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How to record demos in Counter-Strike: Source.


This question has been asked many times; so below is a simple tutorial to illustrate how to record for the purposes of submitting a demo. If you have any further questions after reading this tutorial, please post them in this thread.

Demo's will record everything that you see in game (barring scoreboard), to record some one else's view, you first need to be in spectator (by hitting your team change key, and selecting spectator) or death view. Then, hit your tilde key (~), located to the left of your numeral one (1) key to open console*. From the console, enter the command "record " and click submit, or hit enter.

A useful tip is to use the filename as the person you are recording; for example - record snow1. This will allow you to more easily find the demo that you have recorded, these demos are saved in to your /Steam/SteamApps/"accountnamehere"/counter-strike source/cstrike/ folder.

*Console will need to be enabled via the Options>Keyboard>Advanced>Enable Developer Console

Whilst recording open console, make sure to type 'status' and hit enter, as this will bring up all the players 'Steam IDs'; which are a unique identification code of each player, this allows them to be permanently banned from servers. To be on the safe side, please copy their Steam IDs down, without a Steam ID, a demo is useless.

A Steam ID should look like this: STEAM_0:1:19230.

Whilst recording try and not alert the suspect that you are demoing; as they will most likely stop or leave the server. Do not message others in the game to let them know you are demoing, as they may tip them off. If you find that you cannot record enough footage of the player while you are dead, enter the spectator view as it is easier to demo the player for longer periods of time.

Once you have completed the demo (or wish to record another demo), simply type 'stop' into the console. The console should report information relating to the demo you have just recorded.

Now that the demo is saved, you will need to watch the recording to make sure there is enough evidence of a player hacking and the ticks at which the most obvious evidence occurs.To watch a demo, open up Counter-Strike Source and press "Shift + F2"; this will open up the demo viewer (see image below). Click the 'load' button and navigate to the demo you wish to view.

The directory navigation screen:

Select your demo from the list, and click open. It will take a few moments to load, at which point you may speed up or slow down the demo to review closely.