Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) is a competitive FPS where high frame rates are essential. Your OBS settings need to balance stream quality with minimal performance impact.
Recommended Settings
Twitch
- 1080p 60fps: 5,500–6,000 Kbps, NVENC (New), Preset P5
- 720p 60fps: 4,000–4,500 Kbps
YouTube Live
- 1080p 60fps: 8,000–10,000 Kbps
- 1440p 60fps: 12,000–15,000 Kbps
CS2 Compression Characteristics
CS2 has moderate compression complexity. The Source 2 engine produces clean visuals with good anti-aliasing, but smoke grenades and flashbangs create temporary spikes in scene complexity.
At 5,500–6,000 Kbps on Twitch, 1080p 60fps looks sharp. CS2's relatively static environments (compared to battle royales) compress efficiently between action moments.
Encoder Settings
NVENC
- Rate Control: CBR
- Bitrate: 6,000 Kbps (Twitch) / 8,000–10,000 Kbps (YouTube)
- Preset: P5 (Slow)
- Profile: High
- B-frames: 2
x264
- Preset: Fast or Faster (CS2 is CPU-intensive)
- Profile: High
In-Game Settings
For competitive CS2, prioritize FPS over visual quality:
- Global Shadow Quality: Medium
- Model/Texture Detail: Medium or High
- Shader Detail: Medium
- Particle Detail: Low
- Ambient Occlusion: Off
- High Dynamic Range: Performance
- FidelityFX Super Resolution: Off (adds blur)
- MSAA: 4x or 8x (helps stream quality by reducing aliasing)
- Texture Filtering: Bilinear (minimal FPS impact)
- Motion Blur: Off
Performance Tips
1. CS2 is CPU-bound — use NVENC to keep CPU free for the game
2. Cap FPS at 300 or your monitor refresh rate
3. Use `-high` launch option for higher process priority
4. Disable Steam overlay
5. Set OBS to Game Capture mode
Quick Reference
| Platform | Resolution | FPS | Bitrate | Encoder |
| Twitch | 1080p | 60 | 5,500–6,000 Kbps | NVENC P5 |
| Twitch | 720p | 60 | 4,000–4,500 Kbps | NVENC P5 |
| YouTube | 1080p | 60 | 8,000–10,000 Kbps | NVENC P5 |
| Kick | 1080p | 60 | 6,500–7,000 Kbps | NVENC P5 |