PeachREC

Here's a video walkthrough and demo of the PeachREC installer:

PeachREC is an automated demo recorder for Team Fortress 2 tournament matches. It is a spiritual successor to PREC that makes clever use of animations and scripts to detect and record tournament matches.
This differs from Valve's automated demo recording by NOT recording Casual matches, and ONLY recording scrims, matches, or PUGs. It will also automatically start recording at the beginning of the actual match (not pregame) and stop recording at the end of the actual match.

Installation

I recommend making a backup of your autoexec.cfg and custom HUD. This isn't strictly necessary, the installer should at most add one line to both of those, but put as much trust in my coding as feel comfortable with.

• Download the latest release from the Releases page.
• Put peachrec_installer.exe in your tf/custom folder.
• Run peachrec_installer.exe and answer any prompts it gives you.
• If you did not allow the program to edit your autoexec.cfg you'll need to manually add exec peachrec to it or add +exec peachrec to your launch options.
• If you'd like to configure custom start/stop messages or sounds, you can do that in the generated _PeachREC/cfg/peachrec.cfg file.
• I HIGHLY recommend using bind [key] ds_status in conjunction with ds_notify 2 to display on your demo recording status on your screen when pressing the bound key.

That's the entire installation process. If you'd like to test PeachREC after installing, instructions are below.

Important Notes:

• PeachREC relies on being present when the match starts to record a demo automatically. If you join or have to reconnect halfway through a match you MUST record a demo manually.
• If you install a different HUD after running peachrec_installer.exe, you will need to re-run peachrec_installer.exe so that it can modify your new HUD accordingly.
• PeachREC makes use of Valve's improved demo recording utilizing ds_... commands. Therefore, it retains custom prefixes allowing for users to organize demos however they find most intuitive. You can also use it along side map-prefix generators such as this one.

Known Issues

ID	Suspected Cause Description	Type	Fix	Resolution Status
1	Join server within WaitingForPlayers time (first 30s).	False negative	Hit resupply bind. Self-resolves next respawn.	League / server host needs to add mp_waitingforplayers_cancel 1 to server config. Discussing with league admins / server hosts.
2	Match starts while in AFK status.	False negative	Hit resupply bind. Self-resolves next respawn.	Investigating issue.
3	Server re-executes the config.	False positive	Hit resupply bind. Self-resolves next respawn.	Likely unfixable.
4	In a tournament server, join a team, join spectator, and join a team again.	False positive	Self-resolves instantly	Likely unfixable and mostly inconsequential.
5	Lag spike or unlucky timing on match start.	Escape key is disabled	Open and close your text chat.	Testing alternative timings on PeachRecClose animation.
6	Join MvM server and resupply / change class before readying.	Auto-ready once	Manually unready. After readying PeachREC will identify the MvM session.	Likely unfixable and mostly inconsequential.

• False Negative - Does not begin recording a demo when one should have been. Top Priority!
• False Positive - Begins recording a demo at an incorrect time. Mild inconvenience.

Compatibility

Category	Compatibility
Windows	Fully compatible
Linux	Fully compatible
Mac	Theoretically compatible
Custom HUDs	Fully compatible
Default HUD	Fully compatible
Custom configs	Fully compatible
mastercomfig (latest)	Fully compatible
No config	Fully compatible
Casual servers	Fully compatible
Community servers	Fully compatible
Tournament servers	Fully compatible
Valve Competitive servers	Untested
Mann Vs Machine servers	Will automatically ready once

Testing

The easiest and most reliable way to test PeachREC is to play a demo file that includes the pregame and halftime of a tournament match. This won't trigger PeachREC to record a demo but it will trigger start and stop sounds and console feedback.
Offline testing is a bit wonky because of TF2's quirkiness. But to test the functionality of PeachREC on an offline / private server:

• Start on a server with mp_tournamnet 0 (this is usually default).
• Set mp_tournament 1 and make sure the team ready statuses appear at the top of the screen, if they don't you may have to set mp_waitingforplayers_restart 1. Once those are visible you should hear the PeachREC standby chime and see "=====PeachREC.waiting.for.match.to.start=====" in console.
• Set mp_tournament 0 this simulates the match having started and no longer being able to open the tournament setup menu.
  PeachREC will not record yet.
• Change class once or use a resupply bind to respawn twice. In a match this would simulate being sent back to the spawn rooms when pregame ends. For whatever reason resupply binds are only half as wonky as changing class or a match starting.
  PeachREC will now start recording.
• Set mp_tournament 1 and make sure the team ready statuses appear at the top of the screen, if they don't you may have to set mp_waitingforplayers_restart 1. Once those are visible PeachREC will stop recording.
• You can repeat this process if you'd like, you may need to resupply bind or respawn via other means inbetween each full run of the test to simulate the halftime.

How Does It Work?

• The installer searches your custom HUD for hudanimations_manifest.txt, and searches the files referenced within it for animations pertinent to PeachREC.
• If/when the installer finds a relevant animation, it makes a copy of that animation's code so that PeachREC's animations will behave identically to your custom HUD's, with PeachREC code added in addition to your HUD's.
• The installer then inserts a file path to the PeachREC animations at the top spot in your HUD's hudanimations_manifest.txt file, so your hud will load PeachREC.
• Then the installer generates peachrec.cfg with the necessary code and appends exec peachrec to your autoexec.cfg if you allow it to.
• If you don't have a custom HUD or a custom config, the installer will generate PeachREC to be self sufficient using default HUD's values.

In game the script works as follows:

• PeachREC Checks if the current server allows the tournament setup menu to open (where you set team names and ready), if the menu opens the server is determined to be a match/scrim server.
• Then the script will be armed and will record whenever the player spawns AND is no longer able to open the tournament setup menu, because the match has started.
• PeachREC also checks if the player joins a new server to prevent falsely triggering a recording when going from a tournament server to a Casual server.

There's more complexity to the script, but that is to work around the quirkiness of HUD animations, match starts, respawns, etc.

Is This a Virus?

Nope. Your anti-virus software may flag it as a potential virus, likely just because it is an executable file that your anti-virus software has never seen before. Your anti-virus is doing its job by alerting you to this, running untrusted executable files is inherently dangerous. You should review the code and determine my trustworthiness for yourself and decide whether to use my installer or not.

If you don't trust me you can still use the installer by reviewing the code yourself in this GitHub repository. It is written in Go so it'll be pretty clear to anyone with programming experience what is going on.
Once you're satisfied with your code review you can build the installer from source using any updated version of Go. All libraries used are native Go libraries so you can build it by opening a terminal window in the directory you have the source code in and executing a go build command, which will build you your own peachrec_installer.exe to use following my original install instructions.