Valve has rolled out a new update for Counter-Strike 2 that introduces a feature called TrueView, designed to make demo playback more accurate and true to what players actually experienced during a match. This feature changes how replays are shown, allowing viewers to see gameplay as it happened from the player’s perspective, instead of the server’s version of events.
In the past, demo playback relied on the server’s data, which didn’t factor in network latency. Because of that, players often saw confusing moments in demos, like bullets hitting targets that didn’t seem to connect or missing shots that looked accurate. It was the same in CS:GO, which helped lead to the idea of getting ‘CSGOed’ when shots that looked like they hit ended up doing no damage (or less than you’d expect) – sub-par demos only made finding clips like this easier.
With TrueView, Valve has fixed this issue by using client-side prediction, meaning the demo will now simulate what the player saw on their own screen in real time. This makes replays feel much more natural and accurate. It also makes possible to watch back what you saw on your own screen without having to rely on external video replay or highlight tools.
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What is TrueView in Counter-Strike 2?
Valve’s blog post explains that TrueView gives a “more accurate representation of the observed player’s experience” by re-running their client-side actions during demo playback. The result is a smoother, more believable viewing experience that’s especially useful for players analyzing their matches, professional reviewers, or anyone watching competitive play. The update comes as part of the November 4 patch (see below):
[ GAMEPLAY ]
- Fixed a case where air acceleration was clamped incorrectly while surfing.
- Fixed a case where slowly surfing up a ramp was handled incorrectly due to misidentification as a jump apex.
- Fix a bug causing “Delay Sniper Rifle Un-Scope after Shot” to be inconsistent.
[ DEMO ]
- Added TrueView demo playback, which reconstructs the observed player’s original experience more accurately by re-running client-side prediction.
- TrueView playback will show the effects of Damage Prediction, if it was enabled by the observed player at the time.
- TrueView does not reconstruct the precise timings of rendered frames, so some differences between the original player’s experience and TrueView playback will remain, especially in very slow motion playback. The player’s frame at the time when the mouse was clicked, which is used for hit registration, is shown accurately to the nearest demo playback frame. However, reaction effects such as recoil, muzzle flash, blood splatter, and ragdoll are delayed while playing the game by one or two frames due to the way CPU and GPU work is pipelined, and will not appear at the same time during demo playback.
- TrueView demo playback might not work properly on old demos and is disabled by default if the playback client version does not match the client version when the demo was recorded. You can set cl_demo_predict 2 to override this.
- Fixed a bug causing third person models to not animate smoothly.
- Fixed a bug causing time to lurch forward by one tick when unpausing a demo.
[ MISC ]
- Animation fixes for G3SG1 bolt.
- Fixed developer console scrollbar to accept mouse clicks.
Source: Steam
However, Valve has also listed a few things to keep in mind. TrueView will be disabled automatically if you’re watching a demo recorded on a different game version than the one you’re using. So, if you try to view older demos after future updates, you may not be able to use TrueView. Valve also mentioned that there can still be small differences compared to what the player originally saw, especially during slow-motion playback. This happens because of how the CPU and GPU handle visual and damage effects differently during demo rendering.
Interestingly, TrueView also adds Damage Prediction for enemies if that feature was active when the demo was recorded. This means hit feedback and reactions should look even closer to the real match. Alongside TrueView, Valve has also included movement changes that were recently tested in a beta branch to address some issues in the user-created surf gamemode.
