// LOADING CSMAUK
// LOADING CSMAUK
A category-by-category walkthrough of every CS2 setting that matters — mouse, crosshair, viewmodel, HUD, radar, gameplay and network — with recommended values and whether each lives in the menu or the console.
By CSMAUK Staff
Counter-Strike 2 runs on Source 2, and while the settings menu looks familiar to anyone coming from CS:GO, a lot of the old wisdom no longer applies cleanly. Some console variables were renamed, some were removed, and a handful of network tweaks that used to be mandatory are now handled by the engine. This guide is the complete config walkthrough: we go through every settings category in order, hand you a recommended value, and tell you whether the option lives in the in-game menu or has to be set from the developer console. Crosshair and raw sensitivity get a brief mention here because we cover those in depth elsewhere — the focus of this article is the full menu plus the console tweaks that actually move the needle.
Before you touch anything in the console, enable it: Settings → Game → Game → Enable Developer Console = Yes, then bind it to a key (the tilde ~ key is the default). Every command shown in a code block below is typed into that console unless we say it is a menu option.
The single most important mouse setting is Raw Input. With it on, CS2 reads your mouse directly and ignores Windows pointer acceleration and scaling, so your aim is consistent regardless of desktop settings. It is on by default in CS2 and you should leave it that way.
Sensitivity itself is personal, but the community measures it in eDPI (mouse DPI multiplied by in-game sensitivity) so different setups can be compared. The professional median sits around 800 eDPI, and the overwhelming majority of pros use either 400 or 800 DPI on their mouse. A common, beginner-friendly starting point is 800 DPI with a sensitivity of 1.0 to 1.4 (800–1120 eDPI). The one mouse cvar most people forget is zoom_sensitivity_ratio, which scales your sensitivity while scoped (AWP/SSG). Setting it to 1 makes scoped aim feel like your hipfire — many players prefer values around 0.8 to 1.0.
sensitivity 1.25
zoom_sensitivity_ratio 1
m_rawinput 1| Setting | Recommended | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Mouse Sensitivity | 1.0–1.4 @ 800 DPI (~800–1120 eDPI) | Menu (Game → Mouse) |
| Raw Input | Enabled | Menu |
| Mouse Acceleration | Disabled | Menu |
| zoom_sensitivity_ratio | 0.8–1.0 | Console |
| Reverse Mouse | Disabled | Menu |
CS2 has a full crosshair editor under Settings → Game → Crosshair, and you can import any code with a single paste. The competitive defaults that age well: a static crosshair (cl_crosshair_dynamic disabled equivalent in the menu), a thin outline for contrast on bright surfaces, a small gap, and a colour that pops against the maps you play. Keep the dot off unless you genuinely use it for one-taps. Because we have a dedicated crosshair-and-codes article, we will not rebuild the editor here — just know it lives in the menu and copies a single share code.
The viewmodel is your weapon position on screen. The menu (Game → Crosshair has a separate tab in some builds; otherwise via console) exposes three numbers. A higher viewmodel_fov pulls the gun model back and down, freeing up the centre of your screen. The competitive standard is the maximum allowed value.
viewmodel_fov 68
viewmodel_offset_x 2.5
viewmodel_offset_y 2
viewmodel_offset_z -1.5
viewmodel_presetpos 3The radar is where most config gains hide, because the default zooms in too far to be useful and recenters on you. The two biggest changes: turn off always-centered so the radar pans to show what is ahead of you, and zoom the map out so you can see the whole bombsite. Many competitive players run an expanded, rotated radar.
cl_radar_always_centered 0
cl_radar_scale 0.4
cl_hud_radar_scale 1.15
cl_radar_rotate 1
cl_radar_icon_scale_min 0.6
hud_scaling 0.85| Command | Range | Recommended | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| cl_radar_always_centered | 0 / 1 | 0 | When 0, the radar pans instead of locking you to the centre, revealing more of the map ahead. |
| cl_radar_scale | 0.25–1.0 | 0.4 | Map zoom on the radar; lower shows more of the map. |
| cl_hud_radar_scale | 0.8–1.3 | 1.15 | Physical size of the radar widget on your HUD. |
| cl_radar_rotate | 0 / 1 | 1 | Rotates the radar with your view (1) or keeps it map-fixed (0). Pure preference. |
| cl_radar_icon_scale_min | 0.4–1.25 | 0.6 | Minimum size of player/icon blips. |
| hud_scaling | 0.5–0.95 | 0.85 | Overall HUD element size. Smaller frees up screen space. |
cl_radar_scale and cl_radar_always_centered are the two settings worth getting right on day one. A zoomed-out, panning radar turns your minimap from decoration into real-time map awareness — you will start calling rotations before you can see them.
CS2 added a few quality-of-life toggles that are easy to miss. The most consequential is cl_use_opens_buy_menu: when enabled, pressing your Use key (E by default) opens the buy menu while you are in the buy zone. Some players love it, but it can mean you accidentally open the buy menu when trying to defuse or pick up a weapon near spawn. If that has ever cost you a round, set it to 0 and bind the buy menu to its own key.
Comms settings live in Settings → Audio → Voice and Settings → Game → Communication. Set Enable Voice to Press to Use Mic rather than open mic so your room noise does not flood the channel. Two often-overlooked options: lock your team radar/voice to in-game only, and raise the maximum number of messages you keep so you can scroll back through a teammate call. There is no need to fiddle with most of these from the console — the menu covers everything.
""A clean comms channel is a free utility. Half the round-losing confusion in matchmaking is two people talking over a hot open mic."
This is the category that changed most from CS:GO. In Source 2, tick rate is sub-tick — the server timestamps your inputs between ticks — so the old obsession with cl_cmdrate and cl_updaterate is largely gone (those commands no longer do what they used to). What still matters is your rate, your interpolation, and your matchmaking ping ceiling.
Rate is the maximum bytes per second the client will accept from the server. The highest value the game menu officially supports is 786432, which suits any connection of roughly 6 Mbps or higher — set it and forget it unless you are on a genuinely slow link. Interpolation determines how the client smooths other players between updates: cl_interp_ratio 1 with cl_interp 0 gives the lowest interpolation delay on a stable connection, which is what most competitive players run. If you have packet loss, cl_interp_ratio 2 trades a little delay for smoother enemy movement.
rate 786432
cl_interp 0
cl_interp_ratio 1
mm_dedicated_search_ping_limit 50| Command | Recommended | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| rate | 786432 | Menu max; good for ~6 Mbps and up. Lower only on a slow connection. |
| cl_interp | 0 | Let interp_ratio drive interpolation; 0 = engine-minimum. |
| cl_interp_ratio | 1 | Use 1 on a stable line; 2 if you have packet loss. |
| mm_dedicated_search_ping_limit | 50 | Skip servers above this ping when searching. Raise (e.g. 100) if queues are slow. |
| cl_cmdrate / cl_updaterate | n/a | Legacy CS:GO commands — Source 2 sub-tick makes them obsolete. |
You cannot be banned for changing rate or interp — these are legitimate Valve cvars. But there is no magic value: the "best" interp depends on your connection. Start at rate 786432, cl_interp_ratio 1, and only bump the ratio to 2 if you actually see rubber-banding.
Set the menu options first — Raw Input, sensitivity, voice mode, and the video basics — then paste your console block for the radar, viewmodel, gameplay toggles and network values. Save it to an autoexec or your config so a game update never silently resets you. None of these numbers will make you a better aimer overnight, but a zoomed-out radar, a high viewmodel FOV, a sane buy-menu bind and a correct rate remove a dozen small frictions that quietly cost rounds. Dial them in once and forget about them.