Whether or not you are a Counter-Strike veteran or simply selecting up the long-lasting shooter for the primary time, we will help you get probably the most out of your time with the sport with our information to the perfect CS2 settings. Whether or not it is graphics, gameplay, controls, or comms, we have got recommendation that can guarantee you’re racking up the headshots very quickly.
The CS2 system necessities do not go into nice element on what you will want for a excessive body fee, however relaxation assured, you will not want the perfect graphics card to get a fairly excessive body fee. We put Counter-Strike 2 by way of its paces on our RTX 4070 Tremendous check rig and Steam Deck to point out you what the perfect settings are.
Greatest CS2 settings for PC
Show mode: Fullscreen or fullscreen windowed
V-Sync: Off, until your body fee at all times exceeds the utmost refresh fee of your monitor
Multisampling Anti-Aliasing Mode: Off
International Shadow High quality: Low
Dynamic Shadows: Solar solely
Mannequin/Texture Element: Low
Texture Filtering Mode: Anisotropic 16X
Shader Element: Low
Particle Element: Low
Ambient Occlusion: Low
Excessive Dynamic Vary: Efficiency
AMD FSR: Disabled
Let’s not fiddle right here. The purpose of CS2 will not be immersion, storytelling, or having fun with its graphical constancy. It is to be aggressive and win, and to that finish, your settings must be laser-focused on maximizing your body fee.
So as to obtain that, it is best to begin by mainly turning down each graphical setting within the recreation. Flip off MSAA, flip mannequin, shader, and particle element to low, and hold decision no larger than 1080p till your minimal body fee – not your common – is larger than the utmost refresh fee of your monitor.
If in case you have a really quick refresh fee gaming monitor that has the next decision – a 360Hz, 1440p show, as an example – and your graphics card can deal with it, then completely crank the decision up in order that it completely matches your show. In any other case, although, FPS is king for CS2, so do not be tempted to run your video games at 50fps at 4K as an alternative of 150fps at 1080p.
In case your monitor has the next decision than 1080p, however your graphics cannot maximize its refresh fee or hit at the very least 120fps at its native decision, take into account dropping right down to 1080p and working the sport in fullscreen mode, relying in your monitor to upscale the picture to suit its full measurement. Do not set the show to your display screen’s decision and use FSR upscaling.
In case your graphics card can run the sport at body fee at native decision, then run the sport in fullscreen windowed mode.
Utilizing all of the above settings, our check system geared up with an RTX 4070 Tremendous hit a mean body fee of 210fps with 1% lows of 99fps, which is efficiency ideally matched to be used with a 120Hz-180Hz show. Admittedly, body charges do not drop an excessive amount of in case you allow a number of larger graphical settings, which might make the sport look a good bit higher, however for peak efficiency, these are the settings we would advocate.
In-game settings
We have picked out these settings as they need to make your expertise taking part in the sport barely simpler. The ping setting ensures you will not be matched to any servers which are geographically too far-off. You should use the console and CS2 instructions to allow config recordsdata, modify server settings, and allow hidden settings. One of many new choices in CS2 is to disable the flexibility to detach the silencer on the USP-S and M4A1-S – hold this off because it solely serves to land you in hassle in case you misclick in the midst of a struggle.
‘Present group positions in your HUD’ lets you already know precisely the place your teammates are with out having to rely fully on the radar. Be sure to choose the ‘present location and gear’ choice, as this additionally tells you what your teammates are holding, serving to you’re employed out what utility your squad has at a look. Likewise, it is best to have the ‘colours and letters’ choice enabled, as this makes it simpler to speak together with your teammates. As a substitute of calling your teammates by their names, CS2 gamers are pleased to go by their chosen colour.
You may as well set the utmost ping your matchmaking will permit for, and this additionally lists your closest servers to offer you an concept of the common ping on every of them. In the event you do not wish to find yourself in a group with somebody utilizing extraordinarily unreliable web, that is the place you may defend your self.
Greatest CS2 audio settings
For probably the most half, CS2’s default audio settings are high quality. The sport would not have music throughout matches anyway, so there is not any concern round needing to show that right down to be aggressive. Nonetheless, you might wish to additionally flip off music within the menus and usually restrict audio distractions.
Flip all the sliders within the music part right down to zero, then elevate the ‘ten-second warning quantity’ slider as much as 15%. This performs a monitor each time you may have simply ten seconds to defuse the bomb, letting you already know whether or not it is value sticking round, because it takes a minimal of 5 seconds to defuse a bomb with a package.
Greatest CS2 keyboard and mouse settings
The default keybindings in CS2 aren’t notably helpful, however you may modify them to cease you from having to carry out enormous stretches throughout your keyboard. Whilst you have the choice to cycle by way of your grenades, you would possibly wish to take into account assigning them to accessible keys so you may pick what you want. For instance, setting flashbang to Q as an alternative of seven makes it simpler to make use of within the warmth of battle, although this can imply remapping or not accessing the weapon fast swap operate usually assigned to Q.
You are going to have to talk to your teammates typically in CS2, so we might set the ‘use mic’ bind to one thing simply accessible. This could even embrace your mouse buttons, like web page ahead – be sure you choose a button that does not cease you from with the ability to play the sport.
Beneath communications choices, we advocate clearing the inputs for ‘command radio message’, ‘customary radio message’, and ‘report radio message’. In the event you by accident press these instructions throughout fight, you would possibly ship your teammate a radio command as an alternative of switching your weapon such as you needed. Do not take the danger, simply take away the choice to press these keys so it might by no means occur to you.
Greatest CS2 Steam Deck settings
Multisampling Anti-Aliasing Mode: 2x MSAA
International Shadow High quality: Low
Dynamic Shadows: Solar solely
Mannequin/Texture Element: Low
Texture Filtering Mode: Trilinear
Shader Element: Low
Particle Element: Low
Ambient Occlusion: Disabled
Excessive Dynamic Vary: Efficiency
AMD FSR: Off
Whereas it isn’t suggested that you simply play CS2 on the Steam Deck in any aggressive recreation modes, you may nonetheless have loads of enjoyable with the sport in informal deathmatches.
With the above settings, you may count on a reasonably strong 60fps, with slight dips throughout demise animations. In any other case, the sport runs nice on the Deck, and you can at all times hook up a mouse, keyboard, and exterior show if you’re decided to sort out a aggressive match below the perfect situations doable. That is why we have additionally counsel turning on MSAA, to make the sport look just a little smoother.
CS2 graphics presets
There are at present 4 graphics presets accessible in CS2.
Low
Medium
Excessive
Very Excessive
One of many above presets can have an asterisk subsequent to it, and that is the really helpful preset primarily based in your PC’s energy. Subsequent to the settings menu is a small preview window exhibiting how the sport will look as you alter varied settings. You’ll be able to see the distinction between the low and really excessive graphics profiles in our picture beneath.
How we examined CS2
At PCGamesN, we use devoted gaming rigs to check the perfect efficiency and gameplay settings within the newest releases. The check rig used to play Counter-Strike 2 contains the next parts: Intel Core i7-11700F, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Tremendous 12GB, 32GB of DDR4 3,200MHz RAM in a dual-channel configuration, and MSI B560 motherboard. We additionally check utilizing Home windows 11 64-bit.
Does CS2 want an SSD?
Counter-Strike 2 doesn’t require an SSD, no matter whether or not you are aiming for the minimal or really helpful system necessities. Nonetheless, upgrading to probably the greatest gaming SSD choices from our purchasing information will actually assist hold recreation loading occasions in examine.
The way to monitor efficiency in CS2
To keep watch over efficiency in Counter-Strike 2, you should utilize the in-built monitoring instruments in AMD or Nvidia’s drivers.
For Nvidia playing cards, guarantee you may have the Nvidia App put in and the in-game overlay enabled, after which hit ALT + R in-game to deliver up your efficiency monitor. With AMD playing cards, you may allow efficiency monitoring through the Radeon overlay utilizing the shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + O.
Alternatively, you may obtain free software program comparable to CapFrameX or Nvidia FrameView, to get a cleaner, extra simplified benchmarking software that works with any graphics card.
With handheld gaming PCs, most can have a devoted button to entry a fast menu from which efficiency monitoring, generally known as real-time monitoring, might be accessed.
Utilizing our customized settings, it is best to have a smoother expertise the subsequent time you boot up Counter-Strike 2. Do not forget to take a look at our greatest CS2 crosshairs information to see what sorts of reticles the perfect gamers on the planet use. We even have a CS2 ranks and score information for any aggressive gamers on the market trying to climb the worldwide leaderboards.
