Team Fortress 2 received a patch recently, which on top of a few minor changes added a huge improvement that many gamers are going to enjoy. Specifically, Valve has included multi-core rendering support into the game, officially sanctioning a formerly hidden feature buried in TF2 code. Due to concerns about compatibility, the option is not turned on by default – but as soon as your game updates, you'll find it inside the game options.


Moves like these show how software has started adapting to hardware, rather than the other way around most gamers are used to. The cost of multi-core processors and powerful video cards has come down significantly enough to make it suitable including them for even mid-range enthusiast machines. With the cost barrier being somewhat dealt with, what’s left is the games – and so very few games truly support multi-core rendering. While TF2 isn't exactly old, it is good to see that some effort is being made on already-released games to give them the ability to take advantage of newer hardware.