CS2 Crashes – How To Fix All Common Issues

In the days and weeks after its release, CS2 crashes were a really common occurrence. Today, most of the crashing issues have been fixed by Valve but of course there isn’t a single game out there that never crashes. Spending your planned gaming night troubleshooting a crashing game is never fun, so we’ve put together a guide to help you for those times where the game/your PC is letting you down.

In this short guide, we will go over some of the reasons why CS2 may crash and how to fix them properly. These can be followed in order or individually, but we recommend going down the list in order.

CS2 Minimum Requirements

This isn’t necessarily a step in the troubleshooting list since it kind of speaks for itself. If your PC doesn’t meet CS2’s minimum requirements, you should upgrade it or get a new system that does. It’s sometimes possible to run games below the minimum requirements, but a stable performance definitely isn’t guaranteed in these cases.

1. Configure Your CS2 Settings

CS2 was built on the newer Source 2 engine. This gives the game a huge bump in terms of graphical fidelity. But it also makes CS2 a bit more resource-demanding, and if you have not configured your settings properly, that might be the reason for your crashes. A PC that could run CS:GO isn’t guaranteed to run CS2 without problems.

Running the game on high settings can significantly decrease your FPS. Moreover, it’s also not competitive-friendly to run high settings as it can cause latency issues.

Fret not, as we already have a detailed CS2 Settings guide that’s updated routinely to keep up with any changes that are made to the game. We strongly recommend aligning your graphical settings with the options in the guide as a first step.

2. Verify Your Game Files

It is a no-brainer that missing or corrupted files can cause CS2 to become unstable and cause crashes. There could be multiple reasons why you have missing or corrupted files, but that’s not what we are here to discuss. The main focus is on how we fix this. Thankfully, you don’t have to reinstall the game completely. You can easily verify the integrity of your game’s files through the Steam Launcher.

Here’s how to verify the integrity of your game files in CS2:

• Launch Steam and navigate to your Library.
• Find CS2 from the games on the left panel and right-click on it.
• After that, click on Properties
• A new window will appear. In that, navigate to Installed Files.
• There, click on Verify the Integrity of Game Files.

Steam will begin verifying your files. Be patient, as this will take some time. If there are any missing or corrupted files, you will receive an update once the verification process is complete. Once completed, launch the game and check to see if the crashes have stopped. 

3. Disable Full-Screen Optimization

Full-Screen Optimization is a built-in feature in Windows 10/11 that improves the performance of games running in Full-Screen mode. However, the results vary from game to game. In the case of CS2, some players report better performance and more stability with full-screen optimization disabled. It’s a good feature, but it doesn’t always work well with CS2 and can cause crashes. That’s why it’s better to turn it off as part of your troubleshooting journey.

Here is how you can disable full-screen optimization for CS2:

• Go to the folder where CS2 is installed (Default: C:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Counter-Strike Global Offensive\game\bin\win64)
• You can also find it through Steam by right clicking CS2 in your library and then going into Properties > Installed Files > Browse. 
• Once there, find the CS2.exe file. Click through Counter-Strike: Global Offensive -> Game -> bin -> win64 and right click on CS2. A drop-down will appear. Select Properties from that.
• A new window will pop up.
• Navigate to the Compatibility tab on the top,
• You will see a box titled Disable Full Screen Optimization.
• Check that and hit Apply and Save

After you have done all this, launch the game and test for crashes. If you still experience crashes, set the compatibility mode to Windows 8. This can be done from the same window.

4. Update Your Graphics Card Drivers

One of the biggest reasons for CS2 crashes (or crashes in any game, for that matter) is outdated graphics card drivers. Keeping your graphics card drivers updated is very important, as CS2 is also kept up-to-date with these updates. Having older drivers will cause stability issues and result in crashes.

The game will let you know when your graphics card drivers are outdated, but even if you don’t get that popup in the game itself it can be a good idea to update them anyway.

The process of updating your graphics drivers differs depending on what graphics card you are using. We’ve outlined the process for both of the major GPU manufacturers.

NVIDIA

The Geforce Experience software is the most convenient way to update your NVIDIA drivers, so it’s good to have that downloaded. To launch it, right-click on any empty space on your desktop and select Geforce Experience from the drop-down menu. If there is an update, it will appear right on top of the window, allowing you to easily update it.

Having said that, Geforce Experience is known to add telemetry to your system. This is why some players avoid it. If you want to, you can manually download the driver from NVIDIA’s Driver page on their website. Simply select the make and model of your GPU, then download and install it.

AMD

If you have AMD’s Radeon Software, open it by right-clicking anywhere on the desktop. Then go to Updates > Check Updates, and simply update your graphics drivers.

Alternatively, you can manually update the drivers by visiting AMD’s Drivers page and searching for your GPU. Once you find it, download the required driver.

5. Update Windows

An outdated Windows install can also be the reason you are experiencing frequent CS2 crashes. If your Windows is not up to date, you may experience compatibility issues. It is therefore recommended that you keep your Windows up to date. Doing this is pretty straightforward:

• Press the Windows key and type Check for Updates in the search box.
• Click on Check for Updates.
• In the new window, click on Check for Updates again. If it shows any updates, download and install it. If it does not show any updates, your Windows install is up to date.

Keeping your Windows updated is essential, whether it is CS2 or any other game. It’s also the best thing you can do for the security of your PC. It’s therefore a good idea to keep your Windows updated, even if you’re not a gamer.

6. Close Background Applications

While playing CS2, check your Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) to see if any unnecessary apps are running in the background. Discord is obviously fine, but anything else that you are not using at that time, you should close. These apps can hog your PC’s resources, which can result in crashes. 

A rule of thumb is to just close anything you are not using while playing CS2. Especially if you have an underpowered PC, it’s not a good idea to hog precious resources by having a bunch of tabs open in your browser in the background, for example.

7. Do A Clean CS2 Install

A more drastic way to fix CS2 crashes is to just do a complete reinstall. Of course, it is inconvenient, but CS2 is small in comparison to other games and can be reinstalled quickly (assuming you have a stable internet connection).

To completely uninstall the game, firstly uninstall it through Steam. Then go to the CS2 folder on your PC and delete anything that remains. After that, reinstall CS2 on a disk (preferably an SSD) with plenty of extra space.

8. Check For Hardware Issues/Compatibility

If you are still experiencing crashes after all these fixes, you might need to start looking into your hardware. Firstly, if you overclocked any component in your PC, consider undoing it and testing. After that, check for faulty hardware and make sure everything in your PC is working perfectly. Monitor your stats (temperature, CPU/GPU usage, …) while playing CS2. 

If you are seeing high temps and low usage or other inconsistent stats, chances are that the component is faulty and might need a repair or replacement. There’s no ‘general guideline’ for these things since different components have different operating temperatures and so on, so if you’ve arrived at this step it’s best to dig a little deeper into your components’ operating ranges yourself.

Conclusion

Hopefully, after reading this, you will have fixed your problem. Crashes can be very frustrating to deal with, especially during ranked matches. It’s even more annoying when you can’t figure out the reason. By following the steps in this guide, you should be able to solve (or at least diagnose) your problem so that you can game without distractions.

Burair

Content Writer

Burair is a freelance writer for ProSettings.net