CS2 is not launching

[Deadly_Loban]

CS2 is updated and I tried to launch it, it's not working. CS:GO was used to be played normally. Then I deleted CS2 and installed again. Not works. Please, help.

[3mberboi]

If you're on macOS, thats why. My girlfriend and I both just downloaded it, and I can run it fine on my new windows laptop but her mac can't.

[Thepositivetechguy]

Yeah I can't run it on my M2 Mac Mini. I tried downloading it twice and nothing. I'm sure they'll fix it. Hopefully soon.

[dakill]

I'm gonna leave an answer here to help future adventurers who stumble upon this. We don't know if OP is using MacOS, but if you're on Windows, and the problem is that the game simply does not start from steam, and crashes without errors, then come along.

Also, if you run cs2 via the executable file, it will launch the game in insecure mode and will not give you the opportunity to play online, so forget about this option.

People that know nothing about anything usually put out the same noises "update your gpu drivers" "reinstall windows" "verify game files" "reinstall the game". You know, if I am searching the internet for a solution, I probably did some of those already. </rant>

With that out of the way, it seems this is caused by something funky within the Nvidia drivers. Shocking, I know. Because of that, SOMETIMES, upgrading the GPU driver really can help with it.

Some forum posts recommended using the -vulkan launch option, which actually solved the crashes for me, but the game was laggy, low FPS, and stuttering, so it wasn't an option for me. If it works for you, thank the gods.

In my case, I couldn't upgrade the GPU drivers, because I am on the equivalent of Windows 10 LTSB (actually I use Windows Server 2016. fite me) - and new Nvidia drivers are the so-called DCH drivers, which are meant for new builds for Win10 and for Win11 only. The newest "Standard" driver didn't solve the problem.

I was able to forcibly install a DCH driver ( an older version, think it was 535.98 or 531.18, can't remember exactly, the latest ones will fail with "Request not supported" which means that now it DOES use something that's only available on newer Windows' kernels, but if Nvidia wanted, they could make it work on older kernels </rant2>) by modifying INF files (with an utility called NVCleanstall - and you end up without the Nvidia Control Panel), and that worked !! CS2 now launched correctly from Steam BUT BEWARE !!! : as the INF files are modified, the driver signature is now invalid which COULD trigger VAC (as modified video drivers are one of the hacking vectors cheaters use), so I decided on not following with this method.

(Also, on the forum posts about installing DCH drivers on Win10 LTSB, it's staggering the amount of people that do not have a solution and instead just judge OP for not using the latest bloatware ridden version of Windows instead of a fully supported LTSB (or Server) version... if you can't answer the actual question how about not posting? </rant3>)

So, in a desperation, I decided to try multiple versions of the Standard drivers: running DDU to fully uninstall a driver, running the new driver setup EXE through NVCleanstall (not to modify the INF files, but for disabling the bloatware that comes with Nvidia drivers - highly recommend, and does not invalidate the signatures) so that only the plain Video driver was installed, until finding a version where it worked.

You wouldn't believe what solved the problem. DOWNGRADING the GPU driver ! Ended up on version 456.71 (Game Driver, not Studio), and now CS2 is working perfectly for me. I am on a GTX 1070, so the latest and greatest driver is not a must. If you are on a new GPU that the old driver does not support, read on.

And then I decided to make it a mission to post about it on every forum that I went for help in order to help future people. Then, while searching for forum posts to help, I've found a reddit post which suggested the following:

Originally posted by davidalmarinho in the GlobalOffensive subreddit:

This method is intended for those who have lags when entering the -vulkan launch option, although it may work in other cases.
Open Powershell as an administrator and enter the following 2 commands there:
dir "$env:systemroot\system32\driverstore\filerepository\*NvCameraEnable.exe" -rec |% {& "$_" off}
dir "$env:programfiles\nvidia corporation\*NvCameraEnable.exe" -rec |% {& "$_" off}

I didn't check this last method because the problem was already solved for me, but here it is. Maybe it wasn't the driver version, maybe, NVCleanstall removed the NvCamera functionality and that's what solved it, who knows. But here is my quest, hope it helps you solve your problems without resorting to nuking your Windows installation.