Well yeah it's not like it's a major issue or anything, just at a glance it'd be nice to know if I have a hat or a misc. And maybe the taunts but one hasn't dropped for me yet so I can't say anything about that.
[QUOTE=Omolong;38701792]Well yeah it's not like it's a major issue or anything, just at a glance it'd be nice to know if I have a hat or a misc. And maybe the taunts but one hasn't dropped for me yet so I can't say anything about that.[/QUOTE]
Taunts are counted as tools.
Well in that case it'd be nice to have them changed to Taunts as well, but of course none of this is essential or anything.
[QUOTE=Omolong;38701935]Well in that case it'd be nice to have them changed to Taunts as well, but of course none of this is essential or anything.[/QUOTE]
The taunts have taunt in their name so we know that they are taunts without the need for a special category just for 2 or 3 items.
Thing is, people might not use the drop log that shows the name of items, they might use the log that just shows how many items of each category an account has found.
Also, what if Valve adds more taunts in the future.
[QUOTE=Omolong;38702242]Thing is, people might not use the drop log that shows the name of items, they might use the log that just shows how many items of each category an account has found.
Also, what if Valve adds more taunts in the future.[/QUOTE]
It's not a right,it's a privilage to have mouskateer develop this for us which makes idling a lot easier.
That is why we avoid suggesting little,insignificant things like that.
Just bother a few seconds to check backpacks of your tool-dropped accounts to see what you dropped.It's not so freaking hard.Stop bothering him because "valve may add more taunts later and we need to seperate them on seconds without moving our hands."
>_< I get the "Validating files loop of death" with the last update, I already del the .blob and make a backup of a working acc and trying with replacing files but nothing, any idea how to fix it?
also thx a lot to the mouskateer for his great app
Any idea on what the value should link to on the blog page? I was thinking of linking to pages [URL="http://backpack.tf/vote/5031/6/0"]like this[/URL] but I'm not sure how useful that would be. While the [URL="http://backpack.tf/pricelist"]pricelist page[/URL] is too generic
[QUOTE=ZombieMaker;38715922]>_< I get the "Validating files loop of death" with the last update, I already del the .blob and make a backup of a working acc and trying with replacing files but nothing, any idea how to fix it?
also thx a lot to the mouskateer for his great app[/QUOTE]
[url]http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1161862&p=38589438&viewfull=1#post38589438[/url]
It should work. Just backup, delete everything and re-install from backup.
It helps me everytime :D
[QUOTE=Moussekateer;38716168]Any idea on what the value should link to on the blog page? I was thinking of linking to pages [URL="http://backpack.tf/vote/5031/6/0"]like this[/URL] but I'm not sure how useful that would be. While the [URL="http://backpack.tf/pricelist"]pricelist page[/URL] is too generic[/QUOTE]
Pricelist page would be pretty useless,since sometimes it takes up to 30 seconds for that page to load.
Other one should be fine,since it shows current price,and there isn't any good alternative for it.
[QUOTE=Maxus;38716466][url]http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1161862&p=38589438&viewfull=1#post38589438[/url]
It should work. Just backup, delete everything and re-install from backup.
It helps me everytime :D[/QUOTE]
Thx but already try that without success
I have been using TF2Idle for a while now and only recently have I been getting these errors:
Steam.exe (main exception): Cannot open blob archive file:
CMultiFieldBlob(mem-mapped file): Failed to open existing file Win32 Error 32
"The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process."
It does only happen when I have my unsandboxed Steam running. I have not changed any settings since last week, so I'm not exactly sure why TF2Idle in sandboxie is not working.
The only change I noticed was the Steam update, other then that, I am confused.
Can anyone help me?
Thanks in advanced.
[QUOTE=ZmanOG;38722413]I have been using TF2Idle for a while now and only recently have I been getting these errors:
Steam.exe (main exception): Cannot open blob archive file:
CMultiFieldBlob(mem-mapped file): Failed to open existing file Win32 Error 32
"The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process."
It does only happen when I have my unsandboxed Steam running. I have not changed any settings since last week, so I'm not exactly sure why TF2Idle in sandboxie is not working.
The only change I noticed was the Steam update, other then that, I am confused.
Can anyone help me?
Thanks in advanced.[/QUOTE]
this can occur when you are downloading something from steam
[QUOTE=Zantze;38449702]Okay, this has been probably asked like million times, but I'm getting 'Unable to connect to Steam'. Any help?[/QUOTE]
Imma ask the same question again.
Ignore this.
[QUOTE=jpwanabe;38728466]Not sure if some one already asked, and I am not going to search 35 pages, but is there any way to make the idle accounts join a server and pick a team then a class?
I was tiring this
[code]-textmode -nosound -low -novid -nopreload -nojoy -sw +sv_lan 1 -width 640 -height 480 +connect 10.0.1.3 jointeam blu joinclass scout
[/code]
And it joins the server fine, but doesn't join a team. Does anyone have any suggestions?[/QUOTE]
it dosn't work, because it executes those commands before joining the server
1. make sure sv_allow_wait_command is 1
2. save this:
[code]
jointeam blu
join_class scout
wait 1000
exec join
[/code]
as join.cfg in your %username%/team fortress 2/tf/cfg/ folder
3. add "exec join" to your autoexec.cfg
this may or may not work, i will test it later
Can anyone help with automatic updates? Is there any way to truly keep them off?
No matter how often I change the settings, upon launching TF2 (normally or with idle configs) the setting is immediately changed to automatically update. And since i'm idling the majority of the week, I keep getting caught by TF2 updates and forced into mass validations.
Turning off Steam Sync doesn't seem to help. Anyone know where this setting is saved? It doesn't seem to be affected by the userdata folder.
It looks like i'm going to have to bring up TF2 on my main every time I try to idle, and then hope there isn't an update while the idles are starting.
Been following this thread for a while, but haven't actually posted here before. I have a lot of questions. Hopefully none have been answered before--I read most the posts but 35 pages is quite a bit. Feel free to direct me to other posts or threads if a question doesn't apply here.
[B]Steam Installations[/B]
After making a bunch of new steam directories and making a script to symlink them all to steamapps across a couple drives, it occurred to me that I probably only need one steam installation directory per client that I want to run simultaneously, not one for each account. Ex: 70 accounts, 10 at a time = 10 install dirs, cycling through them on 7 different accounts. Is this the normal way to do it, or is there some reason each account should have it's own install (thus wasting about 230 megs of HDD space for each client)? Space isn't an issue, but maintenance can be pretty annoying if I'm keeping 100 directories updated.
[B]Linux[/B]
Is anyone doing this on Linux (pref. CentOS or Fedora)? If so, are there any major differences in the steam client's hardware usage compared to that of running it on Windows? Have you run into any problems? Do you need a graphics card in the system to run Steam/TF2, or is there a way to start clients from runlevel 3 (doubtful, but worth a shot)? And can Steam be run through fluxbox if runlevel 3 is not an option?
[B]GPU[/B]
I've seen a lot of people say, "Text mode doesn't use your graphics card!", and I just want to say that this is untrue from what I've seen. While it doesn't use the GPU for rendering things, it is still eating up some graphics memory. I did some benchmarks in various textmode clients, and the results are below with 6 text mode clients open.
[U]Textmode Defaults[/U]:
Graphics Card RAM Used: [B]1226 MB[/B] (of 1280MB), [B]1%[/B] GPU Load
[B]620 MB[/B] of RAM per tf2 client.
[U]Textmode With [b][URL="https://github.com/cdown/tf2configs/blob/master/maxframes"]Maxframes[/URL][/b] Config[/U]:
Graphics Card RAM Used: [B]594 MB[/B] (of 1280MB), [B]2%[/B] GPU Load
[B]510 MB[/B] of RAM per tf2 client.
[U]Maxframes with -dxlevel 81 Option[/U]
Graphics Card RAM Used: [B]294 MB[/B] (of 1280MB), [B]1%[/B] GPU Load
[B]560 MB[/B] of RAM per tf2 client.
[U]Maxframes vs Standard @ 6 TF2 Clients[/U]
-51.5% Video Card RAM
+50% GPU Load (honestly negligible with the numbers we're talking about--probably affected by other system things)
-17.7% System RAM
[U]Maxframes dxlevel 81 vs Maxframes default @ 6 TF2 Clients[/U]
-50.5%Video Card Ram
-50% GPU Load
+8.9% System RAM
Do any of you guys have configs that produce better results? If so, share them! Or if any of you are running an idle server that doesn't have a graphics card, I'm curious as to A) If that's even possible, and B) How much RAM each client uses. Please note that [B]the above results do not include Steam[/B]. These are simply the usage stats of hl2.exe.
[QUOTE=rannmann;38740742][B]Steam Installations[/B]
After making a bunch of new steam directories and making a script to symlink them all to steamapps across a couple drives, it occurred to me that I probably only need one steam installation directory per client that I want to run simultaneously, not one for each account. Ex: 70 accounts, 10 at a time = 10 install dirs, cycling through them on 7 different accounts. Is this the normal way to do it, or is there some reason each account should have it's own install (thus wasting about 230 megs of HDD space for each client)? Space isn't an issue, but maintenance can be pretty annoying if I'm keeping 100 directories updated.[/QUOTE]I only have one Steam directory installed. Initially I had issues with connection errors, Blob errors, Steam complaining about multiple copies being run, but I set the launch delay to >1 minute and haven't had any issues since each account manages to log in and launch tf2 before the next one starts.
[QUOTE]Finished updating GCFs. Remember to start the backup Steam installation unsandboxed to finish the update process[/QUOTE]
¿¿?? So I have to make a backup on my main acc, then close steam and run it again from and idle folder and restore the back from there?
You make it sound so fucking hard when it's not... Validating issues? Simple, login to your main steam account, go to lib, delete Team Fortress 2. Install it -> Problem solved. Doesn't work ? Your OS has issues.
Want to run it on low RAM usage? Like 50 ? There are two things you want know about this.
8GB is enough to run 7 accounts at the same time with paging file off.
8GB is enough to run 30 accounts at the same time with paging file on turned from 400mb to 50gb.
So when you idle and you are concerned about your RAM usage and you look up in Task Manager you have two options Memory (Private working Set) wich is the physical memory usage and Commit Size wich is the virtual one. Get CleanMem and it will automatically transform your Physical Memory(PrivateWorkingSet) to CommitSize. Your physical memory usage will drop from 300-500mb to 50.
Get a srcds server and connect all your clients to it.
Need help with idle? Pay.
[QUOTE=NPhect;38749759]You make it sound so fucking hard when it's not... Validating issues? Simple, login to your main steam account, go to lib, delete Team Fortress 2. Install it -> Problem solved. Doesn't work ? Your OS has issues.
Want to run it on low RAM usage? Like 50 ? There are two things you want know about this.
8GB is enough to run 7 accounts at the same time with paging file off.
8GB is enough to run 30 accounts at the same time with paging file on turned from 400mb to 50gb.
So when you idle and you are concerned about your RAM usage and you look up in Task Manager you have two options Memory (Private working Set) wich is the physical memory usage and Commit Size wich is the virtual one. Get CleanMem and it will automatically transform your Physical Memory(PrivateWorkingSet) to CommitSize. Your physical memory usage will drop from 300-500mb to 50.
Get a srcds server and connect all your clients to it.
Need help with idle? Pay.[/QUOTE]
Which option in Cleanmem does that? Cleanram or Clean cache?
[QUOTE=iviv;36613624][b]Complete guide to using TF2Idle[/b]
First of all, you will need:
Steam accounts to idle on. You can create new accounts [url=https://store.steampowered.com/join/?]here[/url].
[url=http://www.sandboxie.com/]Sandboxie[/url] so you can run multiple Steam accounts. A full version is needed to run multiple sandboxes.
(optional) A Steam [url=http://steamcommunity.com/dev]Dev API key[/url] for an account which contains a purchased game. This will be used to access steam backpacks so you can see your drops happening.
All my instructions are written assuming you will be running 8 idle accounts, and are running Windows 7. XP and earlier OSs do not have the mklink command available for making the symlinks needed to save a ton of hard drive space. I've also written it assuming you have Steam installed in c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam and you put all your idle steam copies in C:\idle if you have these in different places, you will need to change the below info accordingly.
Preparations:
Firstly, you need Steam installed and TF2 downloaded and playable. If you're idling then you no doubt already have an active account and play the game, so will already have this.
(I'm not sure if these parts are needed, but I saw that tf2idle checked for an idle.cfg so I did some googling and found this:)
Go to your steamapps\username\team fortress 2\tf\cfg folder and create a new text file. Name it idle.cfg (Make sure it isn't idle.cfg.txt turn on the showing of file extensions if you aren't sure, google if you need to know how) and paste in the following:
[code]fps_max 30
r_rootlod 2
r_lod 2
mat_picmip 2
threadpool_affinity 0
mat_aaquality 0
mat_bumpmap 0
mat_antialias 0
mat_reducefillrate 1
mat_specular 0
r_shadowrendertotexture 0
r_waterforceexpensive 0
mat_hdr_level 0
mat_hdr_enabled 0
mat_hdr_level 0
mat_hdr_manual_tonemap_rate 0
mat_aaquality 0
mat_use_compressed_hdr_textures 0
mat_disable_bloom 1
mat_bloomscale 0[/code]
Also, open up your server.cfg and add the following:
[code]hostname "Valve Loves Idlers"
fps_max 30
rcon_password typeapasswordhere
sv_password typeapasswordhere
sv_minrate 13000
sv_maxrate 13000
sv_minupdaterate 20
sv_maxupdaterate 20
sv_mincmdrate 20
sv_maxcmdrate 20
sv_region 255
mp_waitingforplayers_cancel 1
mp_disable_respawn_times 1
mp_timelimit 9999
mp_allowspectators 1
mp_idledealmethod 0
mp_idlemaxtime 9999
sv_pure 2[/code]
*End of possibly unneeded stuff*
In your steamapps folder, create a new folder containing the username of each account you are going to idle with. Go into your original one, and copy the 'team fortress 2' folder, and paste it into each of these named folders.
Create a folder to contain all the copies of steam needed for the sandboxes. For me, I simply made a folder in the root, c:\idle
In this folder, create a new folder, and give it a simple name with a number at the end to help differentiate it. I named mine steam1 to steam8. Into the steam1 folder, copy the contents of your normal Steam folder, minus the steamapps folder, as that will be a huge folder. Once you have the steam1 folder, I simply copy+pasted it 7 more times into the folder, renaming each folder so I had 8 steam folders.
Each of these folders needs a symlink to your steamapps folder. This makes it appear that there is a copy of the steamapps folder in each of these steam installs, when in fact they are all automatically redirected to your base steam install. This means that you don't need 8 copies of the ~10Gb of TF2 files for each sandbox.
Open up a command prompt (Not sure if you need admin rights, but run it as an admin just in case), and navigate to the first idle steam folder (c:\idle\steam1 for me)
Once there type the following:
mklink /D steamapps "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steamapps"
Now if you go to the steam1 folder, you will see what appears to be a shortcut to the steamapps folder, double click it and you go there, but the address bar still shows it as being in the steam1 folder, which is what we want.
You will need to repeat this for each idle steam folder you have, you can't simply copy+paste the steamapps symlink. Use the command prompt to go to the steam2 folder, run the mklink again, and so on for all the idle accounts you want.
Now all that is prepared, you need to install Sandboxie, which is a program that will allow us to run multiple instances of Steam. Once installed, on the menu go Sandbox>Create new sandbox. Give it a name, don't bother copying the settings.
Once created, right click it and go to Sandbox Settings.
In there, you need to go to the restrictions>Drop Rights option, and unsure it is [b]unchecked[/b]
Next go to the Resource Access>File Access>Full Access, and add the root folder of the drive that contains Steam, and the drive which will contain all the sandbox files (If they are both on the same drive then you don't need to add it twice)
Now, create more sandboxes, one for each account you will be idling with. With these, copy the settings from one of your previously made sandboxes so you don't need to go into the settings for each one. Giving them all simple names is strongly advised.
Finally, run TF2Idle. I put it into c:\idle so I had everything in the same place, but it doesn't matter where it goes. Its a stand alone exe, no installing, though it does make its own cfg file, and will make error files to check if there are problems, so its nice to have it separated.
Hit the 'add account' button and it will bring up a simple screen. Your steam username and password are self explanatory. You will need to log into the [url=steamcommunity.com/]Steam community[/url] page with each account to create a vanity ID, which is required for item tracking.
In the Sandbox Name, this needs to be the name of one of the sandboxes you created earlier in sandboxie. The sandbox path needs to be the root directory of one of the idle steam folders you created. For instance C:\idle\Steam1
You don't need any of the other options, so just hit ok and your account will be listed there. Repeat this process for each account you want to idle with, remembering you need a different sandbox name and sandbox path for each account.
Once all the account settings have been made, in TF2Idle go file>settings
In the TF2 tab, the steam install location and sandboxie install location should have been filled automatically, but point it the right way if not. Enter the Steam API key obtained right at the top to allow you to track the drops into all of your accounts. The API key can be from any account, it just needs to have a game tied to it to be able to generate the key.
The backpack viewer is optionally used as a way to view details on an item that has dropped. Leave the idle launch settings how it is, and I would advise increasing the account launch delay to ~120 seconds, as this gives each account time to create a server and get through any CPU/ram intensive tasks before the next one tries. And you aren't going to miss a couple of minutes not idling.
Any other settings are optional. In the TF2Idle tab you can select to encript the config file, as this otherwise contains the steam account usernames and passwords in plaintext.
And you're done! For the first time running, I would select one account at a time (orange icon if selected, grey if not by default), and hit the 'start idling' button. This will launch steam through sandboxie, and you will eventually get a command prompt full of text as the game runs in text mode. For reference, mine looks [url=http://i.imgur.com/tYjD6.jpg]like this[/url]. The important thing is that it contains the '<account name> connected' line near the bottom, as this shows you have connected fine. Once it looks ok, unselect the first and select the second, and start idling again (You don't need to close the first one). Repeat this for all of the accounts, until they are all idling. Once they started up ok, next time you can just select them all and hit the start idling button and it will do all this automatically, but for the first time I find it better to start them manually so you can spot any problems.
Once they are all idling you can hit the 'terminate sandbox' to obviously stop them idling.
Otherwise, you can hit the 'drop log view' to see the drops, though first you will need to click 'add accounts'. This should bring up a message for each account confirming that it has started logging the drops. Then you can sit back and watch as the list slowly fills up with all your free items.
And now you're idling!
References:
[url=http://facepunch.com/threads/805043]This thread[/url] for the .cfg contents
Questions or comments? Ask here! Everything I've just posted comes from searching various forums and threads trying to work out how exactly to get this working, so I hope this proves useful to some of you. And in the end, all credit goes to Moussekateer for actually making TF2Idle in the first place!
And remember, free TF2 accounts can only find weapons, no hats. And you can't trade either, you'll need to buy a copy of TF2/buy something from the Mann Co store if you want to get the top drops and start shifting them over to your main account.
Here's some pictures of my setup:
[url]http://i.imgur.com/KFoqQ.jpg[/url] - Idle folder containing 8 physical copies of the steam folder, bar the steamapps folder.
[url]http://i.imgur.com/hhFsj.jpg[/url] - Inside one of the steam folders, showing the mklink steamapps
[url]http://i.imgur.com/LAmCw.jpg[/url] - Inside the steamapps folder, account names blanked out.
[url]http://i.imgur.com/TZZIi.jpg[/url] - TF2 idle settings, API key blanked out
[url]http://i.imgur.com/R6CrP.jpg[/url] - More TF2 idle settings, details blanked out
[url]http://i.imgur.com/yYPUv.jpg[/url] - 8 named sandboxes
[url]http://i.imgur.com/gtPBn.jpg[/url] - Sandboxie full access[/QUOTE]
"navigate to the first idle steam folder" yeah, because we are all geeks and know how to work with cmd
[QUOTE=Salm0n;38754464]"navigate to the first idle steam folder" yeah, because we are all geeks and know how to work with cmd[/QUOTE]
cd "path"
for example
cd "Z:\idle\alfee94"
[QUOTE=AlfieGroove;38755324]cd "path"
for example
cd "Z:\idle\alfee94"[/QUOTE]
Already found that myself, thanks anyway.:rolleye:
After launching 16 idle accounts I am getting this
[url]http://scr.hu/0eva/jc1r6[/url]
any quick ideas to solve it? Thanks!
[QUOTE=Maxus;38756911]After launching 16 idle accounts I am getting this
[url]http://scr.hu/0eva/jc1r6[/url]
any quick ideas to solve it? Thanks![/QUOTE]
run 1 server and connect the rest of your accounts to it. saves time, ram and ports
[QUOTE=radek;38757246]run 1 server and connect the rest of your accounts to it. saves time, ram and ports[/QUOTE]
I do that, at 15th account that connects I keep getting this error...
[QUOTE=Maxus;38757896]I do that, at 15th account that connects I keep getting this error...[/QUOTE]
because you are trying to run 16 servers, not 1 server + 15 clients
Could people beta test [URL="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/105828/TF2Idle%20v.1.9.5-beta.exe"]this beta version[/URL] for me and report any bugs they come across. It adds support for item values using the backpack.tf API and fixes some bugs.
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