Optimizing your CS2 graphics settings directly improves FPS and gives you a competitive edge. Counter-Strike 2 is a highly competitive game where every little detail matters.
The Blix team has created a detailed guide where you can find settings for different situations to get the most out of the game, no matter how powerful your computer is.
Contents [show]
Highlights
- Information on the best graphics settings for low-end, mid-range, and powerful computers
- Details on what settings affect FPS
If you need more than graphics settings, check out our guide, Best CS 2 Settings: In-game, Graphics and System.
There was an update to CS2 recently. You can see more details in post X.
In-Game Graphics Settings in CS2
Start by adjusting global video settings that affect all PCs, regardless of performance.
- The main menu’s background image consumes part of the video card memory, so choose cards with less detail (e.g., Office or Mirage).
- A higher brightness value is preferred because it improves the visibility of opponents.
- The screen aspect ratio, which is the ratio of horizontal to vertical picture size, determines the viewing angle:
- Regular – 4:3 – does not utilize the capabilities of a widescreen monitor but significantly (up to 60 frames per second) improves FPS;
- Widescreen—16:9, 16:10—expands the picture by 20% and enhances side vision, but it degrades the refresh rate.
We wrote about resolution in detail in the article Best Resolution for CS2.
- The display mode, which determines the possibility of applying a non-standard 4:3 format, can be:
- in a window (16:9 or 16:10 format);
- in a window without frames (16:9 or 16:10 format);
- Full screen (any format).
- The monitor largely determines the screen resolutions and is initially set by default and recommended:
- Set no higher than 1920:1080 to avoid degrading the number of playable frames;
- Do not reduce it below 1600:900 to prevent image degradation.
- The refresh rate is directly related to the monitor’s characteristics and should be set as high as possible but not less than 60 Hz.
- The power saving mode is automatically turned off for better performance.
After defining the basic video parameters, it is necessary to open the “Advanced Video” tab, allowing you to select individual settings depending on the performance of your computer.
We have an article Best Mouse For CS2: Market Review. It may help you decide on the best mouse for gaming.
What Are the Best CS2 Graphics Settings for Low-End PCs in 2025?
Even with a low-end PC, you can play CS2 and have fun. To increase FPS, you need to lower the graphics settings a lot. Below, we have given the optimal setting, but if you realize that your computer can handle more load, increase the values gradually.
- Boost Player Contrast: Enabled
- Wait for Vertical Sync: Disabled
- Multisampling Anti-Aliasing Mode: 4X MSAA or 2X MSAA
- Global Shadow Quality: Medium (or High)
- Model / Texture Detail: Low
- Texture Filtering Mode: Bilinear
- Shader Detail: Low
- Particle Detail: Low
- Ambient Occlusion: Disabled
- High Dynamic Range: Quality
- FidelityFX Super Resolution: Disabled
- Nvidia Reflex Low Latency: Enabled + Boost (for high-end PCs)
Shadows reveal enemy positions before visual contact—set Global Shadow Quality to Medium or High for tactical advantage.. Therefore, Global Shadow Quality should be set to Medium or High if your computer allows it.
Multisampling Anti-Aliasing Mode is also necessary for a smooth picture. If you notice a severe FPS drop when you set it to 4X MSAA, switch this setting to 2X MSAA.
In some cases, you may also find our guide “How To Fix CS2 Stuttering?” helpful.
Optimal CS2 Graphics Settings for Mid-Range and High-End PCs
For gaming stations with medium performance, the following advanced settings can be used:
- Boost Player Contrast: Enabled
- Wait for Vertical Sync: Disabled
- Multisampling Anti-Aliasing Mode: 2X MSAA
- Global Shadow Quality: Medium
- Model / Texture Detail: Medium
- Texture Filtering Mode: Trilinear
- Shader Detail: Low
- Particle Detail: Medium
- Ambient Occlusion: Disabled
- High Dynamic Range: Perfomance
- FidelityFX Super Resolution: Quality
Owners of the most productive gaming stations can afford corresponding advanced graphics settings:
- Boost Player Contrast: Enabled
- Wait for Vertical Sync: Disabled
- Multisampling Anti-Aliasing Mode: 8X MSAA
- Global Shadow Quality: Very High
- Model / Texture Detail: High
- Texture Filtering Mode: Anisotropic 16X
- Shader Detail: High
- Particle Detail: Very High
- Ambient Occlusion: High
- High Dynamic Range: Quality
- FidelityFX Super Resolution: Disabled
How to Optimize Your Graphics Card for CS2: NVIDIA & AMD Settings
If the general and advanced graphics settings in CS2 are not enough to make the game run smoothly without freezes, you should customize your graphics card.
Best NVIDIA Control Panel Settings for Maximum FPS in CS2
If your computer is equipped with NVIDIA graphics card, you should do the following:
Go to the “Control Panel” by right-clicking on the desktop splash screen and selecting the appropriate context menu item. Go through the sections “3D Parameter Management“>> “Program Settings”>> “cs2.exe“.
Change the parameters listed below:
- Global Settings: Switch back
- Image Sharpening: off
- Ambient Occlusion: off
- Anisotropic Filtering: off
- Antialiasing – Gamma Correction: off
- Antialiasing – Mode: off
- Antialiasing – Transparency: off
- Background Application Max Frame Rate: off
- CUDA – GPUs: All
- DSR – Factors: Off
- Low Latency Mode: On
- Max Frame Rate: Off
- Multi-Frame Sampled AA(MFAA): Off
- Open GL Rendering GPU: On
- Power management mode: Prefer maximum performance
- Preferred refresh rate: Highest Available
- Shader Cache Side: Driver Default
- Texture filtering – Anisotropic sample optimisation: On
- Texture filtering – Negative LOD bias: Allow
- Texture filtering – Quality: High Performance
- Texture filtering – Trilinear optimisation: On
- Threaded optimisation: On
- Triple buffering: Off
- Vertical sync: Off
Best AMD Radeon Settings to Improve Performance in CS2
Proceed to Gaming and select cs2.exe. Set the following parameters to get the maximum FPS:
Graphics
- Radeon Super Resolution: Disabled
- AMD Fluid Motion Frames – Manual: Disabled
- Radeon Anti-Lag: Enabled
- Radeon Chill: Disabled
- Radeon Boost: Disabled
- Radeon Image Sharpening: Disabled
- Radeon Enhanced Sync: Disabled
- Wait for Vertical Refresh: Always Off
Advanced
- Anti-Aliasing: Use application settings
- Anti-Aliasing Method: Multisampling
- Morphological Anti-Aliasing: Disabled
- Anisotropic Filtering: Disabled
- Texture Filtering Quality: Performance
- Surface Format Optimization: Enabled
- Tessellation Mode: Optimized
- OpenGL Triple Buffering: Disabled
- 10-Bit Pixel Format: Disabled
Top CS2 Graphics Settings to Maximize FPS and Reduce Input Lag
- Boost player contrast: Enabled
- Wait for vertical sync: Disabled – Can cause input delay and locks FPS to your refresh rate
- Current video values preset: Custom
- Multisampling Anti-Aliasing Mode: 4X MSAA – Lower values provide minor FPS gain, but looks bad
- Global Shadow Quality: Medium – Or High, but avoid low
- Model / Texture Detail: Medium – Minimal FPS impact
- Texture Filtering Mode: Bilinear – Minimal FPS impact
- Shader Detail: Low – Improves FPS
- Particle Detail: Low – Improves FPS
- Ambient Occlusion: High or Medium – Can be advantageous with minimal FPS impact
- High Dynamic Range: Quality – Minimal FPS impact, big visual upgrade over Performance
- FidelityFX Super Resolution: Disabled (Highest Quality) – Avoid, causes smudged appearance
- NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency: Enabled – If you are CPU-bound, use Boost
FidelityFX Super Resolution can boost FPS by lowering internal resolution, but it may blur textures and increase input lag. Use ‘Quality’ mode for balance, or disable it for best clarity and responsiveness.
MSAA affects visual sharpness and performance. If you’re lagging, switch from 4X to 2X MSAA. Disabling it entirely improves FPS but makes the game look worse. In testing, 4X MSAA provided the best low-framerate consistency.
Model/Texture Detail has minimal FPS impact — keep it at Medium or High for better skin visuals.
Set Particle and Shader Detail to Low — they offer little advantage and consume resources.
Texture Filtering Mode also barely affects performance; Bilinear gives a slight FPS boost with minimal visual loss.
CS2 Console Commands to Boost FPS: Advanced Tuning Tips
By activating the developer console by pressing the “~” key (by default), you can enter several performance-enhancing commands:
- fps_max 0 – disables FPS limits, allowing the game to maximize its capabilities;
- cl_showfps 1 – allows you to see FPS, lowering it when enabled;
- cl_showfps 0 – disables FPS detection;
- r_drawtracers_firstperson 0 – allows you to remove tracers when shooting;
- voice_modenable 1/0 – activate/deactivate voice chat;
- r_csgo_water_effects 0/1 – disables/activates water effects;
- r_Show_build_info false – removes information about the game version from the screen;
- speaker_config 2 – improves sound quality.
Pro Player Graphics Settings in CS2: What the Pros Use in 2025
If you found nothing suitable in our customization picks, the CS2 pro scene player customizations will help you. Experimenting with your settings and feeling like a champion is not a bad option.
m0NESY Settings
In June 2024, Ilya m0NESY won for G2 at IEM Dallas and earned the MVP medal. In September 2024, Ilya won the Blast Premier Fall Final and earned an MVP medal. In November 2024, Ilya and G2 Esports took first place at the BLAST Premier World Final, where he earned his fourth MVP medal from HLTV.
There was an interesting Update On m0NESY BLAST Situation associated with it.
| Video settings | |
| Resolution | 1280×960 |
| Aspect Ratio | 4:3 |
| Scaling Mode | Stretched |
| Color Mode | Computer Monitor |
| Brightness | 93% |
| Display Mode | Fullscreen |
| Advanced Video Settings | |
| Boost Player Contrast | Enabled |
| Wait for Vertical Sync | Disabled |
| Multisampling Anti-Aliasing Mode | 8x MSAA |
| Global Shadow Quality | High |
| Model / Texture Detail | Low |
| Dynamic Shadows | All |
| Texture Filtering Mode | Bilinear |
| Shader Detail | Low |
| Particle Detail | Low |
| Ambient Occlusion | Disabled |
| High Dynamic Range | Quality |
| FidelityFX Super Resolution | Disabled |
| NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency | Disabled |
donk Settings
Team Spirit player Danil donk Kryshkovets was named the Most Valuable Player at the end of Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 in CS2. This is his first MVP medal at the Major and the sixth in his career. Read more about this pro player in our article Who is Donk? Player Career and His Settings in CS2.
| Video settings | |
| Resolution | 1280×960 |
| Aspect Ratio | 4:3 |
| Scaling Mode | Stretched |
| Color Mode | Computer Monitor |
| Brightness | 94% |
| Display Mode | Fullscreen |
| Advanced Video Settings | |
| Boost Player Contrast | Enabled |
| Wait for Vertical Sync | Disabled |
| Multisampling Anti-Aliasing Mode | 8x MSAA |
| Global Shadow Quality | High |
| Model / Texture Detail | Low |
| Dynamic Shadows | All |
| Texture Filtering Mode | Trilinear |
| Shader Detail | Low |
| Particle Detail | Low |
| Ambient Occlusion | Disabled |
| High Dynamic Range | Quality |
| FidelityFX Super Resolution | Disabled |
| NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency | Disabled |
ZywOo Settings
The player received 20 HLTV MVP awards. In addition, ZywOo was the MVP of ESL Pro League Season 19 in May 2024, although Vitality lost the final.
| Video settings | |
| Resolution | 1280×960 |
| Aspect Ratio | 4:3 |
| Scaling Mode | Stretched |
| Color Mode | Computer Monitor |
| Brightness | 103% |
| Display Mode | Fullscreen |
| Advanced Video Settings | |
| Boost Player Contrast | Enabled |
| Wait for Vertical Sync | Disabled |
| Multisampling Anti-Aliasing Mode | 4x MSAA |
| Global Shadow Quality | High |
| Model / Texture Detail | High |
| Dynamic Shadows | All |
| Texture Filtering Mode | Anisotropic 4x |
| Shader Detail | High |
| Particle Detail | Low |
| Ambient Occlusion | Medium |
| High Dynamic Range | Quality |
| FidelityFX Super Resolution | Disabled |
| NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency | Enabled |
ropz Settings
Recent news about this player was on our portal: Ropz Might Join Vitality.
| Video settings | |
| Resolution | 1920×1080 |
| Aspect Ratio | 16:9 |
| Scaling Mode | Native |
| Color Mode | Computer Monitor |
| Brightness | 100% |
| Display Mode | Fullscreen |
| Advanced Video Settings | |
| Boost Player Contrast | Enabled |
| Wait for Vertical Sync | Disabled |
| Multisampling Anti-Aliasing Mode | 2x MSAA |
| Global Shadow Quality | High |
| Model / Texture Detail | Low |
| Dynamic Shadows | All |
| Texture Filtering Mode | Bilinear |
| Shader Detail | Low |
| Particle Detail | Low |
| Ambient Occlusion | Medium |
| High Dynamic Range | Quality |
| FidelityFX Super Resolution | Disabled |
| NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency | Enabled |
w0nderful Settings
| Video settings | |
| Resolution | 1280×960 |
| Aspect Ratio | 4:3 |
| Scaling Mode | Stretched |
| Color Mode | Computer Monitor |
| Brightness | 101% |
| Display Mode | Fullscreen |
| Advanced Video Settings | |
| Boost Player Contrast | Enabled |
| Wait for Vertical Sync | Disabled |
| Multisampling Anti-Aliasing Mode | 8x MSAA |
| Global Shadow Quality | High |
| Model / Texture Detail | Low |
| Dynamic Shadows | All |
| Texture Filtering Mode | Bilinear |
| Shader Detail | Low |
| Particle Detail | Low |
| Ambient Occlusion | Disabled |
| High Dynamic Range | Quality |
| FidelityFX Super Resolution | Disabled |
| NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency | Disabled |
Conclusion
This is a balanced and optimized set of graphics settings for CS2, which will allow you to increase FPS without making your CS2 images ugly. You can apply pro player settings or share your best settings with us.
But besides experimenting with settings, don’t forget about the console commands that can help you too.
