Visual Delay or Ghosting in CS2 Despite High FPS

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resla
Posts: 1
Joined: 07 Jun 2025, 03:59

Visual Delay or Ghosting in CS2 Despite High FPS

Post by resla » 07 Jun 2025, 04:15

I have an LG UltraGear 144Hz monitor and I mostly play CS2. My hardware includes a GTX 1650 and an Intel i5-10400F. I know my GPU is quite weak compared to today’s standards, but I still get around 200 FPS in CS2, which sounds good enough. However, lately, I’ve been dealing with an issue that’s really bothering me, and I’m not exactly sure what's causing it.
I usually keep G-Sync enabled because it feels much better that way. When I turn it off, the game feels way too fast and inconsistent. I also prefer using GPU scaling over display scaling because, for some reason, it makes movements on the screen feel more traceable or easier to follow. I don’t know how to explain it exactly, but I simply like using GPU scaling.
The problem is, lately the visuals on screen feel extremely inconsistent. It’s as if there’s ghosting or some sort of blur. Enemies move unrealistically fast in-game, and I can't figure out what's causing this. I really hope it’s not my monitor. The game feels terrible to play, and I’m also experiencing input lag. I honestly don’t know what to do anymore.
What confuses me the most is how other people can have such a smooth experience at 200 FPS, while for me it feels completely off. I’ve updated my NVIDIA drivers and optimized CS2 using the GeForce Experience app, but that actually made things worse — my mouse became overly sensitive, and everything on my screen moves so fast it’s barely noticeable. It’s incredibly frustrating, like there’s a synchronization problem. This never used to happen before.
I’m sorry for my English, and I know this might sound like a silly problem. Maybe it’s just due to my hardware, I’m really not sure I don’t know much about these kinds of things.

n1ghtik
Posts: 31
Joined: 26 May 2020, 14:03

Re: Visual Delay or Ghosting in CS2 Despite High FPS

Post by n1ghtik » 07 Jun 2025, 12:13

provide your sys_info console log

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kyube
Posts: 587
Joined: 29 Jan 2018, 12:03

Re: Visual Delay or Ghosting in CS2 Despite High FPS

Post by kyube » 08 Jun 2025, 17:01

resla wrote:
07 Jun 2025, 04:15
I have an LG UltraGear 144Hz monitor and I mostly play CS2.
My hardware:
GTX 1650
Intel i5-10400F.
...I still get around 200 FPS in CS2, which sounds good enough.
FPS is not a good metric to evaluate objective real life performance of a game.
Always treat these problems as latency (time-domain) problems.
You could be severely GPU limited (which I'm 95% sure you are), which can be shown using PresentMon's GPUTime metric.
As you've very likely noticed, you have a severe performance bottleneck (big GPU limit & insufficient CPU performance)

resla wrote:
07 Jun 2025, 04:15
However, lately, I’ve been dealing with an issue that’s really bothering me, and I’m not exactly sure what's causing it.
I usually keep G-Sync enabled because it feels much better that way.
When I turn it off, the game feels way too fast and inconsistent.
I also prefer using GPU scaling over display scaling because, for some reason, it makes movements on the screen feel more traceable or easier to follow.
I don’t know how to explain it exactly, but I simply like using GPU scaling.
The problem is, lately the visuals on screen feel extremely inconsistent. It’s as if there’s ghosting or some sort of blur. Enemies move unrealistically fast in-game, and I can't figure out what's causing this. I really hope it’s not my monitor. The game feels terrible to play, and I’m also experiencing input lag. I honestly don’t know what to do anymore.
G-sync does not work if your FPS is outside your display's refresh rate, which in your case would be >144fps.
With how terrible CS2's frame limiter is, you'd have to cap 5–10% (130–136fps) from your refresh rate of choice (144hz) to have a usable G-sync experience.

The other solution is:
fps_max 288, refresh rate set to 144hz, VRR off, Reflex enabled

Considering that you're no-where near those FPS values, the 1st option is the only choice in which you eliminate "tearing" (time-domain mismatch of outputted game & refresh rate)

resla wrote:
07 Jun 2025, 04:15
What confuses me the most is how other people can have such a smooth experience at 200 FPS, while for me it feels completely off. I’ve updated my NVIDIA drivers and optimized CS2 using the GeForce Experience app, but that actually made things worse — my mouse became overly sensitive, and everything on my screen moves so fast it’s barely noticeable. It’s incredibly frustrating, like there’s a synchronization problem. This never used to happen before.
You seem to be having unnecessary background application SW taking up precious CPU cycles.
Could you list out your entire HW (ram, ssd, psu, peripherals) & SW stack (windows version, how you set up windows, which drivers & software you install post-installation)?

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