Counter-Strike 2 Arrives, Though Curiously Only AMD Has Officially Announced Driver Support

By Aaron Klotz
published

Nvidia and Intel already patched CS2 optimizations into their drivers long ago.

Counter Strike 2
(Image credit: Steam)

Counter-Strike 2 is out, but if you've been paying any attention, you'll notice that AMD is the only one offering an official launch driver for Valve's new tactical shooter. That's right, Nvidia technically has not launched a new Game Ready driver for CS2, even though Nvidia Reflex is already in the game. But don't worry, we know why this is the case.

Back in March of this year, before CS2 was announced, leaks surrounding the CS:GO sequel unexpectedly cropped up from — you guessed it — Nvidia's graphics drivers. X (Twitter) user @gabefollower revealed that Nvidia's February driver update included two new game profiles in the Nvidia Control Panel, including csgos2.exe and cs2.exe. But that's not all; another leak soon afterward revealed that GeForce Experience also had a CS2/CSGO2 profile active all the way back in March.

Now that the game is out, these previous leaks confirm that Nvidia had been developing driver optimizations for CS2 well before the game was even announced. Nvidia and Valve probably partnered up to ensure the game runs well on GeForce hardware and ensure Nvidia Reflex support was implemented on day one.

So the good news is that the last several driver updates already include CS2 optimizations, meaning you shouldn't need to immediately upgrade your GeForce drivers if you want to play the game. Nvidia's recent X (Twitter) posts on Counter-Strike 2 subtly confirm this, recommending the latest game-ready driver for Counter-Strike 2, even though the patch notes for Nvidia's latest driver, version 537.42, make no mention of game-ready support for CS2. But, if you have troubles, it is probably worth upgrading to the latest GeForce driver version, as Nvidia recommends. There could be additional CS2 optimizations that didn't make it into the patch notes.

As stated above, AMD published a new driver update, adding support for Counter-Strike 2 and a couple of other games. The latest version, Adrenalin Edition 23.9.3, supports Counter-Strike 2, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, and PayDay 2. MeanVarianceNormalization (MVN) and Stable Diffusion variant optimizations have also been implemented for users working with AI-accelerated applications.

In addition, while the latest Intel drivers don't indicate game-ready support for CS2 — the current 31.0.101.4826 drivers mention game-ready support for Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Payday 3, Lies of P, and Party Animals — Intel is basically in the same situation as Nvidia. A previous driver release back in June, when CS2 was in beta, added support for the game. Sadly, the current Intel Arc driver downloads page only shows the four most recent drivers instead of listing all prior versions. (We've updated the text here to clarify the Arc situation, after Intel pointed out that CS2 support was added in June.)

Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Freelance News Writer

Aaron Klotz is a freelance writer for Tom’s Hardware US, covering news topics related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

5 Comments Comment from the forums
  • brandonjclark
    It's unfortunate that Valve just hasn't evolved the gameplay in this series one bit.

    With modern gameplay in series like Apex or Call of Duty, the old CS formula is downright boring.

    I ended up uninstalling it just like I did when I saw that CS:GO was the same thing as CS:S.

    Oh well, there ARE other games out there.
    Reply
  • azalea_k
    Lifted directly off the driver download page:

    "This is also the Game Ready Driver for Counter-Strike 2 with NVIDIA Reflex."
    Reply
  • Corvii
    brandonjclark said:
    It's unfortunate that Valve just hasn't evolved the gameplay in this series one bit.

    With modern gameplay in series like Apex or Call of Duty, the old CS formula is downright boring.

    I ended up uninstalling it just like I did when I saw that CS:GO was the same thing as CS:S.

    Oh well, there ARE other games out there.
    There is no need to fix what ain't broken, the game has been constantly growing and will continue growing further with the release of CS2.

    They don't need to change the game's core mechanics to evolve it. The new smokes, MR12, maps, and the engine itself are more than enough to change the meta of the game completely.

    There is no point in comparing it to Apex, COD, those are completely different games.
    Reply
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    Text has been updated to properly reflex the prior "game ready" status of both Nvidia and Intel drivers. We knew about Nvidia having had support since March. The current driver page has also been updated to mention CS2. (I swear that wasn't there yesterday afternoon, though we could have missed it.) Intel let us know drivers added support for the beta CS2 back in June — not that there's any good way to find those drivers now, AFAICT.
    Reply
  • azalea_k
    JarredWaltonGPU said:
    Text has been updated to properly reflex the prior "game ready" status of both Nvidia and Intel drivers. We knew about Nvidia having had support since March. The current driver page has also been updated to mention CS2. (I swear that wasn't there yesterday afternoon, though we could have missed it.) Intel let us know drivers added support for the beta CS2 back in June — not that there's any good way to find those drivers now, AFAICT.

    I think you're right, particularly referring to the notes; I seem to remember CS2 being mentioned on the download page, though, when I got drivers for Phantom Liberty, the day after they were released.

    They seem to be at great pains to highlight their game readiness in the notes now, though, possibly prompted by articles like this.
    Reply