Counter-Strike 2 is a critically acclaimed first-person shooter game released by Valve back in September 2023. And even though it is the latest game to hit the eSport scene, CS2 has wasted no time in racking up numerous prized tournaments the world over.
However, none of these have been backed by Valve. But now, CS2 eSport is picking up the heat. Because Valve has given the green light to not just one, but two epic Counter-Strike 2 Majors scheduled for 2024!
Copenhagen, Denmark, will host the first-ever Counter-Striker 2 Major, followed by an electrifying showdown in Shanghai, China.
As such, now is your perfect opportunity to tweak the best game settings in CS2 and crank up those frames for the best possible game performance. There is no doubt that better game performance results in better player performance, which, in turn, increases your chances of winning prized CS2 tournaments.
In case you don’t have or only have a beginner CS2 account, there’s no need to worry. Get yourself a high-ranking Counter-Strike 2 account from Eldorado and compete with pro players right away to drastically improve your gameplay!
Best Game Settings in CS2
To begin with, run Counter-Strike 2 on your PC and navigate to the Video and Advanced Video settings under the Video section in the Settings Menu.
Firstly, we will deal with the basic Video settings. Here is our suggested recommendation for the best game settings in CS2:
- Main Menu Background Scenery: Any
- Brightness: 100%
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Resolution: Lower than your monitor’s native resolution
- Display mode: Fullscreen
- Refresh rate: Max
- Laptop power savings: Disabled
16:9 is a widely supported screen aspect ratio as it provides a greater Field of View (FOV) than the controversial 4:3 aspect ratio which is used by many CS2 pro players. Unless you are used to the old 4:3 monitors, go with 16:9 display screens.
Having a bit lower resolution than your monitor’s native resolution significantly reduces the overall load on your system GPU all the while having a minimal impact on visual clarity. For example, if your native resolution is 1080p, consider opting for 720p (which is also considered HD in some ways!).
Also, if you are gaming on a laptop, then disabling its power-saving mode will give a major boost to your frames in the game. Low-power mode intentionally runs games at lower frames in order to maximize the battery time.
In addition to the above settings, here is our suggested recommendation for the more Advanced Video game settings in CS2:
- Boost Player Contrast: Enabled
- Wait for Vertical Sync: Disabled
- Current Video Values Preset: Custom
- Multisampling Anti-Aliasing Mode: 4X MSAA
- Global Shadow Quality: Medium
- Model / Texture Detail: Low
- Texture Filtering Mode: Bilinear
- Shader Detail: Medium
- Particle Detail: Low
- Ambient Occlusion: Disabled
- High Dynamic Range: Quality
- FidelityFX Super Resolution: Disabled
- NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency: Enabled
Disabling vertical sync ensures that your GPU is not limited to delivering a fixed number of frames. While the “low” option for the Global Shadow Quality is best for game performance, opting for the medium is in the best interests of the player since character shadows play a key role around corners in CS2. The low settings disable shadows in the game.
In addition, the reason why Particle Detail is set to low is because it can be a very resource-demanding feature in Counter-Strike 2. Plus, this is balanced by the 4X MSAA that renders for much smoother visuals in the game. Though you can further reduce the High Dynamic Range setting, know that it will have little to no impact on your GPU. Lastly, enabling Nvidia’s Reflex Low Latency makes the game feel more responsive in online matches, thus making you perform better.
With that said, let us know what you think about these best game settings in CS2 in the comments below!
