To set up CS2 for yourself, work through four steps: choose which hand holds the weapon, turn off mouse acceleration, tune your sensitivity (general and scoped) and rebind the keys you need, for example jump to the mouse wheel. Most of these options live in the settings menu, and the rest are set with console commands. Below we go through each step and point out what changed compared with CS:GO.
Setting up hands in CS2
When the CS2 beta started in 2023, there was no way to switch the weapon from the right hand to the left, and rumors spread that Valve would never bring the option back. The most common explanation was that the player model now casts a shadow and has visible legs.
Those fears turned out to be wrong: in late April 2024 Valve brought the hand switch back. You can now pick the left hand in the game settings (the preferred viewmodel hand option) or with the command cl_righthand 0, while 1 returns the right hand. The step-by-step version is in our guide on how to switch to the left hand in CS2, and the position of the weapon model on screen is adjusted with the viewmodel commands covered in how to set up hands in CS2.
Why the left hand was missing at first
While the option was absent, players pointed to two main reasons:
The new volumetric smokes.
The amount of animation work.
Besides the graphics upgrade, Valve reworked smoke grenades: in CS2 you can shoot through them, and bullets and explosions push the cloud apart. Switching hands also switches the side from which the barrel interacts with the smoke, so the developers had to check bullet paths and cloud behavior for both variants.
The second reason is animation. In earlier versions of Counter-Strike, switching hands simply mirrored the model. It didn't look perfect, but it cost nothing in performance. With the far more detailed CS2 models, plain mirroring would look worse, so the rework took time.
Setting up the mouse (part 1)
For your crosshair to behave predictably, the mouse has to be set up properly. Start with two functions:
Acceleration.
Sensitivity.
Acceleration is software speed-up of the pointer: the faster you move the mouse, the farther the pointer travels. With acceleration on, the same hand movement gives different results, so it is best turned off for shooting. It feels unusual at first, but full control over your aim is worth it.
To turn it off in Windows, open Control Panel, choose Mouse and go to the Pointer Options tab. Uncheck "Enhance pointer precision" (it is on by default) and click OK.
Setting up the mouse (part 2)
CS2 reads mouse movement directly (raw input), so Windows acceleration does not affect your aim inside the game. It is still worth disabling in Windows so the mouse behaves the same on the desktop and in the game.
In CS:GO, players added -noforcemparms -noforcemaccel -noforcemspd to the launch options for the same purpose. Those are CS:GO-era settings and CS2 does not need them.
Now to sensitivity. The Windows pointer speed does not change your sensitivity in CS2: the final crosshair speed depends on your mouse DPI and the in-game sensitivity value. Their product is called eDPI, and it is the number to compare with other players' settings: a player on 800 DPI with sensitivity 1.25 and a player on 400 DPI with sensitivity 2.5 both have an eDPI of 1000 and turn at the same speed. The higher your DPI, the lower the sensitivity value you need for the same turn speed.
Setting up the mouse (part 3)
Sensitivity in CS2 can be set in the Keyboard and Mouse menu or through the console. The main commands are:
sensitivity. Overall in-game mouse sensitivity, for example sensitivity "1.5". Pick a value that lets you turn about 180 degrees in one sweep across the mouse pad.
zoom_sensitivity_ratio. Scoped sensitivity relative to the main one. A value of 1 keeps it the same; lower values slow the crosshair down when zoomed, which helps some players aim more precisely with a sniper rifle.
m_yaw. Horizontal (X-axis) sensitivity factor, 0.022 by default.
m_pitch. Vertical (Y-axis) sensitivity factor, also 0.022 by default. Change m_yaw and m_pitch only if you deliberately want different speeds on the two axes; most players leave the defaults.
Once you find your values, save them in a config: see how to install a config in CS2, and find more useful commands in our list of CS2 console commands.
Setting up the crosshair
Once the mouse is done, move on to the crosshair. In CS2 you change it in the game settings: size, thickness, center gap, color, outline and the center dot. The same menu lets you import a ready-made crosshair code, for example one copied from a pro player, and see the result right away. Every parameter is explained in our guide on how to create a crosshair in CS2. Spend a few minutes on an offline map with bots before taking a new crosshair into a ranked match, since even a small change in gap or thickness takes some getting used to.
Binding jump to the mouse wheel
Some players jump with the mouse wheel instead of the Space bar. You can set this up in two ways: through the game settings or through the console.
In the settings, open Keyboard and Mouse, then Movement, find Jump and assign the mouse wheel scroll to it.
In the console, use bind "mwheeldown" "+jump" (jump on scrolling down) or bind "mwheelup" "+jump" (jump on scrolling up). You can use both at once.
Useful tips
Setting up CS2 properly is not only about changing options in Windows and in the game, but also about choosing a reliable mouse. Perfect settings won't help if the buttons only register every other click.
First, don't chase the most expensive mouse. Its price usually includes the brand and the advertising, and mid-range models are often just as good as the flagships.
Second, don't play without a mouse pad. The mouse glides more evenly on it, so the crosshair moves more precisely and the sensor loses tracking less often.
Third, keep a record of all the commands and settings you use in a text file, with a copy on a flash drive or in the cloud. After reinstalling your system you can then set up CS2 again in minutes. On a weaker PC, our CS2 settings for low-end computers will also help.
