On the evening of March 22, Valve finally announced Counter-Strike 2. The shooter will be transferred to Source 2 and seriously update gameplay. The release will take place in the summer of 2023, and in the meantime the chosen ones can play the Counter-Strike 2 Limited Test closed beta.

Valve hasn’t published official CS 2 system requirements, but we tried to understand them ourselves. Whether CS 2 will run on a weak PC and how many FPS there will be – all this was found out by Escorenews.

Counter-Strike 2 on a weak PC. How much FPS, what settings are there for weak PCs?

For the test we had a laptop with the following characteristics: AMD Ryzen 5 3500U with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx 2.10 GHz, RAM 8.00 GB. In regular CS:GO it gave out from 40 to 85 FPS on low settings – it depended on the map, activity of firefights and other factors.

Counter-Strike 2 Limited Test automatically set high graphics settings – expectedly, a weak PC couldn’t handle it. Even in the menu it was only 10 FPS. CS 2 crashed when loading the map. I had to play with the settings.

Low graphics settings in CS 2

Resolution 1920×1080, low preset for CS 2.

The match started, but during firefights or a lot of gunshot sounds CS 2 regularly dropped FPS from a satisfactory 45 to 5-8 frames. It was unplayable.

You can fix FPS drops at low settings by changing the FidelityFX parameter – instead of “balanced” mode select “performance”. This way I was able to achieve stable 20-25 FPS without sags – it’s a pain to play this way, but possible.

Low graphics settings and fine resolution in CS 2

Resolution 1280×720 is an average preset for CS 2.

With a smaller resolution CS 2 was more stable and produced 25 to 40 FPS already on medium settings. On low settings the values were a bit higher.

At the same time, a new problem was discovered: the laptop with a video card built into the processor refused to render smoke grenades. Smoke in the middle of Dust 2 looked like a big black wall. I couldn’t get rid of it.

Counter-Strike 2 on a powerful computer. How many FPS?

A bit old, but it’s an old PC: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 Six-Core Processor 3.20 GHz, 16.0 GB RAM and GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card. In CS:GO it gives out 200+ FPS on high – maybe more if you play with the settings.

With a powerful PC, Counter-Strike 2 Limited Test will deliver roughly the same FPS at any setting. High or low, 4:3 or 16:9, full screen or in a window – you’ll see anywhere from 70 to 200 FPS depending on where you are on the map and the level of firefighting.

Yes, low settings will in no way increase FPS for a powerful PC:

It is important to realize that the closed beta of CS 2 is far from being a release version. The developers will obviously be improving the optimization of maps and the game. But for now we can assume that in the new version of CS users will lose an average of 20 FPS.