How to increase FPS in CS: GO – the most complete guide

Disclaimer: This material is intended for beginners and those who have not yet played CS: GO.

The game is not what it used to be

If we go to the CS: GO page on Steam, we will see the following minimum system requirements:

• OS: Windows 7 / Vista / XP.
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 or AMD Phenom X3 8750.
• RAM: 2 GB.
• Video card: 256 MB of memory, support for DirectX 9 and Pixel Shader 3.0.

It would seem that you can safely play on any “calculator”, because the hardware described above has long been outdated, and it is quite difficult to find a computer with similar characteristics in 2023. But in practice, these system requirements mean absolutely nothing. The most you can do with such a PC is to launch a shooter. But a game with at least stable 30 FPS is out of the question.

The thing is that over time CS: GO has grown significantly “heavier” – the updated maps are overgrown with more saturated and clear textures, the detail of other objects has increased, including models of weapons, terrorists, counter-terrorists, and so on. In addition, CS: GO is a canon online shooter – the frame rate per second here gives not only the effect of smoothness of the picture, but also affects other parameters, for example, spray. So it’s not possible to play normally at 30 FPS. A frame rate below 60 will already create significant difficulties, and ideally the frequency should be above 100.

Reinstalling and configuring the system

As you know, reinstalling Windows is the most effective way to solve many computer problems. And in the case of CS: GO, as with any other game, it works quite well. With active use, the system registry gets clogged, many services appear that affect its operation, and so on. When the system is new, nothing extra takes resources away from it. Of course, many will immediately start installing everyday software like Discord and other programs. The main thing is to immediately remove all these applications from startup (Task Manager → Startup). In this case, before starting CS: GO, it will be enough to restart the computer, and then manually enable only the most necessary programs.

Next, go to Windows settings. In the case of Windows 10, the first step is to disable the Xbox Game Bar (Start → Settings → Games → Xbox Game Bar) and activate the game mode (Start → Settings → Games → Game Mode”). The first setting turns off the Xbox bar in the game – it is needed to record clips and other functions we don’t need. The second activates the built-in function of Windows 10, which sets the highest priority for games – this may not help everyone, but it certainly will not be superfluous.

A small increase in FPS can also give the setting of maximum performance (“My Computer” → “Properties” → “Advanced system settings” → “Advanced” → “Performance” → “Ensuring maximum performance”). The only checkbox that should be left is “Anti-aliasing of screen fonts.” The fact is that this setting will still not give a significant increase in FPS, and vision must be protected – without this option, fonts will be pixelated in all Windows applications, including the browser, instant messengers, etc. It is also worth turning off the transparency of the system interface (right the button on the desktop → “Personalization” → “Colors” → “Disable transparency effect”). The next step is to activate the maximum system performance (“Start” → “Settings” → “System” → “Power and sleep mode” → “Advanced power settings” → select “High performance”).

Graphics card settings

These parameters will only help those users who have fairly old video cards installed. The fact is that CS: GO mostly uses processor resources, not GPUs, so if you have updated your video card in the last two or three years (even if your choice fell on the weakest cards from the AMD and NVIDIA lines), then from the described below actions you will not get tangible results.

For NVIDIA graphics card owners:

Right click on the desktop → NVIDIA Control Panel. Next, select the item “Adjust image settings” in the “3D parameters” tab and select CS: GO in the “Program settings” menu and set it to maximum performance, disable all types of anti-aliasing.

For AMD graphics card owners:

Right click on the desktop → Radeon Settings. In the “Video card” tab in all available GPUs, set the following parameters:

CS: GO settings

When you’re done with the system settings, it’s time to move on to the settings of the game itself. Launch parameters play an important role – they are recorded on Steam once and remain there until you reinstall the store or the CS: GO client. The launch options menu can be found by right-clicking on the game in Steam, then selecting Properties and in the General tab, clicking on Set Launch Options. There, through a space, enter the following parameters:

• -console (activates the console);
• -novid (disables the splash screen on startup);
• -high (sets a high priority to the CS: GO process);
• -freq x (instead of x there should be your monitor’s scanning frequency in hertz);
• -threads x (instead of x there should be the number of logical processors of your CPU – you can find this information in the task manager in the “Performance” tab);
• -nod3d9ex (allows you to quickly deploy the game);
• -noaafonts (removes font anti-aliasing);
• -lv (removes blood and so on).

As a result, the parameters should contain the following line: “-console -novid -high -freq x -threads x -nod3d9ex -noaafonts -lv”.

In the graphics settings of the game itself, you need to set everything to minimum or to “Off”, set bilinear filtering, and also reduce the resolution as much as possible. Only multi-core rendering needs to be left enabled.

What if all else fails?

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, CS: GO is constantly improving and requires more and more resources with each major patch. If no operations help you achieve a comfortable FPS level, your PC hardware already needs to be updated. The required minimum, which will last for several years, is an Intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 processor, as well as 8GB of RAM. Everything else is just a temporary solution: sooner or later, even the bit by bit frames per second will disappear, and without a productive computer it will not work normally to play CS: GO.