Customize CS2 like a pro. Unusual pro player settings.
A comfortable gaming experience starts with individual settings. More advanced players already have their familiar parameters and can tailor the game to their liking with just a few clicks. In CS2, you can have a separately created text file that is added to the game folder and applies all the necessary settings using a command in the console. Such a file is called a config (cfg) and is owned by every professional player, but not every novice can deal with text settings. In this article, we will talk about the most important and necessary details for comfortable gaming that you should pay attention to.
Image settings.
Today we won’t delve into the technical aspects related to advanced image settings. They are too individual and heavily depend on the specifications of your computer. We’ll only touch on the most important parameter from this list – the choice of resolution.
Not all players have switched to the standard 16:9 resolution. Playing in FullHD allows you to fully enjoy the gameplay and enhanced textures in CS2. The unpopularity of choosing 1920 by 1080 is due to the prolonged transition of generations in the professional scene. There are still enough players in the game who started their journey with CS 1.6 and couldn’t get used to such clear images. The advantages of playing 16:9 don’t seem compelling enough for them to switch from the familiar 4:3. Young players mostly play at this resolution: ropz (FaZe), xertioN (MOUZ), Magixx (Team Spirit).
Most players prefer playing at a 4:3 resolution for several reasons. Firstly, it should be clarified that this resolution can be “stretched” with black bars on the sides. However, there are players who set a completely square resolution and have borders even at the bottom and top, for example, Complexity sniper – halzerk. The advantage of a resolution with borders lies in reaction speed (you need less time to move from one edge of the screen to another). Also, attention focus is concentrated on a smaller area, allowing better concentration on the limited space. Stretched resolution has another important benefit: models appear wider visually, making them easier to hit. Almost all top professionals play with stretched 4:3 – s1mple, ZywOo, m0NESY. Those who prefer black bars include: sh1ro (Team Spirit), stavn (Astralis), Ax1Le (Cloud 9).
Crosshair selection.
Now that we’ve covered resolution, it’s time to adjust the crosshair. This parameter is quite individual, so relying on the choice of professionals might not be entirely correct.
Crosshair settings have a large number of parameters, but the main ones are size, color, and static/dynamic. A small crosshair allows for more precise aiming at models, while a larger one is more noticeable on the screen and facilitates aiming at opponents. Color is often a matter of taste, but it’s important that it doesn’t blend with textures on most maps. A dynamic crosshair expands during shooting, and for some, it helps determine its recovery after recoil or during spray control. Professional players mostly use a static crosshair, as they have long studied all the nuances of shooting, and extra animations on the screen can be distracting.
You can adjust any crosshair settings in the game’s main menu, but there are various workshop maps where you can copy pro players’ crosshairs and customize your own, then immediately try them out. For example, crashz’ Crosshair Generator v3.
Main binds for comfortable gaming.
Not an obligatory part of settings that a large number of casual players ignore. But if you want to significantly improve your gameplay, you should follow the example of professionals and not ignore such an important thing as binds.
A bind is a command that is executed by pressing a designated key. The most common bind that everyone should set is “jumpthrow.” It’s needed to consistently hit grenades thrown while jumping. By pressing the assigned button, you will automatically jump and throw the desired grenade at the highest point of the jump.
To quickly access the necessary grenade, instead of scrolling through the entire arsenal, a separate key is assigned for each grenade. This is a very important point that most beginners ignore.
Monitoring the radar is one of the necessary things during the game. Especially after the introduction of nearby sound indicators, in case you missed them. Usually, players zoom out the radar to see the location of allies across the map, but sometimes you need to see only your own area (for example, to better navigate through smokes). For this, players bind a command to zoom in the radar, a very situational but useful thing.
In CS:GO, there was a very useful bind to clear blood and explosion marks on the map because sometimes they hindered noticing opponents. But in CS2, such a setting is still not available, but all players are eagerly awaiting it.
To conveniently adjust all the necessary binds, you can use a map from the workshop called Config Generator ✮ CS2 GEN.
Unusual pro player settings.
We’ve mentioned many times that settings are a very individual thing, but there are players who have gone to extremes, making it impossible to play on their configs.
Virtus.pro’s captain and sniper, Jame Ali, decided that he needed more reachable buttons. To solve this problem, he switched from the familiar WASD to RDFG for movement on the map. The freed-up buttons on the left he uses for grenade binds. Since Shift and Ctrl were quite far away, he replaced them with Space and Alt, respectively. If you’re wondering where the jump went, here’s the secret – most pro players use mouse wheel scroll for jumping.
Vitality player William “mezii” Merriman uses one of the strangest methods of movement in the game. To move forward, the Brit presses the right mouse button. Thankfully, he still shoots with the left button, which is familiar to everyone.
There are also a number of players who use arrow keys for movement. By the way, this is often how left-handed players move, holding the mouse in their left hand and pressing the keyboard with their right. One of the most popular players who uses arrow keys in CS2 is French player Jackz. And his former teammate and compatriot, AMANEK, uses inverted sound. Everything that happens in the game on the left, he hears on the right, and vice versa. There are also players on the pro scene who use mouse inversion, such as former pro player and current analyst Maniac.
Proper and, most importantly, comfortable game settings are a very important element for improving the quality of play. Do not ignore this aspect and pay proper attention to it. Perhaps, some things will take getting used to, and many of them will need to be tried and tested to achieve the perfect result for yourself.