Can you disable bullet tracers in CS2?

Partly. CS2 has a real setting called "First Person Tracers" that stops the game rendering your own tracers. Valve added it in the 6 February 2024 update. It does not affect anyone else — the game’s own description of the setting says other players will still see your tracers.

What is the console command to turn off first person tracers?

r_drawtracers_firstperson. It defaults to true and is an archived, non-cheat client convar, so setting it to false persists between sessions and works in official matchmaking.

Can I hide other players’ tracers?

Not in matchmaking. The convar that governs tracer rendering generally, r_drawtracers, carries the cheat flag in the CS2 build, so it only responds when sv_cheats is 1. Valve official servers do not run with sv_cheats enabled.

Does turning off tracers give an advantage?

No mechanical one. Tracers are a visual effect drawn along the bullet path — they do not change spread, recoil or damage. The only argument for disabling your own is visual clarity while spraying.

Which weapon has no tracers?

The M4A1-S. Valve’s own in-game description of the weapon lists it as precise, silent and tracer-free, which is the only genuinely built-in way to shoot without producing a tracer that enemies can follow back to you.

Do CS:GO tracer commands still work in CS2?

The names carried over, but the flags changed. Treat any CS:GO-era tracer guide as unreliable: check the current flag on the convar before you trust it, because a cheat-flagged command will silently do nothing on a live server.

How to Disable Bullet Tracers in CS2

Half of this is a real setting. The other half is a cheat-flagged command that does nothing in matchmaking.

TL;DR

You can turn off your own tracers, and only your own. CS2 ships a setting called First Person Tracers, backed by the console command r_drawtracers_firstperson false. It is a normal, archived, non-cheat setting, so it works in Premier and Competitive. You cannot hide other players' tracers — the broader r_drawtracers convar is cheat-flagged and only responds when sv_cheats is 1, which Valve servers never allow.

Almost every guide on this topic gets it wrong in one of two directions. Some insist tracers cannot be disabled at all, which is false. Others hand you a list of CS:GO-era commands, most of which are cheat-flagged in CS2 and will silently do nothing on a live server — no error, no effect, just a false sense that you changed something.

The accurate version is narrow and easy to state: there is one supported toggle, it covers your own first-person tracers, and everything beyond that is offline-only.

The one setting that actually works

Valve added it in the 6 February 2024 CS2 update, listed in the release notes as a setting to disable first-person bullet tracers. In the game it appears as First Person Tracers, and the game's own description is unusually blunt about its scope: it controls whether your own bullet tracers are rendered locally, and other players will still see them.

The console equivalent, if you prefer to put it in an autoexec:

Command	Default	Cheat-flagged?	What it does
`r_drawtracers_firstperson`	`true`	No	Renders your own first-person weapon tracers. Set to `false` to hide them.
`r_drawtracers`	`true`	Yes	Tracer rendering in general. Requires `sv_cheats 1`, so offline and private servers only.

r_drawtracers_firstperson is an archived convar, which means the value is written to your config and survives a restart. You do not need to re-run it every session. If you have never used the console, our guide to opening the CS2 console covers enabling it first.

Why you can't hide everyone else's tracers

This is the part people find frustrating, and it is a deliberate design decision rather than an oversight. An enemy tracer is information: it tells you roughly where a shot came from and that someone is firing. Letting a client suppress that would be a competitive change, not a cosmetic one, so Valve keeps the general tracer switch behind the cheat flag.

sv_cheats itself is a replicated server variable, defaulting to false. On Valve official servers it stays false, and a cheat-flagged convar typed into your console on those servers simply will not take. You can set sv_cheats 1 on your own local or private server and experiment there, but nothing you learn transfers to matchmaking.

The same applies to the muzzle-flash brightness convars and most of the other "remove visual clutter" commands that circulate in optimisation lists — check the flag before you trust the advice. Our CS2 command database lists the current flags.

The genuine in-game way to shoot without tracers

Weapon choice. Valve's own in-game usage description for the M4A1-Slists it as precise, silent and tracer-free. That is the actual mechanic behind the CT-side argument for the silenced M4: no tracer line pointing back at your position, and no loud report giving away the angle. It is a real trade-off against the M4A4's larger magazine, not a settings trick.

Related things people mean when they say "tracers"

A lot of searches for this land on the wrong feature. Two nearby settings are worth knowing about:

Follow Recoil (cl_crosshair_recoil, default on, non-cheat). Makes your crosshair move with the recoil pattern instead of staying static. This is the setting most people actually want when they say the spray is visually confusing.
Bullet impact indicators (sv_showimpacts). A server-side debug display of where the client and server think your bullets landed. It is a practice and troubleshooting tool, not something you run in a real match.

If the underlying goal is a cleaner, faster-reading screen rather than tracers specifically, the more useful lever is the video and HUD configuration in our best CS2 settings guide.

Doing it, start to finish

Enable the developer console if you have not already — see the console guide.
Open the console and enter r_drawtracers_firstperson false.
Fire a few rounds. Your own tracers should be gone; teammates and enemies will still see theirs, and yours.
To undo it, enter r_drawtracers_firstperson true. Because the convar is archived, whichever value you leave it on persists.
Do not bother adding r_drawtracers 0 to your config. It is cheat-flagged, so it will never apply in matchmaking.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you disable bullet tracers in CS2?: Partly. CS2 has a real setting called "First Person Tracers" that stops the game rendering your own tracers. Valve added it in the 6 February 2024 update. It does not affect anyone else — the game’s own description of the setting says other players will still see your tracers.
What is the console command to turn off first person tracers?: r_drawtracers_firstperson. It defaults to true and is an archived, non-cheat client convar, so setting it to false persists between sessions and works in official matchmaking.
Can I hide other players’ tracers?: Not in matchmaking. The convar that governs tracer rendering generally, r_drawtracers, carries the cheat flag in the CS2 build, so it only responds when sv_cheats is 1. Valve official servers do not run with sv_cheats enabled.
Does turning off tracers give an advantage?: No mechanical one. Tracers are a visual effect drawn along the bullet path — they do not change spread, recoil or damage. The only argument for disabling your own is visual clarity while spraying.
Which weapon has no tracers?: The M4A1-S. Valve’s own in-game description of the weapon lists it as precise, silent and tracer-free, which is the only genuinely built-in way to shoot without producing a tracer that enemies can follow back to you.
Do CS:GO tracer commands still work in CS2?: The names carried over, but the flags changed. Treat any CS:GO-era tracer guide as unreliable: check the current flag on the convar before you trust it, because a cheat-flagged command will silently do nothing on a live server.