In CS2, the game you see on the screen must be fluid. You need to see your opponents without any interruptions and act accordingly. For this, you need to get high FPS from the game and play with good image quality. However, this situation can turn into a torture for those with old-model computers. So what exactly can you do to have high FPS and higher quality graphics in CS2?
There are 2 important settings to do for this. The first setting is to make changes to the NVIDIA control panel, which is the main subject of our article. The second important setting is to enter CS2 and edit the game’s video settings. Today, we will tell you how to customize both settings one by one. We will also show you which NVIDIA settings professional CS2 players use. If you have a low-performance computer, we definitely recommend that you follow our article. In this way, the efficiency you will get from the game will increase greatly. Let’s not make it too long and get to our topic quickly.
How to Open NVIDIA Control Panel?
NVIDIA control panel is a center where you can make various settings in all games installed on your computer, including CS2. This center must be installed on your computer and, more importantly, your graphics card must be NVIDIA. Otherwise, you cannot access the NVIDIA control panel. We will first show you how to install the NVIDIA control panel.
Computers with Windows 10 or higher operating systems automatically download and install NVIDIA drivers. However, we still want to explain how to install the NVIDIA control panel from scratch. For this, you can follow the steps below one by one.
- The first thing you need to do is log in to Google from your computer’s browser and type “GeForce Experience” in the search bar.
- GeForce Experience is a driver program that NVIDIA graphics card owners use to receive regular updates. The program retrieves the latest updates required for your graphics card and makes them available for download for you.
- After downloading and installing this program on your computer, it will be automatically installed in the NVIDIA control panel.
- However, we recommend that you restart your computer once the driver installation process is complete.
After all these installation processes are completed, there is only one thing left to do. That is to right-click on the computer desktop and enter the “NVIDIA Control Panel” from the menu that opens. Once you reach the control panel, you can now start changing the settings as you wish.
Best NVIDIA Settings for CS2
We talked about some settings and programs required for NVIDIA. Now, we will explain in detail how you can make settings directly for CS2. First of all, we would like to point out that there are two different settings in the NVIDIA control panel. The first thing you will see is the “Global Settings” setting that applies to all games you will run on your computer. For example, after making this setting, CS2 and Valorant will work with the same settings.
There is also a “Program Settings” section where you can make special settings for all games. Our recommendation would be to make settings from this section for CS2.
Special Program Settings for CS2
To get the best NVIDIA settings for CS2, first go to the control panel. After the control panel opens, head to the “Manage 3D Settings” section from the left menu. After this section opens, click on “Program Settings” and then the “Add” button to select CS2. After selecting CS2, you are now ready to make custom settings. Below, we have listed the settings that professional CS2 players use to get maximum performance. We recommend that you apply these settings directly to the NVIDIA control panel.
- Image Scaling: Off
- Ambient Occlusion: Off
- Anisotropic Filtering: Application-controlled
- Antialiasing – FXAA: Off
- Antialiasing – Gamma Correction: Off
- Antialiasing – Mode: Application-controlled
- Antialiasing – Transparency: Off
- Background Application Max Frame Rate: Off
- CUDA – GPUs: Use Global Setting (All)
- CUDA – System Fallback Policy: Driver Default
- DSR – Factors: Off
- DSR – Smoothness: Off
- Low Latency Mode: On
- Max Frame Rate: Off
- Multi-Frame Sampled AA (MFAA): Off
- OpenGL GDI compatibility: Auto
- OpenGL rendering GPU: Auto-select
- Shader Cache Size: Driver Default
- Texture Filtering – Anisotropic Sample Optimization: Off
- Texture Filtering – Negative LOD Bias: Off
- Texture Filtering – Quality: High Performance
- Texture Filtering – Trilinear Optimization: On
- Threaded Optimization: Auto
- Triple Buffering: Off
- Vertical Sync: Off
- Virtual Reality Pre-rendered Frames: 1
- Vulkan/OpenGL present method: Auto
These are the specific settings that you can use for NVIDIA. Once you have applied these settings, let’s dig a little deeper and take a look at a few more specific features.
Adjust Desktop Color Settings
Colors are not settings that players make many changes to. However, if there is a problem with the colors of your monitor, you may have trouble seeing the enemy in CS2. At this point, we will show you a simple setting that increases the saturation of colors. For this, you can access the “Adjust Desktop Color Settings” section from the NVIDIA control panel. Then we recommend that you apply the settings below.
- Colour Channel: All Channels
- Brightness: +50%
- Contrast: +50%
- Gamma +1.00
- Digital Vibrance: +87%
- Hue: +0
This list is actually very similar to the default settings. There is only a small change to Digital Vibrance. Digital Vibrance makes the colors more saturated and more defined.
Adjust Desktop Size and Position
The desktop size menu allows you to make changes to the resolution according to the quality of your monitor. If you want, you can create a resolution automatically from here, or you can make more specific settings that will push the limits of your screen.
However, our recommendation is to only select “Full Screen” from this section. If you know the correct Hz value for your monitor, you can also select the refresh rate. For example, some players cannot get 165 FPS from CS2 despite their monitor being 165 Hz. For this reason, it is important to adjust the refresh rate according to the computer’s performance. After learning the exact FPS value you get in the game, you can personalize your refresh rate setting from this section.
G-SYNC Settings for CS2
G-Sync and FreeSync are great technologies that prevent tearing and delays in games. However, for this technology to work actively in games, your monitor must support G-Sync. Let’s say you have a G-Sync or AMD FreeSync compatible monitor. Then you should go to the NVIDIA control panel and open the “G-SYNC Settings” section from the left menu.
Once this section is opened, all you need to do is activate G-Sync for full-screen mode. G-sync reduces input delays to a minimum thanks to the NVIDIA reflex feature. It also allows you to see your enemies more easily thanks to the digital vibrance in the color settings we made at the beginning. Another important benefit is that it prevents the delay between your monitor and your graphics card. Naturally, this prevents screen tearing and eliminates stuttering.
Best CS2 Advanced Video Settings
We have talked in detail about all the special settings used for NVIDIA. Now, for these settings to really work, we need to talk a little bit about video settings for the game. Otherwise, none of the settings we make via the NVIDIA control panel will have any meaning.
- Enable Player Contrast: Enabled
- V-Sync: Disabled
- NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency: Enabled
- NVIDIA G-Sync: Unknown
- Maximum FPS In Game: Unknown
- Multisampling Anti-Aliasing Mode: 4x MSAA
- Global Shadow Quality: High
- Dynamic Shadows: Unknown
- Model / Texture Detail: Low
- Texture Filtering Mode: Bilinear
- Shader Detail: High
- Particle Detail: Low
- Ambient Occlusion: Medium
- High Dynamic Range: Quality
- FidelityFX Super Resolution: Disabled (Highest Quality)
These are the advanced video settings you need to make in CS2. You can still make some adjustments if you want. For example, if you want to use G-Sync, you can activate this setting. These settings were created by examining many video settings used by professional CS2 players. In short, we recommend using these settings whether your computer’s performance is good or bad. Have fun!