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How to Increase FPS in CSGO

Increase FPS in CSGO

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive or CSGO for short is a well-known multiplayer FPS game whose predecessors dominated the genre in the first decade of the 21st century. Developed by Valve, this title from 2012 hinges on optimal performance. Suffering visual glitches, fps drops, freezes or slow loading times can substantially ruin your gameplay, derail your efforts toward improving, and, ultimately, make it difficult to win. No one deserves to endure these conditions, whether they play with a group of friends or a team of strangers. Hence, we decided to help you learn how to increase FPS in CSGO. Let’s dig in.

1. Update your GPU drivers and operating system

Having the latest updates can, besides boosting security, increase the performance through optimization. For Windows 10, you merely have to search “update” in the Start bar and select Check for updates. As for GPU, unless you want to reinstall Windows, we suggest using a tool akin to Display Driver Uninstaller. Then, do the following:

  1. Visit the Drivers section of GPU manufacturers’ websites: NVIDIA Drivers or AMD Drivers & Support.
  2. Utilize the drop-down lists to find your series and model.
  3. Download the driver, run the installation, and, preferably, restart your computer once it finishes.

2. Tweak drivers settings

Just because they’re the latest doesn’t mean drivers are adequate for all types of games. Therefore, we propose making several changes:

AMD

Right-click on a blank space on the desktop and select AMD Radeon Settings. Switch to the Gaming tab in the bottom left corner. We recommend setting things like this:

  • Anti-aliasing Mode and Anisotropic Filtering Mode: Use application settings
  • Surface Format Optimization: On
  • Frame Rate Target Control: Your screen refresh rate, e.g., 144 FPS
  • Anti-aliasing Method: Multisampling
  • Wait for Vertical Refresh: Off, unless application specified
  • Morphological Filtering: Off
  • OpenGL Triple Buffering: Off
  • Texture Filtering Quality: Performance
  • Tessellation Mode and Shader Cache: AMD optimized

NVIDIA

Here’s what to try in the case of NVIDIA drivers:

  1. Right-click anywhere on desktop and select NVIDIA Control Panel.
  2. In the left sidebar, under “3D Settings”, click on Adjust image settings with preview.
  3. Select Use my preference emphasizing before setting “Performance” to Maximum.
  4. Click on Manage 3D Settings. Now configure:
    • “Anti-Aliasing Multi-Frame Sampled AA (MFAA)” to Off
    • “Texture filtering – Quality” to High performance

3. Kill unnecessary background processes and set CSGO to High priority

Start by pressing Ctrl (Control) + Alt + Del (Delete) on your keyboard on Windows 10. Now, to increase the FPS number within CSGO, do this:

  1. Select Task Manager.
  2. Click on More details to expand the window. 
  3. Switch to the Details tab.
  4. Right-click on any process you deem unnecessary. Right-click and select End task.
  5. Find csgo.exe or csgo.exe (32 bit) and right-click on it.
  6. Select Set priority, then choose High after it expands.
  7. Close Task Manager.

4. Increase FPS in CSGO using startup parameters

Before we start, know that startup parameters, also known as launch commands, won’t work on consoles. Instead, you must add them to either:

  • Steam Launch Options: Find CSGO in the Steam Library on the left side. Right-click it and choose Properties. Locate the “General” tab, then the Launch Options section. Type in the text field.
  • CSGO executable. Find your CSGO shortcut (on desktop, for example) and right-click on it. Select Properties, then, type commands separated by space under Target: right after “~/csgo.exe”.

Rundown of CSGO launch commands

We should warn you that there’s no guarantee they’ll make a massive difference, and their impact will depend on your computer. They work best when combined with other methods. Here are the commands for launching CSGO:

  • -novid – Gets rid of the introductory movies in-game, letting you start playing immediately
  • -freq Y (or -refresh Y or –refreshrate Y) – Set your screen display rate in Hz, e.g., -freq 144 for 144 Hz
  • +fps_max X – Cap your FPS to a certain value i.e., +fps_max 144
  • +cl_showfps 1 – Enable FPS built-in overlay to show fps; Superior to using third-party tools
  • -nojoy – Disable support for joysticks
  • -forcenovsync – Disables any form of V-Sync technologies in-game
  • -r_dynamic 0 – Turns dynamic lighting to off; may cause visual glitches
  • cl_disablefreezecam 1 and cl_freezecameffects_showholiday 0 – Disable certain freeze camera effects
  • cl_disablehtmlmotd 1 – Eliminate Message of the Day
  • +cl_interp 0 and +cl_interp_ratio 1 – Helps minimize network lag
  • cl_autohelp 0 and gameinstructor_enable 0 and cl_showhelp 0 – No in-game tips
  • cl_hud_playercount_showcount 1 – Player dots appear on the minimap (0 to disable)
  • -full or -fullscreen – Starts the game in Full-Screen mode (should perform better than Windowed)
  • -window or -windowed or –startwindowed – Launches CSGO in Windowed mode
  • -tickrate 128 – Regular Valve CSGO servers operate at 64 ticks per second i.e., give your game updates 64 times per second. While fine on 60 Hz monitors, this can introduce a bunch of inconsistencies or screen tearing on 120 Hz+ gaming monitors. Many community-ran servers and Faceit and ESEA set this to 128 by default
  • +cl_updaterate 128 and cl_cmrate 128 – Similar to the one above, can be combined
  • +cl_forcepreload 1 – Forces CSGO to preload everything before you join the game. Especially effective with SSD or NVME
  • rate 128000 – Allow CSGO to send more data over the Internet i.e., reduce lag
  • -console – Launches the developer console at start, allowing you to tweak commands immediately

Important to note

We’re aware of a plethora of other commands that apparently work wonders. Some are outdated, while others have merit. You now have the know-how and are free to test them and report the results. We saw little to no difference in performance.

5. Lower in-game graphics settings

Depending on which parameters you chose to use, you might have configured some of these options already. Nonetheless, you can reduce in-game settings to further increase FPS in CSGO. Here’s what we suggest you do:

  • Under Video Settings tab:
    • Color Mode: Computer Monitor
    • Resolution: For best experience, use the resolution of your monitor. If things get dire, bring it down a notch, e.g., from 1920 x 1080 to 1600 x 900
    • Laptop Power Savings: Disabled (default) or Enabled (if laptop is plugged into an outlet)
  • After going to Advanced Video (under “Video”):
    • Global Shadow Quality: Very Low
    • Model / Texture Detail: Low
    • Texture Streaming: Disabled
    • Effect Detail and Shader Detail: Medium (can be Low if still struggling)
    • Boost Player Contrast: Enabled
    • Multicore Rendering: Enabled
    • Multisampling Anti-Aliasing Mode: Disabled or 2x MSAA
    • FXAA Anti-Aliasing: Disabled
    • Texture Filtering Mode: Trilinear or Bilinear (try both)
    • Wait for Vertical Sync: Disabled
    • Motion Blur: Disabled
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