Counter-Strike 2 has finally arrived, and this long-awaited sequel offers a major upgrade of the original CS:GO. It includes significant gameplay changes to this popular shooter game, as well as improvements and visual improvements such as the way smokes work.
Due to the improvements, CS2 will put more load on your graphics card and processor compared to the previous game, so it is important to adjust your settings to get maximum FPS and gain a competitive advantage.
The first setting you need to edit is Video. Here you can change properties such as brightness, aspect ratio and resolution.
Resolution is mostly personal preference, but the three most common suggestions are 16:9 (1920×1080), 16:10 (1680×1050), and 4:3 (1280×960). If you're not sure, you can choose native 16:9 for now.
Video Settings
The exact aspect ratio and resolution setting you use is up to you. However, setting this to something like 16:10, 1680×1050 will increase your FPS as the game is now displayed at a lower resolution than the default 1920×1080. However, be careful if you are using a 1440p monitor, as using it above 1080p will significantly affect the FPS; you should stick to 1080p instead.
Using the 16:10 aspect ratio will also lengthen the game slightly, but not as much as 4:3. To get extended resolution, make sure your graphics card scaling settings are set to 'fullscreen' and not 'aspect ratio'. Using extended resolution makes enemies appear slightly larger (wider), but they also move faster across the screen area.
Advanced Video Settings (Graphics)
You may think that disabling FidelityFX Super Resolution will improve performance, but this setting actually increases FPS by improving the quality of the game . Ultra Quality will look almost the same, with a slight increase in performance. If you're struggling with FPS, you can try Quality instead, but we'll Disable this for most players.
Some gamers are reporting increased input lag when using FidelityFX Super Resolution, so it's safest to disable this for now and use other settings to improve your FPS.
You may be wondering why High Dynamic Range is set to Quality. We initially recommended Performance for extra FPS. However, switching to Quality barely affects FPS, and Performance currently creates a weird gridline effect that can be distracting in some dark areas on the screen. We recommend setting HDR to Quality until this issue is resolved.
We also recommend setting Global Shadow Quality to High or Medium, as shadows in CS2 can indicate locations. If your shadow settings are Low, you may be at a disadvantage in some areas.
In the September update, Valve added a new setting: Texture Filtering Mode. According to testing, this setting affects FPS very little, but using Bilinear will provide a small FPS increase for limited visual downside.
However, if you prefer the appearance of higher values, you will not experience much FPS loss.
Many of these settings will depend on your setup, but assuming you're using headphones while playing CS2, these settings should be a good starting point.
Crisp EQ can make high-frequency sounds louder, helping you hear things like falling guns, footsteps, and gunshots.
Perspective Correction is a new feature that attempts to more accurately reflect where sound is coming from based on your perspective in the game. If you want to make the sound more like CS:GO, you should turn this off.
The next set of settings to look at are the game settings. Most of these are just personal preferences, but some will definitely improve your CS2 experience.
Game
hud
Set
Communication
Radar / Tablet
When it comes to sensitivity and DPI, this will come down to your personal preference. However, there is a generally accepted recommendation to keep your DPI quite low in Counter-Strike, and this is no different in CS2.
Many professionals will use an eDPI (effective DPI) between 700 – 1200. Anything higher than this can be more difficult to be precise and make small adjustments to your purpose.
To calculate your eDPI, simply multiply your sensitivity by your mouse's DPI. For example, 1 in-game sensitivity and 800 DPI will give you 800 eDPI. 1.3 sensitivity and 800 DPI will be 1040 eDPI.
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The majority of other settings in CS2 are personal preference, so play around with different crosshairs, key bindings, and sensitivities to see what suits you.
However, we also recommend disabling the 'Detach silencer from M4A1-S and USP-S' setting. This will prevent you from accidentally removing the silencer by right-clicking it. This is a new setting in CS2, as players in CS:GO may become frustrated by clicking and removing the silencer incorrectly. Remember: there is no benefit in removing the muffler.