Boost your CSGO FPS with these NVIDIA control panel settings (2023)

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive might have turned eight last October, but with CSGO hitting one million players for the first time last weekend, everyone is probably wondering what the best settings are for the competitive shooter.

Even though there's a lot more going on under the hood in CSGO than just the graphics, that doesn't mean there's nothing to tweak. Frames per second or FPS is an incredibly important part of a good game. We will walk NVIDIA owners through the steps to achieve consistently high FPS with NVIDIA's proprietary software.

Quick note: Counter-Strike runs on a modified version of the Source engine and is more affected by CPU performance than GPU. If you have an older CPU and want to get into Counter-Strike, an upgrade may be in order.

However, it doesn't hurt to start with a few settings. Let's get into it.

Get the best FPS in CSGO with an NVIDIA graphics card

This guide will guide gamers through optimizing their graphics settings, specifically for NVIDIA GPUs, using the NVIDIA Control Panel that comes with the drivers that support the card's functionality.

If you've never updated your graphics drivers, go to NVIDIA's download page, find your card, and install the drivers. Once everything is set or your drivers are updated, right-click on the desktop to open the context menu and select NVIDIA Control Panel from the list.

A window opens that is split in half down the middle. The left side contains a list of various settings, while the right side shows all active monitors currently connected to the computer.

If you are lucky enough to have a 144 or 240 Hz monitor, make sure the refresh rate is set to the correct value on the right side of the screen. We've heard horror stories from gamers using a 144Hz monitor but never changing the refresh rate from the default 60Hz. It never hurts to look!

Once you've done that, go to the list on the left. Under the 3D Settings heading, select Adjust image settings with preview. Select the circle next to "Use advanced 3D picture settings" before returning to the left menu and selecting "Manage 3D Settings".

Now we can tell the GPU exactly how to handle what we want. There are two options: change the graphics settings for the whole computer or only for a single program. We will use the Program Settings option. By making these settings exclusive to Counter-Strike, they will only run that way when the player starts CSGO.

Click the Program Settings tab and select Counter-Strike: Global Offensive from the list. If it's not there or you can't find it, you can click Add and navigate to CSGO.exe and select it that way.

In the box there are two columns labeled "Function" and "Settings". We want to change these so that when CSGO starts, the graphics card uses the settings we specify here, instead of what Counter-Strike tells it to do.

By adjusting your NVIDIA settings here, gamers will have more control over their framerate than if they just rely on the in-game tools.We review and describe each setting, then list the recommended "setting" for improving FPS in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

Increase CSGOsFPS med NVIDIA Graphics Control Panel

image sharpness

• Indstilling: PLAYER SETTING

This is a post-processing effect, meaning it is applied to the image as it comes from your GPU to your screen. Although image sharpness can make everything clearer, too much can distort the image.

It's best to save this for last and test it by setting it to around 50% and see if you notice a difference in how well your eyes can pick out targets. Adjust from there. In terms of FPS, the less sharp the better.

ambient occlusion

• Set off

This creates a fading effect on light as it diffuses around objects. Since we're not taking a windy stroll here, turn this off for a decent performance boost.

Anisotropic filtering

• Setting: THE APPLICATION BOARD

Anisotropic filtering makes textures sharper and less blurry. The source plays well if we leave the filtering in-game, so we set it to the application drive and take care of it in-game.

Antialiasing - Gamma correction

• Setting: ON

This nice little tweak makes dark corners like under the palace on Mirage more visible without causing an FPS drop. turn it on

Antialiasing mode

• Setting: THE APPLICATION BOARD

If you really want it, NVIDIA cards can overlay their own antialiasing with what the game offers. Because we want to reduce costs and improve performance, NVIDIA recommends leaving it on Application Controlled.

CUDA - GPU'er

• Setting: ALL

Set "All" here. Even if you only have one graphics card, it acts as a failsafe to make sure the game doesn't run on the motherboard's integrated graphics. You'd know right away if that's the case, but it's always better to be safe than sorry.

DSR factors

• Set off

Dynamic Super Resolution is nice for things like screenshots, but it causes a big performance hit. DSR actually renders the frames at a higher resolution than the screen and then scales them down, resulting in a really sharp image. Unfortunately, turning it on also results in the biggest framerate hit of all these settings.

Lav-Latency-Modus

• Indstilling: USER SELECT

Depending on how powerful your processor is, Low Latency Mode can be a gift or a curse. The setting limits the number of frames the CPU can process before the GPU can display them, meaning what the player sees is closer to what's actually happening.

Imagine someone took 20 photos of a dog running across a field in 20 seconds. Instead of taking one per second, they take 12 photos in the first five seconds, two in ten seconds, and one in six more just as the timer stops.

Someone might look at these pictures and not understand exactly what happened or what explains the discrepancy.

If the pictures are taken once a second for 20 seconds and then shown to someone one after the other, it will be clear what is happening and that the dog is moving.

The second example shows a more accurate rendering of the events unfolding. Low latency mode works the same way. By limiting how far forward the CPU can work, the player gets a more accurate representation of what is going on during a Counter-Strike match.

But if your CPU can't keep up, gamers will experience stuttering and screen tearing and want to skip it.

If your computer is an animal, turn it on. Otherwise, skip it until the day your CPU keeps up with what your GPU is capable of.

Maximum frame rate

• Set off

Some believe that having a higher frame rate than your screen's refresh rate is useless. It is not the case. More frames means more data, which means a 144Hz display running at 180fps will still look choppier than a 144Hz display running at 300fps. This is especially true for CSGO's older interpolation settings. Plain and simple, the higher the frames, the smoother CSGO feels. Leave maximum frame rate unchecked.

Multi-Frame-Sampling (MFAA)

• Set off

NVIDIA's latest anti-aliasing offering is very cool from a technical standpoint, but it's just too power-hungry for what we've come to expect from CSGO. We lose weight in hopes of getting a few frames.

OpenGL-rendering-GPU

• Setting: AUTO SELECT

Counter-Strike doesn't use OpenGL, so don't worry. Set it to automatic selection.

power management state

• Setting: PREFER MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE

Power management mode is the biggest culprit for CSGO stuttering. While the player tries to take a long look, his GPU tries to take a nap.

NVIDIA GPUs have this option enabled by default in all versions of their drivers. If you ever start CSGO one day and it seems sluggish, check it out first. The "Prefer maximum performance" setting means the card draws as much power as it needs to keep Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's framerate high, and that's a good thing.

Preferred refresh rate

• Setting: HIGHEST AVAILABLE

Those with monitors capable of displaying images at refresh rates greater than 60 Hertz should set this to "Highest Available". Even if your monitor runs at 60 Hertz, it's still worth making sure the GPU knows what speed to send images to the monitor at.

While you can and should set CSGO's refresh rate in the game's launch options, let the GPU be the boss. But players should still add -freq 144 or -freq 240 to their boot options if the monitor is capable of it.

In reality, CSGO has not used these commands for years and defaults to the Windows or Driver setting. It's just another one of those "better safe than sorry" rules that everyone seems to follow.

Shader-Cache

• Setting: ON

We have seen several people asking CSGO players to turn this off. Do not.

We understand that most people know that shaders have the biggest impact on a computer's CPU. So if you flip everything related to the "on" position, players will stick to the chest.

This option preloads and saves shaders to disk, giving players back valuable CPU cycles in a processor dependent game. If you installed CSGO on a solid state drive, most people won't even notice the difference. The less work the processor has to do, the more it can focus on those sweet frames.

Should you filter textures in CSGO?

And.

The next settings are all different types of the same process, so we've grouped them.

Anisotropic sample optimizationsmoothes out jagged edges with a special formula related to the map's textures.

Nnegative LOD-Biasreduces the work done by the CPU by sharpening textures in a smart wayTexture filtering - Qualitycan be thought of as a computer filtering out complicated textures. Finally,trilinear optimizationallows the GPU to use intensive trilinear filtering only in certain areas, reducing the load on a GPU.

You can disable all of this if you plan to do no antialiasing at all. At this point, however, the sacrifices you make in terms of graphical fidelity are no longer worth it.

Texture filtering - anisotropic pattern optimization

• Setting: ON

Texture filtering - negative LOD distortion

• Setting: ALLOW

Texture filtering - Quality

• Setting: HIGH PERFORMANCE

Texture filtering Trilinear optimization

• Setting: ON

Next,Multitasking optimizationhelps applications use more CPU threads, reducing the time it takes to transfer data to the GPU. The less a CPU has to work and the more free time it has, the happier it is and the higher your framework.

Multitasking optimization

• Setting: On

Finally, once you've tested the options as you should and consistently have a higher FPS than your refresh rate, turn off V-Sync in both Counter-Strike and the NVIDIA Control Panel.

If you find that your computer sometimes drops below the refresh rate and then recovers quickly, use the Adaptive setting. Adaptive is a good compromise for weaker PCs that can't keep up with CSGO. It turns off V-sync when the frame rate drops below the refresh rate, but otherwise keeps it limited.

V-sync is rough, but the lack of a headshot due to screen tearing is worse. With V-Sync on, you at least have a chance.

A good CSGO FPS involves experimentation

Go ahead and click Apply and close NVIDIA Control Panel. All PC builds are different, so what makes one computer burn fast may slow another down, so trial and error is always the best way to go.

Don't be afraid to experiment. NVIDIA has a button to reset all settings to default at the very bottom next to Apply. CSGO is forgiving in this regard and usually plays well with those with less experience.

If you are new to CSGO, you might enjoy some of our other series which aim to walk both beginners and experts through all the things that come with CSGO and its quirky engine.

• Five Ways to Throw CSGO's Grenades
• Setting up your first CSGO practice configuration
• CSGO's autoexec files and you: How to never lose a setting again
• Where to save your CSGO configuration files and find your SteamID