Introduction

Everybody has heard of Counter-Strike, Valve’s most successful multiplayer shooter. Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) is the latest installment in the popular Counter-Strike series. It marks a departure from the traditional iterative approach, introducing significant improvements in maps, weapons, and visuals. Notable changes include enhanced smoke physics, impacting gameplay strategies. The game features improved UI, dynamic lighting, and particle effects, creating a refreshed visual experience.

While CS:GO is built using the first version of the “Source” engine, Counter-Strike 2 uses the more modern Source 2 engine, which was first released in 2015 and powers titles like Dota 2 and Half-Life: Alyx. The game uses the DirectX 11 API, there’s no ray tracing or DLSS. NVIDIA Reflex is available though, and FSR 2 can be enabled as well.

This benchmark review will evaluate the performance of Counter-Strike 2 on a wide selection of modern graphics cards, show image quality comparisons and look at what’s required in terms of VRAM usage.