Basics
There’s a few things everyone should do before you even start Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. You can already save yourself a lot of hassle if you follow these steps. Later we’ll be going over the different options and console commands you can use in-game to make your matches a smoother environment.
First of all, make sure your pc-case is not filled to the brim with dust as this can seriously hinder performances and the different computer components can easily overheat. It’s a simple task of unscrewing the side of the computer case and either lightly brush the delicate components and using compressed air to clean the rest of the inside. Never use a vacuum cleaner as this can cause static and can mess with your pricy machine. You can use a program like Open Hardware Monitor to measure the temperatures of the components to see if they’re actually overheating.
Use CCleaner or any other cleaning software to rid your pc of unnecessary (temporary) files and wasted space. You can select which cookies you want to keep (like YouTube, Facebook etcetera) and you can scan and delete the rest. Registry Cleaning is optional as it doesn’t do anything FPS-wise. It is recommended to perform a full system clean every week or so.
Make sure you have an Anti-Virus that doesn’t interfere with your gaming or has a massive workload on the backend of your computer. Anti-Virus programs like Malwarebytes do the job just fine but there are certain programs that have a Gaming-Mode. This mode disables background scanning when you’re running a program in full screen. Hence, you gain more performance.
And the last thing not directly related to Counter-Strike is updating all your drivers to the latest version. People often forget to do this crucial part. You can look up the needed drivers on the website of the manufacturer. Often they have tools that can automatically scan your pc and update the drivers.
Launch Options
The first thing we’re going to do might seem counterintuitive, but we’re going to reinstall Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Right-Click on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and click on Delete Local Content which will delete all the local files. Don’t worry about your in-game items and options as this is all saved to the cloud. You might want to back-up your demo’s and player config though. When the local content is deleted, just install the game. With every update files get rewritten and are often just wasted space. These files serve no purpose and just slow down the game.
After you installed the game Right-Click on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, click on Properties and then click on Set Launch Options. In case you haven’t figured it out, this feature will let you configure different facets of the game. There are a couple of lines we’re going to use starting with -novid. This command will cancel the intro video and as such you save some wonderful seconds starting up Counter-Strike. The next command will be -high. This command sets process priority to high and will increase your game performance by a hefty amount. Is your game always taking so long to load into the map? We’re going to change that by adding +cl_forcepreload 1 to the launch options. Maps are preloaded before you even load the map.
If you’re having severe FPS issues you can use the command -lv which means low violence mode. Enemies don’t die, they surrender with their arms above their heads and lay down on the floor and cover their head with their hands. There’s no blood and other decals other than the enemies surrendering. An alternative to this command is binding r_cleardecals 1 in console to any key on your keyboard. For example, if you type this in the console: bind r "+reload;r_cleardecals" you will automatically delete all decals (blood, bullet holes etc.) when you reload your gun. This is another way of basically achieving the same thing. Some players don’t want their game altered by people surrendering instead of ‘actually’ dying. There are other launch options commands, but there are some debates about the validity of these commands so we’re going to stick with commands that truly work.
In-game Settings
Surprisingly enough, we’re not going to spend as much time in the options in Counter-Strike itself. The bulk of the work is done outside the game in preparing the game to run as smoothly as possible. That said, we’ll go over the options menu.
We’ll start with the obvious options. Display Mode should be on Fullscreen for obvious reasons and Laptop Power Savings should be disabled. Brightness is subjective so we won’t go into that. Now we’ll discuss resolution. Lower resolutions result in higher FPS as your computer doesn’t have to render as many pixels as would be the case when you’re playing in the highest resolution (1920x1080). 4:3 resolution stretched gives you a slight advantage as the models are fatter than in your native resolution. Downside to this aspect ratio is the fact that you have two blind spots on both the right and left side of the screen where you can easily miss players pushing or other objects. Test out all the different options and choose the one you feel fits your game style best.
Now we’ll go over the Advanced Video Options. Global Shadow Quality is a tricky one as shadows can give you a big advantage in certain spots in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. For example, when you’re in CT-base on de_dust2 you can see the shadow of someone who’s standing on the roof on top of you. That said, changing the option to very low will grant you some frames. Model / Texture detail should be on low as this doesn’t add anything to the game aside from visual aesthetic. If you have expensive skins you want to gaze at every other second you should put Effect Detail and Shader Detail on high and very high respectively. If you’re all about saving frames, put these both on low.
Multicore Rendering will give you a significant FPS boost if you’re playing on a low-end computer. If you have a beast of a machine and you can get a high FPS with only core don’t enable multicore rendering. Test this out for yourselves and measure the FPS with the option enabled and disabled. The rest of the options should be disabled if you want to gain extra frames.
It’s unlikely you will find the perfect options for your set-up immediately. It takes time to get used to all the settings and know what every option and command does. Just try out everything and eventually you will find a configuration that suits your computer best.
Happy Fragging!
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