Highlights: performance optimizations, bug fixes, and new utility features

Support me: Learn how you can support more updates to mastercomfig!

How to install: Instructions on setting up mastercomfig initially and get it working with your custom files.

How to update: Instructions on updating mastercomfig after you've already installed it.

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Comfig

• Added debug commands
  • A set of handy debugging commands used during mastercomfig’s development to analyze several aspects of the game.
• Re-enabled z prepass
  • Proper rendering analysis was not done on characters in fighting scenarios, and some users have reported performance regressions. Thus, this change is being reverted pending further investigation.

Modules

Console

• debug module removed, and replaced with the console module, which can turn the console on or off.
  • The debug options in the old module did not make sense together, and they touched settings unrelated to one another, making switchconsole much more messy.
• Cleaned up switchconsole command

Addons

No Tutorial

• Fixed some custom maps being accidentally included in the map tutorial skip

Docs

• Added documentation for game overrides
  • This can be used to selectively disable blocky lighting which was introduced in the last release, as well as some other things

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View the code changes

Highlights: bug fixes

Support me: Learn how you can support more updates to mastercomfig!

How to install: Instructions on setting up mastercomfig initially and get it working with your custom files.

How to update: Instructions on updating mastercomfig after you've already installed it.

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Modules

Bandwidth

• Fixed default bandwidth not being set correctly

Lighting

• Fixed lightmap filtering not being managed correctly

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View the code changes

Highlights: performance improvements and bug fixes

Support me: Learn how you can support more updates to mastercomfig!

How to install: Instructions on setting up mastercomfig initially and get it working with your custom files.

How to update: Instructions on updating mastercomfig after you've already installed it.

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Config

• Ensure that software lighting is not enabled, and we render models on the GPU, not the CPU
• Disabled z prepass (r_fastzreject)
  • After a deep rendering investigation, this setting seemed to just double render some parts of the scene, and provided no savings for meaningful fillrate suspects, like particles.
• Fixed missing sound precache for getting lit on fire (Fire.Engulf)

Modules

Packet Size

• Removed packet_size=big and made packet_size=speed the default
  • It effectively did not compress any packets anyway because client packets were too small for its threshold (1200 bytes).
  • Even with aggressive compression settings, client packets are rarely compressed with any savings anyway, and usually result in packets which are around 98% of the original size, except in rare, infrequent cases when joining a server, where performance does not really matter
  • Thus, it makes more sense to skip all the overhead associated with packet compression by default.

Bandwidth

• Changed default from bandwidth=1.5Mbps to bandwidth=762Kbps.
  • Although the old default is the same as the CS:GO default, many players have lower quality connections, experiencing higher ping and poorer network quality when switching to mastercomfig because of the higher bandwidth setting.
  • This new default should be more compatible, so that users unaware of the bandwidth setting do not get a bad first impression of mastercomfig.
• Fixed a few places which were not updated for the change from 768Kbps to 762Kbps

Shadows

• Fixed a bug where the previously introduced shadow LOD mechanism did not work properly
  • The r_shadowlod console variable is not available until a shadow is rendered. Therefore, since mastercomfig tried to set it on launch, it did not work.
  • The new set up will apply it on class change as part of game overrides, which hopefully will catch it eventually after a shadow renders.

Particles

• Reintroduced particle quality/density switches
  • very_low to medium use lower quality particles, if available
  • high and ultra use default quality particles
  • This was done after profiling the overhead from the lower quality check, which proved to be minimal compared to the particle simulation and rendering savings.

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View the code changes

Highlights: performance improvements and bug fixes

Support me: Learn how you can support more updates to mastercomfig!

How to install: Instructions on setting up mastercomfig initially and get it working with your custom files.

How to update: Instructions on updating mastercomfig after you've already installed it.

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Config

• Fixed a few cases of stuttering some people were experiencing
  • I experimented with disabling some load optimizations to make sure they were necessary, and given we are seeing many cases of stuttering with the default settings (as expected), I am re-enabling these optimizations.
• Skipped using managed textures which are not supported in D3D9Ex
• Fixed improper view smoothing
• Fixed unnecessary tessellation of the post processing pass
• Cleaned up Competitive Matchmaking overrides
• Fixed mat_filterlightmaps not being disabled when needed

Modules

Lighting

• Disabled lightwarps on medium

Shadows

• Took advantage of the hidden r_shadowlod cvar:
  • medium, high now use the lowest quality model LOD to render shadows
  • ultra uses the highest quality model LOD to render shadows
• Added very_high

Decals

• Fixed overdraw issues with decal overlap on the low and ultra options
• Reduced ultra decal limit from 2048 to 256, to prevent extreme lag issues

Addons

No Tutorial

• Fixed some useful in-game notifications being disabled
• Added Smissmas maps to tutorial skip

Docs

• Updated GitHub versions of docs with latest versions from main docs
• Removed misc credits mentions, as these were not updated and not fair to new contributors
• Fixed description for Windows cvarlist
• Fixed widescreen functionality not working
• Documented what each net_ alias uses from snapshot_buffer module
• Documented various dev environment variables

Dev

• Added support for tag release workflow
• Updated markdown style check
• Added support for system environment variables
• Added support non-interactive releases
• Cleaned up some conditionals
• Fixed No Tutorial viewed generation not working properly

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View the code changes

Highlights: 3 imposters among us

Support me: Learn how you can support more updates to mastercomfig!

How to install: Instructions on setting up mastercomfig initially and get it working with your custom files.

How to update: Instructions on updating mastercomfig after you've already installed it.

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Comugus

• mastercomfig is now strangely suspicious...

Comfig

• Fixed managed textures being disabled on some machines
• Fixed preloading of an unused holiday punch texture

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View the code changes

Highlights: massive performance improvements, a great amount of bug fixes and hitreg improvements

Support me: Learn how you can support more updates to mastercomfig!

How to install: Instructions on setting up mastercomfig initially and get it working with your custom files.

How to update: Instructions on updating mastercomfig after you've already installed it.

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Comfig

• Added -precachefontchars to launch options
  • This reduces the impact of rendering fonts during gameplay.
• Added Paysus animation overhauls to See Also
• Template files (like the user template) are no longer editable in Notepad versions prior to Windows 10 1809 (October 2018), due to new usage of LF line endings rather than CRLF. If you are on a prior version of Windows and cannot upgrade, please use Notepad++ or a similar text editor.
• Fixed some commands not working in local servers (status, ping, pause, unpause)
• Reduced max packet size from 1260 to 1200.
  • This is the packet size recommended by Steam for reliability, and is used for all later Valve multiplayer games.
• Restored usage of sound cache
  • The sound cache should be resident in memory, and will start async loads as soon as possible, thereby reducing audio delay.
• Increased max audio cache size from 128MB to 256MB
  • In normal gameplay, the audio cache was getting crammed at 128MB, but has much less pressure at 256MB.
• Fix sound crackling when playing sound in the background and alt-tabbed out of the game
• Enabled early Z pass
  • For machines with good enough hardware for it to make a small difference, it won't be much of an impact anyway, and may help. For machines that do need it, it will be a big help.
• Force enabled hardware sync to reduce impact lag
• Fixed item panels not loading properly by default
• Cleaned up/updated Pyrovision map filter
• Experimentally disabled forced file buffering, as it may add extra overhead
• Reduced sound latency as a fraction of samples
• Cleaned up the modules template
• Discontinued the Early Access program. Dev builds have been made available as a link on the downloads page.

Modules

Snapshot Buffer

• Changed Spy to use an aligned 15.2ms lerp

Party Mode

• New module to control party join privacy
• Available options: open, request, invite
• Defaults to request

Lighting

• Fixed poor character visibility on low
• Improved character visibility on medium and medium-high
• Improved lighting performance on ultra, at the cost of very, very slightly reduced accuracy

Shadows

• Greatly reduced the max high quality shadows rendered on all levels
• Disabled high quality MvM robot shadows on low

Effects

• Fixed a bug where syringes would not use fast collision on low
• Effectively disabled syringe collision effects on low and medium
• Improved collision accuracy for syringes on high
• Force enabled high quality collision on syringes on ultra

Bandwidth

• Changed 768Kbps to 762Kbps to provide a rate which is the TF2 default (80000)

Anti-aliasing

• New module which merges the old Anti-Aliasing and MSAA Anti-Aliasing presets
  • This fixes a bug where you could enable alpha to coverage but disable MSAA (which had no effect)

Gibs

• Added medium_low which limits gibs to 4 pieces

Props

• Fixed an incorrect optimization which caused low and medium which disabled detail props to have some overhead
• Fixed detail props system not getting properly initialized
  • This may have caused unexpected behavior or reduced performance
  • Detail props are now disabled on class spawn, to give the detail props system a chance to initialize some values on initial run.

FPS Cap

• Added fpscap=360

Match HUD

• Fixed bugs where it would not properly disable in some situations

Documentation

• Added mastercomfig logo to downloads badge
• Fixed dxlevel being listed for macOS despite being ignored by the game
• Added the -no_texture_stream launch option to documentation
• Fixed various typos and stylistic errors
• Added warning about dynamic_background=preload
• Updated features list
• Added troubleshooting note about Linux black artifacts
• Recommend Xanmod for Linux kernel instead
• Added a few more silly launch options
• Fixed 404 pages

Site

• Optimized response times on the download page from 3ms to 1ms
• Improved download page performance
• Improved download page styling and layout
• Updated customize quality input color styles to match mastercomfig theme
• Added reset button for customize quality
• Added 404 page
• Cleaned up some titles and descriptions for "Customize Quality"
• Updated to Bootstrap 5

Addons

Flat Mouse

• Rounded zoom_sensitivity_ratio to .793471

No Tutorial

• Removed high five taunt hints

Dev

• Updated contributing instructions to better explain how to add new modules
• Removed outdated instructions about ToC generation
• Removed dependency on dos2unix
• Added parallelism to VPK generation
• Optimized cache and dependency downloads in CI, reducing build times from 2 minutes to 15 seconds on GitHub actions
• Fixed cancelling being detected as a misspelling

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View the code changes

Highlights: download UI updates, customization improvements and performance optimizations

Support me: Learn how you can support more updates to mastercomfig!

Early Access: Get early access to more frequent mastercomfig updates.

How to install: Instructions on setting up mastercomfig initially and get it working with your custom files.

How to update: Instructions on updating mastercomfig after you've already installed it.

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If you are an United States citizen, please exercise your right to vote!

Comfig

• Added modules_c and autoexec_c to allow for post-launch customization of the user layer.
  • This can be used to change your user preferences to different selections depending on the scenario or your own mood.
  • More information in Module user layer alias and Optional Aliases
• Added apply_user to re-apply the user layer to the config.
  • More information in Utility Commands
• Increased the sleep time when the game is out of focus from 50 to 100ms
  • This potentially fixes issues with high CPU usage when the game is not in focus, but the mouse hovers over the window.
• Re-enabled fully async sound cache to force less pressure on the memory/IO systems
• Restored sound shift delay to 1 millisecond to improve sound in some circumstances
• Removed tournament specgui preference
• Slightly adjusted hitsound repeat delay
• Increased minimum occluders used from 1 to 2
• Cleaned up texture streaming list
• Fixed extra newlines in autoexec template
• Increased party chat pop up time from 2.5 to 3 seconds
• Compacted some numeric values in the config
• Cleaned up and improved the in-config documentation

Docs

• Added Disable Overlays and Intel Panel Self Refresh notes to Windows OS optimizations
• Added No-Hats-Mod bgum to See Also
  • Remove cosmetics like hats, botkillers, skins, and much more
• Fixed typos and errors in the documentation

Website

• Improved landing page banner image
• Refreshed landing page UI and information
• Fixed colors and size in logos
• Refreshed download page with UX and UI adjustments
• Fixed display on downloads module
• Fixed input on sillygibs module
• Fixed display on move_bind module
• Fixed effects default for ultra preset
• Fixed killstreaks default for very-low and low presets

Modules

Packet Size

• Fixed small and conservative not setting a compression threshold for packets (now 40 bytes).

Particles

• Experimentally disabled particle retirement, as the cost of analyzing eligible particles may be more computationally expensive than the render cost of a non-retired particle.

Sprays

• on will now automatically enable decals=low if you have decals=off

FPS Cap

• Added 360 level

Debug

• Added support for net graph

MSAA Anti-aliasing

• Fully removed 16x from the config

OpenGL

• New module which makes OpenGL optimizations optional, so that Windows users do not have to see Unknown command spammed in console at game startup
• Default: opengl=default: runs OpenGL optimizations
• opengl=skip: skips OpenGL optimizations, when running on a Windows machine

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View the code changes

Highlights: new customization UI and performance optimizations

Support me: Learn how you can support more updates to mastercomfig!

Early Access: Get early access to more frequent mastercomfig updates.

How to install: Instructions on setting up mastercomfig initially and get it working with your custom files.

How to update: Instructions on updating mastercomfig after you've already installed it.

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Happy Halloween!!

Comfig

• Upgraded the download experience!
  • You can now customize modules right on the downloads page with an easy to use UI!
  • Then, download your customizations straight from your browser and drop them into your user folder.
  • More updates to this experience are coming soon! Please send me your feedback.
• Updated the message to be more clear when changing mat_antialias manually

Modules

Snapshot Buffer

• Added auto level, to better reflect internal mastercomfig behavior when it is not set

Downloads

• Added auto level, to better reflect internal mastercomfig behavior when it is not set

Lighting

• Disabled z buffer cache on ultra, as lighting can be slightly inaccurate opposed to computing it on the fly

Shadows

• Reduced shadow counts on medium and high
  • Shadows are very costly, and do not scale well with large counts. Reducing the count should improve performance.
  • This change was made based on profiling in Team Comtress 2.

MSAA Anti-aliasing

• Removed 16x, as it does not work on any modern cards

Decals

• Optimized levels with low decal counts to reduce decal churn from the decal overlap/cover system
  • With low decal counts, the system to remove overlapping decals on a surface is not useful, as spawning a new decal will likely remove an old one, with less extra removals which are costly.
  • This change was made based on profiling in Team Comtress 2.

Silly Gibs

• Added auto level, to better reflect internal mastercomfig behavior when it is not set

FPS Cap

• Changed fpscap=360 to fpscap=400, to match the new CS:GO setting

Match HUD

• New module which can be used to properly disable the match HUD
  • The built-in console variable does not actually work properly when disabling at game launch.

HUD Achievements

• Enabled by default (except for Very Low), instead of being disabled for all presets
  • Many users were confused why their achievements HUD was not working out of the box.
  • This is in line with several changes made to mastercomfig over the past few releases to prefer compatibility over performance out of the box.

Mod Support

• Moved to misc category

Logo

• Moved to misc category

Move Binds

• Moved to misc category

Presets

• Scaled some presets based on profiling done in Team Comtress 2.

Medium High

• Increased post_processing=medium to high
  • Most users of this preset do not need the extra GPU performance boost from turning off HDR.
• Decreased pyrovision=high to medium
  • The Pyrovision depth of field feature is not optimized.
• Decreased 3dsky=on to off
  • The 3D Sky feature is not well optimized, and exacerbates some rendering performance problems within TF2.
• Decreased hud_player_model=on to off
  • This feature greatly increases the cost to rendering and computation within the VGUI draw pass.

Medium Low

• Decreased sound=medium to sound=low
  • Sound is a very costly part of TF2, and decreasing this will give better framerates. Given that sound simulation is tied to framerate, this should have a positive relationship with sound at this quality level.

Documentation

• Updated the localization files

Addons

Low Memory

• Updated description to read 2GB instead of 4GB
  • This addon is to only be used in very high memory pressure scenarios, and 4GB was too high for most users.

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View the code changes

Highlights: bug fixes

Support me: Learn how you can support more updates to mastercomfig!

Early Access: Get early access to more frequent mastercomfig updates.

How to install: Instructions on setting up mastercomfig initially and get it working with your custom files.

How to update: Instructions on updating mastercomfig after you've already installed it.

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• Reverted surround sound change
  • Will not longer set speaker configuration
• Reverted props change
  • Fixes invisible rails on Well

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View the code changes

Highlights: bug fixes

Support me: Learn how you can support more updates to mastercomfig!

Early Access: Get early access to more frequent mastercomfig updates.

How to install: Instructions on setting up mastercomfig initially and get it working with your custom files.

How to update: Instructions on updating mastercomfig after you've already installed it.

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• Fixed presets not running
• Fixed demos crashing on Windows
• Fixed logo outputting after user files
• Fixed typos in docs

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View the code changes