicious so it looks to be the best of both worlds. Also great quality mouse feet, really smooth.

Remember that even DM is not purely muscle memory. If you really think about what you're doing in the moment, you'll do far better than just relying on habitualised skill. I know that when I play and I'm not concentrating, my shots get flickier and less reliable as I forget to co-ordinate my aim, my movement and my position. Try to roughly plan your dodges/jumps ahead of time so when you do them you can concentrate on aiming. Think about the possible consequences of an engagement and always try to have some way of escaping if it goes awry and also if possible a way of capitalising if you hit some good shots. You'll find yourself improving much more quickly, both in gamesense and actual DM skill.

If your monitor was shipped with settings anything like mine was you'll probably want to turn it off the gaming setting in the monitor menu in order to turn the gamma down (you can't in any of the gaming modes for some reason afaik, and it's disgustingly high by default). This does mean you can't use black equaliser but I don't personally find it useful anyway. I set it to standard or normal or whatever and then:
Brightness: 42
Contrast: 50
Sharpness: 6
Gamma: Gamma 5

That's what I use for 144Hz. When using 120Hz LightBoost, it should only give you two changeable options: NVIDIA LightBoost and Black Equaliser or something. I would highly recommend lightboost, there's a link on the blurbusters site to a moving image and it really displays the amazing clarity of lightboost. However when trialling it try playing for a few hours and if your eyes hurt afterwards then you should probably stick to unstrobed.

By the way, recently when I've been trying to use strobelight.exe to turn on lightboost all that happens is the refresh rate changes from 144Hz to 120 (lightboost doesn't turn on). Can anyone help?

this, pvhud is the only hud i've found which is unobtrusive yet also really easy to see even in peripheral vision.

I've been testing this with a friend and it can be exploited pretty seriously if done right. If you use deep's whip method and then open the class selection screen (ie press comma), you will stay dea indefinitely and thus whip someone indefinitely until they die. Eyelander demo in particular becomes ridiculous with a constant speed buff (pretty sure with whip and 4 heads it's faster than a whipped scout due to a coding bug). It can also make for some weird market gardener moments, I've seen someone abuse this and get a posthumous crit gardener 2k.

okay thanks a lot, ImagePanels are much nicer + easier to edit

Okay so I've got it working, I'll post what I have here just in case anyone else wants it to mod/whatever (I think it's pretty neat, no more pesky hitsounds required).

It's a thin, horizontal line just below the crosshair, I toyed with a larger one between the hp and ammo but this looks nicer.

In hudlayout.res:

Under FONTS in ClientScheme.res:

Under CUSTOM FONTS in ClientScheme.res:

And finally in HudAnimations_tf.txt:

(if you have a custom hud installed ctrl+f DamagedPlayer and then put the contents of your brackets in there)

download http://www.dafont.com/neou.font and put it in your resource folder. Thanks everyone for all the help!

PS: It works for 1280x800 but idk about other resolutions

edited for better aesthetics, some other stuff

thanks but i really don't like that kind of crosshair