Huge Source Engine Performance Update Relased

Despite its small size, this is by far the best optimization update TF2’s seen so far.

Most everyone is reporting massive FPS gains, in some cases double, halved memory usage and instant alt-tabbing in full-screen. No more crashing, and people that couldn’t even run the game without a rock bottom low quality config can now run it at decent settings. Apparently they’ve also optimized multicore rendering.

The changelog is short and sweet, and doesn’t say much, but the effects of this update are huge.

• Dramatically improved the dynamic model loading system’s memory usage, performance, and stability
• Reduced memory usage on systems running Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7
• Improved alt-tab handling under Windows Vista and Windows 7

Source: TF2 Blog