This guide is to help new players find information on the basics of settings without the conflicting information of previous years that I myself have come across so often. I skip many specific settings due to them being either personal preference or the default being the normal option.
 
 

Video

 
Color Mode: Computer Monitor
 
Brightness: 110%
 
*This is a personal preference and will need to be adjusted to fit your monitor’s brightness. However, the majority of players will play with a higher than normal brightness for easier visibility.
 
Aspect Ratio: 16:9 will likely be your native resolution and is what I would recommend players stick to. 4:3 is often seen in the pro scene due to pros playing on this resolution in older games.
 
 
However, 4:3 may allow you to run CSGO more smoothly on a lower-end computer. The biggest advantage to 4:3 is actually for AWPers the wideness of this resolution when stretched means that holding “pixel peek angles” is much easier due to the wider corridors; this is less important for riflers since holding a static angle will generally ensure you are killed thanks to the advantage peekers have due to game mechanics.
 
 
The disadvantages to stretched resolutions are that players seem to move faster from side to side and can throw off your aim, especially for those that are used to playing other games that do not offer stretched resolutions
 
 

Resolution

 
I would recommend playing at your highest resolution available if your computer can handle it. However, if you are playing in 4:3 you will have to decide what matches up best and may want to lower your resolution in order to increase FPS – this will cause the game to be blurry though which is why many people still prefer to play on 1080p monitors rather than playing on 2k or 4k resolutions.
 
 

Display Mode

 
Fullscreen – Playing in windowed has been known to cause performance issues, but maybe unavoidable if you are on a multi-monitor setup and need to “TAB out” but would like to keep the game from minimizing.
 
 

Advanced Video

 
These are the ideal video settings performance wise; depending on your PC however you may need to lower some. All credit is to ALBU Performance who did the research to find this information so please check out his video to see why these settings are best and find out what you may want to change.
 
 
Global Shadow Quality: MEDIUM
 
Model / Texture Detail: HIGH
 
Texture Streaming: DISABLED
 
Effect Detail: HIGH
 
Shader Detail: HIGH
 
Boost Player Contrast: ENABLED
 
Multicore Rendering: ENABLED
 
Multisampling Anti-Aliasing Mode: 8X MSAA
 
FXAA Anti-Aliasing: DISABLED (currently not working)
 
Texture Filtering Mode: ANISOTROPIC 16X
 
Wait for Vertical Sync: DISABLED
 
Motion Blur: DISABLED (currently not working)
 
Use Uber Shaders: ENABLED
 
 

 
 

Audio

 
Master Volume – 100%
 
*This is personal and depends upon background noise, multitasking, and many more instances where you may need to change the volume. I would recommend keeping the volume loud enough to hear footsteps but in casual games and community servers this may not matter as much especially when listening to music.
 
 
Audio Output Configuration – Stereo Headphones
 
 
VOIP Volume – 30%
 
*This controls the volume of your teammates. I personally use 25% and change it depending on how loud or soft my teammates are with the command “voice_scale .25”. If you have a teammate that is particularly loud you can simply hold TAB to bring up the scoreboard, right click to bring up the cursor, click on that teammate and hold left click on the speaker symbol then move down to adjust their personal volume.
 
 

Music

 
Music volume for the most part is unimportant as long as it does not deafen or annoy you. Personally, I play with nearly all music set to 0%.
 
 
The exceptions for this are ten second warning volume. – If you do not have a defuse kit it takes 10 seconds to defuse leaving this on (preferably still low like 10%) will ensure you know if you should simply run and save or even as T side know that they may not have time to defuse (defuse kits are visible on characters hips and drop when killed).
 
 

Game Settings

Max Acceptable Matchmaking Ping – 150
 
*Ping is how many milliseconds it takes for your computer to query the game server and get a response. I would recommend leaving this at default unless you start having issues finding matches; this may also be increased if you are trying to play on servers in other countries.
 
 

Prevent Weapon & Scope from bouncing when moving.

 
cl_bobamt_lat 0.1
 
cl_bobamt_vert 0.1
 
 

HUD

 
Default is fine for HUD settings however I would recommend:
 
 
Mini-Scoreboard Style: JUST SHOW PLAYER COUNT
 
*this is a small change but allows you to more quickly notice how many players are left without having to scan your eyes across profile pictures.
 
 
Special Settings
 
cl_showloadout 1
 
*this forces the HUD to remain on to allow you to see your equipment easily.
 
safezonex .7
 
This causes the HUD to be forced closer from the sides of your screen and is very useful when playing on larger monitors in order to prevent you from turning your entire head to one side to see the radar.
 
 

TEAM

 
Show Team Positions In HUD – SHOW LOCATION AND EQUIPMENT
 
*This will allow you to more easily identify your teammates and give you info of what they have in order to request something like a flash, a molly, swap weapons, or to know if they or you should be the one to peek an angle.
 
 
Show Teammate Colors in Competitive – SHOW COLORS
 
*[/i]Another option is to show colors and letters which is quite useful for those that are colorblind or a nice addition to a stream to make it more streamlined for viewers who are colorblind.[/i]
 
 

Communication

 
Mute All But Friends – Yes, No , Only in non-competitive modes
 
*I would recommend No or Only in non-competitive modes in order to hear people in your games. Be sure that No is selected if you play on a 3rd party such as FaceIt since the game does not realize it is a “competitive mode”. Explaining to your teammates 3rd round that you thought no one was speaking to you because you didn’t unmute anyone can be embarrassing.
 
 

Item

 
Switch Weapon on Pick Up – No – command for this is cl_autowepswitch 0
 
*The simple issue with this is that you have a pistol and peek someone to shoot, instead you pick up a gun and have to wait until it is ready to fire. Or you are trying to sneak up on someone and they have smartly left an empty weapon on the ground, you immediately pick it up and they hear you reloading.
 
 
Open buy menu with use key – No
 
*The only reason for this is that you may be walking through the spawn and trying to pick up something or may accidentally press it at the beginning of a match.
 
 

Radar

 
Tablet Map Orientation: Show Entire Map, Rotating
 
Radar Centers The Player: No
 
Radar Is Rotating: Yes
 
Radar Hud Size: 1 – can be more if you don’t mind it covering the top left.
 
Radar Map Zoom: 0.4 – Try out a few increments to see what works best for you, but it is recommended that the zoom be lower than default to allow you a better understanding of teammates positions and notice red dots when enemies are spotted.
 
 
cl_radar_icon_scale_min – this will make the icons larger on your radar
 
 
My personal radar settings:
 
cl_radar_always_centered “0”
 
cl_radar_scale “.4”
 
cl_hud_radar_scale “1.25”
 
cl_radar_icon_scale_min “.7”
 
cl_radar_rotate “1”
 
cl_radar_square_with_scoreboard “1”
 
 

Mouse

Settings

 
The most important thing for a mouse is to turn on Raw Input and turn off Mouse Acceleration.
 
 

Mouse Sensitivity

 
This is dependent on your mouse’s DPI. The norm has been 400dpi but with higher resolutions and newer hardware it has been found that a higher dpi will actually prevent pixel jumping and make your inputs much smoother.
 
 
I would recommend using the highest dpi you can still navigate your desktop and buy menu with, stick to a number that your mouse actually accepts such as 800, 1000, 1600 and adjust your sensitivity from that.
 
 
CSGO sensitivity is lower than other games due to the accuracy required. I would recommend 800edpi for riflers and 1000edpi for awpers and then adjust from there. Be sure you can do a 180 with a single swipe and that your sensitivity isn’t so high that you can’t control it well.
 
 
EDPI or effective dpi = dpi * sensitivity.
 
ex: Scr3am uses 400 dpi with a sensitivity of 2.5. I previously used a dpi of 1000 and a sensitivity of 1… This means moving the mouse the same distance would be the same distance in game.
 
 

Useful Keyboard Binds

https://totalcsgo.com/binds – [totalcsgo.com] 
 
is a great reference for popular keybinds along with nice tools in order to find out specific button’s commands.
 
 

Jump

 
bind mwheeldown “+jump”
 
 
Jumping with the mousewheel is awkward at first, but will make bunny hopping much easier. I recommend trying it out for a while in order to get used to it before removing the space bind. This will also allow you to bind space to a more convenient function such as walking, talking, or even moving backwards for counterstrafing.
 
 

JumpThrow

 
bind n “+jump; -attack; -jump”
 
*This bind is used by holding throw on the grenade then pressing the jumpthrow key.
 
 
This bind is very important to throw grenades consistently, even using a 3rd party program like like the steelseries engine will not consistently jump and throw at the same time… trust me i’ve tried.
 
 

Grenades

 
Which key you use is personal preference so I will provide my own binds as example. I do not personally bind the HE Grenade since it is the first grenade selected with 4. I do not bind the decoy either since I rarely use it. The commands however are “use weapon_hegrenade” & “use weapon_decoy”
 
 
bind x “use weapon_molotov; use weapon_incgrenade”
 
bind c “use weapon_flashbang”
 
bind v “use weapon_smokegrenade”
 
 
A fullscreen crosshair bind is also helpful for smoke lineups. The important part is bolded, I myself use my scrollwheel click for this but it can be bound to anything. cl_crosshairsize 0 will also need to be changed based on your crosshair. I use a dot crosshair which is why mine is set to return to 0 whenever I select a weapon or my knife.
 
 
bind 1 “slot1 ; cl_crosshairsize 0”; bind 2 “slot2 ; cl_crosshairsize 0”; bind 3 “slot3 ; cl_crosshairsize 0”; bind 4 “slot4 ; cl_crosshairsize 0”; bind mouse3 “slot8 ; cl_crosshairsize 1000”
 
 

Drop Bomb

 
bind h “use weapon_knife; use weapon_c4; drop; slot1”
 
*this bind will cause you to switch to the bomb, drop it, and switch to your primary weapon.
 
 

Mute/Clutch Key

 
bindtoggle j voice_enable
 
*this will temporarily mute voice chat which is helpful when you have loud teammates when you are trying to listen to the game.
 
 

Left Handed View

 
bind l “toggle cl_righthand 0 1”
 
*this swaps your gun from one hand to the other which many people find useful in order to prevent the gun from blocking vision in certain situations. It is generally recommended that the “ideal” hand is the opposite of your dominant eye. ex. My dominant eye is my left so I stick to the standard right hand.
 
 

Clear Decals

 
This clears blood and bullets from the walls to improve visibility. I personally use my forward key but it is also common to see people bind this to their inspect key.
 
 
bind w “+forward;r_cleardecals”
 
bind f “+lookatweapon;r_cleardecals”
 
 

Net Graph

 
alias +netg “net_graph 1;+showscores”;alias -netg “net_graph 0;-showscores”;bind TAB “+netg”;
 
*this will cause the netgraph to be visible when the scoreboard is pulled up via TAB
 
 

Autoexec and Funny Binds

Create an autoexec

 
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Counter-Strike Global Offensive\csgo\cfg
 
 
Navigate to this folder and copy default.cfg rename the copy autoexec.cfg then using notepad++ clear the file and add any commands you would like the game to run.
 
 

Automatically execute autoexec

 
Be sure to right click csgo in your library then under General and Launch Options put “+exec autoexec.cfg”
 
*this will cause the game to run your exec file every time it is started.
 
 
I hope you found something helpful, any recommendations or edits please just comment below.
 
 
Hope you enjoy the Guide about Counter-Strike: Global Offensive – CSGO Settings For Beginners, if you think we should add extra information or forget something, please let us know via comment below, and we will do our best to fix or update as soon as possible! also you can check the original post here.