Highlights A small, clearly visible crosshair is a good starting point. It should be easy to keep track of without covering enemies at a distance. Static crosshairs give you a stable aiming reference, while dynamic crosshairs can provide useful feedback about your weapon’s accuracy. Which one works best depends on what you want from your crosshair. CS2 is a game with a ton of customization options, with the crosshair being one of the most personal settings you can tweak. Naturally, what works for you might not work for your friend, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t certain guidelines to follow.
In this article, we’ll go over the different crosshair options, discuss what makes a good crosshair, and help you create your very own best CS2 crosshair. We’ll focus on what these settings actually do, so that you can make an informed choice instead of simply copying a bunch of numbers.
If you’re looking for inspiration, you can always check out our CS2 crosshair database or our guide to the best CS2 crosshair codes . We also have a CS2 Crosshair Generator for experimenting with different designs.
If you’ve come back to CS2 and noticed that the crosshair settings and your old crosshair look different, there’s a reason for that. Valve has updated the crosshair system, added new styles, and moved the settings to a dedicated Crosshair/Scopes tab in the settings.
One of the biggest changes is the way crosshair dimensions work. The old values used a Valve-made scale, whereas the new settings use pixels to indicate how thick a crosshair element is. Valve gives the example of a crosshair with a thickness of 1 pixel, a line length of 8 pixels, and a gap of 4 pixels; you can now set those values directly.
There’s an important detail here: the game automatically rescales the crosshair when you change your display resolution. In Valve’s example, a crosshair that’s 2 pixels thick at 1280×720 becomes 4 pixels thick at 2560×1440, keeping it proportionally the same size.
What all of this means is that older crosshair values and settings are not directly compatible with the new system. As such, if you’re trying to recreate an older crosshair, focus on matching its appearance in your game.
The default crosshair can be good to use for a little while if you’re just coming to grips with the game because it can provide you with information that might be useful to beginners and new players (such as the fact that the crosshair moves with the recoil of the weapon) but we would strongly advise you to move away from the default crosshairs once you’ve passed the ‘getting to know the game’ stage.
For reference: most pros use a static crosshair.
When choosing a crosshair, it helps to think about two things: what it looks like and how it behaves.
The shape determines the aiming reference that you see. You might prefer a traditional crosshair with lines around an open center, or you might feel more comfortable with a dot or another shape. Neither choice automatically makes you more accurate. Some players might prefer one or the other, but in terms of style, there isn’t an objective ‘best’ style.
The crosshair behavior determines the feedback that you get. A static crosshair keeps its shape, while a dynamic crosshair moves as you’re playing to convey information. The exact information that it shows depends on the style, so it’s worth trying it while moving and shooting before heading into a match.
Generally speaking, we can divide CS2 players into two categories: players who want crosshair feedback, and players who don’t.
If you want feedback about your weapon’s accuracy, give a dynamic style a try. If you want a consistent crosshair that always shows the exact center of the screen, go for static.
Of course all of this is subjective. We’d recommend choosing based on what helps you see and aim comfortably rather than treating one style as a requirement for playing at a higher level. Sure, most pros use static, but if you feel like you aim better with a dynamic crosshair, you should absolutely go for it.
There are a lot of ways to customize your crosshair to your liking, and we’ll cover the basics as well as give you an idea on how to use these customization options in order to fit your playing style.
Dynamic versus Static Static crosshairs are used by the majority of experienced players, and that makes sense. If you’ve got all of the game’s basics covered you don’t need your crosshair to tell you when your weapon is inaccurate because you will know it. Furthermore, a dynamic crosshair can be distracting, and some players want to eliminate any and all distractions from their game. Knowing this, you’d think that all pros use a static crosshair and you’d mostly be right, but there’s a small minority of pros who go dynamic.
A dynamic crosshair can be great for inexperienced players who are coming to grips with the game’s mechanics as it shows you when you’re being inaccurate, but it can be a boon even for experienced players. Players with a tap-heavy playing style, for example, can benefit from the visual feedback that the crosshair gives you when tapping away at enemies. You can even develop a rhythm based on the feedback: shoot when it’s at its most concentrated, don’t shoot when the crosshair is expanded. For spraying it can be detrimental to have a dynamic crosshair though, as its expanding nature might mean that you lose track of where the center of the screen is.
It should be noted that it’s possible to combine the two. You can, for example, have a dot in the center of your otherwise dynamic crosshair so that you always know where the center of your screen is.
Dynamic Spread Limit Dynamic Spread Limit controls how far the dynamic crosshair styles can expand at high inaccuracy. It changes the display of that information, not the accuracy of your weapon.
If you’re using one of these styles, try it while moving and firing different weapons. You want the feedback to be readable, but you also want to be able to follow what’s happening in front of you.
Outlines versus No Outlines Adding an outline to your crosshair basically adds a non-transparent border to your existing crosshair. The benefit of this is that it makes your crosshair visible at all times (if you have, for example, a sky blue crosshair and you’re aiming at the sky, the black outlines will ensure that you still see the crosshair) but the drawback is that it makes your crosshair thicker and bulkier, and some people dislike that feeling.
Dot versus No Dot First off, it’s important to note that the dot has two different meanings. You can add a dot in the middle of your existing crosshair, or you can delete the lines of your crosshair entirely and just have a dot (or a circle) for a crosshair.
Having just a dot as a crosshair (so no crosshair lines) is generally associated with having more precision. Your crosshair is smaller (just a few pixels wide in some cases) so you tend to only shoot when your crosshair is right on the enemy. This does come at the cost of lowering your ‘situational awareness’, however.
Having a traditional crosshair can help in aiming your spray, as it can be easier to work out where your aim is supposed to go when you’ve got the geometrical lines in your crosshair as a reference point. Furthermore, having a (small) dot as a crosshair may lead you to only go for headshots, even when a quick spraydown or a body shot might be enough.
Adding a dot to the center of your existing crosshair can be the best of both worlds in a way, but it does make for a crosshair that covers an awful lot of the screen. Especially when aiming at enemies that are far away (and thus don’t take up a lot of your screen) it can he a hindrance if you have a bulky crosshair. In CS2, pixel perfect aim is sometimes required, and bullets generally (there is some randomized bullet spread in CS2) go to the center of your screen, so if your crosshair is blocking your vision if where exactly that small target in the distance is you can miss shots.
Gap The gap value simply determines how much space there is between the individual crosshair lines. The larger the gap, the more space there is between the lines. A large gap can be beneficial for target acquisition because there’s a lot of visual reference for where your crosshair should go, but it can give you problems when you need to aim precisely given the fact that there’s no aiming reference in the middle.
Thickness This decides how thick the lines are. The thicker your lines, the more substantial your crosshair will look and feel, and the more visual reference you have when aiming, but a thicker crosshair will obscure more of the battlefield, and having a crosshair that’s too thick can cause you to miss important movements or shots.
Length This determines how long the crosshair lines are. The longer the more visual reference you have when aiming, but having lines that are too long can become distracting. Having very short lines can give you the ‘dot effect’ referenced above, so if you find a dot do be too limiting for spraying and situational awareness you could always try to use a crosshair with a very short length.
Crosshair Follow Recoil In CS2, there’s a new option where you can have your crosshair follow your recoil. This means that, if you spray an AK, the crosshair will start moving away from the center of your screen to indicate where the spray pattern is going. This can be a handy option to use for people who are new to the game or who want to master a new weapon.
Alpha / Opacity The alpha value quite simply determines the opacity of your crosshair. The more opaque your crosshair is, the easier it will be to spot where you need to precisely aim when firing, but having a crosshair that’s too opaque can cause the crosshair to seemingly disappear in stressful circumstances.
You can literally pick any color you’d want for your crosshair, and this color is somewhat up to personal preference, but there are a few guidelines to follow. You don’t want to create a crosshair that has a sandy color like the wall on Mirage and Dust 2, for example, since it’ll disappear when you’re running around and aiming on those maps. Darker, more natural shades are therefore usually avoided, and people tend to gravitate towards brighter neon colors since they stick out from the scenery.
The most used colors are (bright) green, cyan, pink, and yellow. If you do opt for a color that can easily get lost in the scenery of the game, it can be a good idea to add outlines to your crosshair.
A lot of people are wondering what the best CS2 pro crosshair is, but the truth is that there is no best pro crosshair. The pros do of course follow certain guidelines (they almost all use the same style, for example) but it’s impossible to just point at one given crosshair and say ‘that one!’.
We have an entire guide on the Best CS2 Crosshair Codes in case you’re interested, or you can browse our CS2 crosshair database , where you can see an always-updated list on the crosshairs that the pros are using.
Some people say that you should choose one crosshair and stick to it, but we don’t really agree on that one. A crosshair isn’t the same as your sensitivity or key bindings, for example, where it could be argued that it’s not a good idea to mess up your muscle memory.
In fact, changing your crosshair every once in a while can be beneficial if you ask us. If you’re completely accustomed to your crosshair’s color and size it might start to blend into the background a bit, whereas using a new color or larger shape might force your brain to start paying attention to the crosshair again. We say ‘might’ because everyone is different here. There are pros who go for one crosshair and almost never change, and then there are those who change it up every now and again.
There’s one takeaway from this article: the best CS2 crosshair is personal. A compact static crosshair is a good starting point if you want a simple aiming reference, while a dynamic style is worth trying if you find accuracy feedback useful.
You don’t need to copy every setting from a pro, and you don’t need to abandon a crosshair that works for you just because someone else prefers a different style.
We would recommend starting with a design that you like based on the info we’ve given you in this article, testing it at your usual resolution, and making small adjustments from there. Over time, you’ll get a much better idea of what you want from your crosshair than you would by chasing one supposedly perfect set of numbers.
I’m struggling between dot and a small traditional crosshair I’m good with both but at the same time bad with it
play a traditionel smal chroshair
Is information about “average pro player crosshair” still actual and how it calculated, average between all pros players settings or manually, but similar to most settings?
That crosshair doesn’t get updated continuously no. It was calculated using all the values separately and then taking the averages!
How do you get it