CS2 player takes Aleksib’s advice, finds CS:GO was smoother and faster

Ever since its launch, Counter-Strike 2 has been incessantly compared to its predecessor, CS:GO, especially in terms of server performance and responsiveness. Aleksib, a CS2 pro, called on players to return to the old game to see just how good it was. One fan did and had interesting findings.

In a thread shared yesterday, Sept. 7, a Reddit user showcased how quickly the game reacts to headshots in a locally hosted server. CS2 took about 19 frames to register the shot and show blood and about 31 frames to register the kill, whereas CS:GO did the same a whole lot quicker, registering the shot on the first frame and starting to display the kill only eight frames in.

However, it turned out this wasn’t exactly an apples-to-oranges comparison since CS2‘s locally hosted servers function quite differently from those in CS:GO. For a more accurate measurement, the player had to enable the so-called “fake lag” setting in Global Offensive, which would make its hosted servers behave similarly to the way they do now in CS2. Even so, CS:GO was an entire 18 milliseconds faster than its older brother, which was supposed to be all-new and improved courtesy of its Source 2 engine base.

The user further claimed in the replies below that the subtick networking function introduced in CS2 shouldn’t be the culprit behind these apparent delays and slowdowns in networking, making the precise reason still unclear. Valve hasn’t commented much on either player or community comments regarding performance since launch, and there have been plenty of those, but has continuously mentioned “networking improvements” in patch notes whose effect is equally unclear.

One thing is certain and crystal clear, though: CS:GO was faster and more responsive, at least when on equal terms in locally hosted servers, but I’d wager it holds up over the current iteration in live matches especially well.