What are the best CS2 settings? Whether you’re a Counter-Strike veteran or just picking up the iconic shooter for the first time, we can help you get the most out of your time with the game. Whether it’s graphics, gameplay, controls, or comms, we’ve got advice that will ensure you are racking up the headshots in no time.
The CS2 system requirements don’t go into great detail on what you’ll need for a high frame rate, but rest assured, you won’t need the best graphics card on the market. We put Counter-Strike 2 through its paces on our RTX 4070 testing rig and Steam Deck to show you what the best settings are.
Best CS2 settings for PC
- Multisampling Anti-Aliasing Mode: 8X MSAA
- Global Shadow Quality: Very High
- Dynamic Shadows: All
- Model/Texture Detail: High
- Texture Filtering Mode: Anisotropic 16X
- Shader Detail: High
- Particle Detail: Very High
- Ambient Occlusion: High
- High Dynamic Range: Performance
- AMD FSR: Disabled
With the above settings, we can achieve an average frame rate of 168.7 across an entire match, with 1% lows of 92.5fps. Granted, these settings offer the best balance of performance and graphical fidelity, but if you’re looking to entirely maximize your frame rate, you can lower the graphical settings step by step until you’re happy.
Many pro players will still use lower resolutions and barebones graphics, but let’s face it, you’re not on that level, so forcing yourself to play with the same settings is a little redundant.
In-game settings
We’ve picked out these settings as they should make your experience playing the game slightly easier. The ping setting ensures you won’t be matched to any servers that are geographically too far away. The developer console gives you the opportunity to enable config files, adjust server settings, and enable hidden settings. One of the new options in CS2 is to disable the ability to detach the silencer on the USP-S and M4A1-S – keep this off as it only serves to land you in trouble if you misclick in the middle of a fight.
‘Show team positions on your HUD’ lets you know exactly where your teammates are without having to rely entirely on the radar. Make sure you select the ‘show location and equipment’ option, as this also tells you what your teammates are holding, helping you work out what utility your squad has at a glance. Likewise, you should have the ‘colors and letters’ option enabled, as this makes it easier to communicate with your teammates. Instead of calling your teammates by their names, CS2 players are happy to go by their chosen color.
You can also set the maximum ping your matchmaking will allow for, and this also lists your closest servers to give you an idea of the average ping on each of them. If you don’t want to end up in a team with someone using extremely unreliable internet, this is where you can protect yourself.
Best CS2 audio settings
There are some tweaks you can make in the audio menu that could be the difference between life and death. When you’re in the middle of a difficult fight, the last thing you need is music blaring to distract you from landing a potential win.
Turn all of the sliders in the music section down to zero, then raise the ‘ten-second warning volume’ slider up to 15%. This plays a track whenever you have just ten seconds to defuse the bomb, letting you know whether it’s worth sticking around, as it takes a minimum of five seconds to defuse a bomb with a kit.
Every other music option is purely subjective, so you can set these values to anything you want, but we advise you keep these settings below 50% to stop them from becoming too distracting.
Best CS2 keyboard and mouse settings
The default keybindings in CS2 aren’t particularly useful, but you can adjust them to stop you from having to perform huge stretches across your keyboard. While you have the option to cycle through your grenades, we recommend assigning them to accessible keys so you can pick out what you need. For example, setting flashbang to Q instead of 7 makes it easier to use in the heat of battle.
You’re going to have to speak to your teammates often in CS2, so we would set the ‘use mic’ bind to something easily accessible. This can even include your mouse buttons, like page forward – make sure you pick a button that doesn’t stop you from being able to play the game.
Under communications options, we recommend clearing the inputs for ‘command radio message’, ‘standard radio message’, and ‘report radio message’. If you accidentally press these commands during combat, you might send your teammate a radio command instead of switching your weapon like you wanted. Don’t take the risk, just remove the option to press these keys so it can never happen to you.
Best CS2 Steam Deck settings
- Multisampling Anti-Aliasing Mode: 2X MSAA
- Global Shadow Quality: Low
- Dynamic Shadows: All
- Model/Texture Detail: Low
- Texture Filtering Mode: Trilinear
- Shader Detail: Low
- Particle Detail: Medium
- Ambient Occlusion: Disabled
- High Dynamic Range: Performance
- AMD FSR: Disabled
While it’s not advised that you play CS2 on the Steam Deck in any competitive game modes, you can still have plenty of fun with the game in casual deathmatches.
With the above settings, you can expect a fairly solid 60fps, with slight dips during death animations. Otherwise, the game runs great on the Deck, and you could always hook up a mouse, keyboard, and external display if you are determined to tackle a competitive match under the best conditions possible.
How we tested CS2
At PCGamesN, we use dedicated gaming rigs to test the best performance and gameplay settings in the latest releases. The test rig used to play Counter-Strike 2 includes the following components: Intel Core i7-11700F, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 12GB, 32GB of DDR4 3,200MHz RAM in a dual-channel configuration, and MSI B560 motherboard. We also test using Windows 11 64-bit.
We always run our testing first at 1,920 x 1,080 to identify the best settings for this entry-level resolution, then again at 2,560 x 1,440 using the same setup to gauge the difference in performance. We use CapFrameX to capture frame data and compare testing sessions.
Does CS2 need an SSD?
Counter-Strike 2 does not require an SSD, regardless of whether you’re aiming for the minimum or recommended system requirements. Still, upgrading to one of the best gaming SSD options would really help keep game loading times in check while also boosting your download speeds.
How to monitor performance in CS2
If you want to keep an eye on performance in Counter-Strike 2, we have an easy method that works whether you’re using an Nvidia or AMD graphics card.
For Nvidia cards, ensure you have the Nvidia App installed and the in-game overlay enabled, and then hit ALT + R in-game to bring up your performance monitor. With AMD cards, you can enable performance monitoring via the Radeon overlay using the shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + O.
Alternatively, you can download free software such as CapFrameX or Nvidia FrameView, to get a cleaner, more simplified benchmarking tool that works with any graphics card.
With handheld gaming PCs, most will have a dedicated button to access a quick menu from which performance monitoring, sometimes called real-time monitoring, can be accessed.
Using our custom settings, you should have a smoother experience the next time you boot up Counter-Strike 2. Don’t forget to check out our best CS2 crosshairs guide to see what types of reticles to best players in the world use. We also have a CS2 ranks and rating guide for any competitive players out there looking to climb the global leaderboards.
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