CS2 2026: VAC Live is completely dead, optimization is broken, cheaters everywhere — Valve, where are you?

[Road to 20 IQ]

Hello everyone!

It’s been almost three years since CS2 released, and the game is still in a very rough state.

1. Optimization is a complete disaster
My setup:
RTX 2060 Super
Ryzen 5 3500X
16 GB DDR4-3200
Samsung 970 Pro 1TB SSD
240 Hz monitor
Graphics settings are on low/medium.

Throwing a Molotov + Smoke causes FPS to drop from ~120 to 15-20 on any map. If you look at the molotov through scope, the drop becomes even worse.
On maps like Ancient, Cache and many others, FPS often stays at 50-70 even without utility. Every new round causes additional stutters due to map streaming.
In Practice Mode there are almost no such issues. The problem appears only in real matches. For a competitive FPS, dropping to 15-20 FPS is unacceptable.

2. VAC Live and Cheaters — The anticheat is dead
VAC Live doesn’t work at all.
I have never seen the “Match canceled” message.
Deathmatch is a bot farm: constant spinbots doing 360° and headshotting everyone.
Regular Matchmaking is full of HVH (hacker vs hacker) games.
Premier is a bit better, but cheaters are still very common.
Private cheats are running wild. There is basically no real-time anticheat.

3. Hitreg and Sub-tick
Hit registration is still worse than it was in CS:GO. Shots often don’t register properly, especially during aggressive peeks and sprays. Peeker’s advantage feels extremely strong.
Valve keeps releasing new skins and cases, but they clearly don’t pay enough attention to optimization, anticheat and core shooting mechanics.

Questions to the community:
Please answer honestly:

What’s your hardware? (CPU + GPU)

How often do you encounter cheaters in DM, Matchmaking and Premier?

Have you ever seen a VAC Live match cancellation?

How bad is the FPS drop when throwing molotov + smoke?

I want to see the real picture from actual players. Maybe if enough people speak up, Valve will finally focus on what actually breaks the game.
Right now CS2 feels worse than CS:GO did in its final years in many aspects. This is no longer acceptable.

Thanks to everyone who supports the thread and shares their experience.

[Frey]

1) I use 5090/9800x3d 540fps constant at 1280x960 with any condition, particulary when "optimise" my PC and windows
2) I pay faceit preimum with 99% clean matches
3) the faceit premier servers are the best, I make HS constantly, with faceit premium servers, I have a short delay feeling and some hits are not registered.

[colours (⌐■_■)]

Originally posted by Nesquik (Milk-Mix):

What’s your hardware? (CPU + GPU)

5600x/6600xt

Originally posted by Nesquik (Milk-Mix):

How often do you encounter cheaters in DM, Matchmaking and Premier?

Every fourth or fifth game is clean, mostly just closet wallers. Sometimes you end up with 3 or more cheaters on a team, or both teams.

Originally posted by Nesquik (Milk-Mix):

Have you ever seen a VAC Live match cancellation?

Once or twice in three years.

Originally posted by Nesquik (Milk-Mix):

How bad is the FPS drop when throwing molotov + smoke?

I don't get FPS drops from this.

[ꋊꄲ꓄ⓒ]

Originally posted by Frey:

1) I use 5090/9800x3d 540fps constant at 1280x960 with any condition, particulary when "optimise" my PC and windows
2) I pay faceit preimum with 99% clean matches
3) the faceit premier servers are the best, I make HS constantly, with faceit premium servers, I have a short delay feeling and some hits are not registered.

No EXP, you don't earn service medals.
Subtick actually ruins players shots unless their mouse is kept perfectly still when firing (strafing only), something about moving your mouse absolutely ♥♥♥♥♥ hit reg since CS2.
Faceit doesn't use subtick, they use 128 tick which is what subtick is trying to be the budget version of (and doing a piss poor job of).
Faceit premium no longer has live moderators, people in the lower ranks constantly try to sell you hacks and you see the exact same tells in the guys selling hacks that you do in the "high ranked" players on faceit who are not being banned. The cheating problem isnt exactly "better", it's simply more polite so they do not get caught. Experience wise, yeah it's generally better but it's not better than LAN and you are paying for a service that no longer takes moderating as seriously as they used to.
The average ban for the low ranked accounts selling and advertising hacks publicly was around 2 weeks with active chat spamming, and cheating in matches.
It greatly depends on the region you are playing in, in Western countries it is a garbage experience. In some eastern countries its the best gameplay ever.
Also FaceIt blocks most MSI high grade builds from playing on their servers now, something about flagged or uncommon drivers not being allowed.

[Gabbor]

Originally posted by Nesquik (Milk-Mix):

Throwing a Molotov + Smoke causes FPS to drop from ~120 to 15-20 on any map.

I'm running the game on a 1060, 1333mhz RAM and an i5-3570k and this doesn't happen to me. Maybe do a RAM test or something.

[Mr. Rubber Ducky]

I don't have those FPS drops, in fact my game runs on stable 75fps all the time. I have a bit jacked up setup though compared to yours but it shouldn't be that bad on a 2060s, I've played on that GPU for a bit myself when CS2 released.

[RawButt135]

Turn off msaa 8x bro

[grain]

Originally posted by ꋊꄲ꓄ⓒ:

Originally posted by Frey:

1) I use 5090/9800x3d 540fps constant at 1280x960 with any condition, particulary when "optimise" my PC and windows
2) I pay faceit preimum with 99% clean matches
3) the faceit premier servers are the best, I make HS constantly, with faceit premium servers, I have a short delay feeling and some hits are not registered.

No EXP, you don't earn service medals.
Subtick actually ruins players shots unless their mouse is kept perfectly still when firing (strafing only), something about moving your mouse absolutely ♥♥♥♥♥ hit reg since CS2.
Faceit doesn't use subtick, they use 128 tick which is what subtick is trying to be the budget version of (and doing a piss poor job of).
Faceit premium no longer has live moderators, people in the lower ranks constantly try to sell you hacks and you see the exact same tells in the guys selling hacks that you do in the "high ranked" players on faceit who are not being banned. The cheating problem isnt exactly "better", it's simply more polite so they do not get caught. Experience wise, yeah it's generally better but it's not better than LAN and you are paying for a service that no longer takes moderating as seriously as they used to.
The average ban for the low ranked accounts selling and advertising hacks publicly was around 2 weeks with active chat spamming, and cheating in matches.
It greatly depends on the region you are playing in, in Western countries it is a garbage experience. In some eastern countries its the best gameplay ever.
Also FaceIt blocks most MSI high grade builds from playing on their servers now, something about flagged or uncommon drivers not being allowed.

Sounds like a skill issue to me

[Aweratter]

good discussion

[Middle Eastern male]

Originally posted by Nesquik (Milk-Mix):

What’s your hardware? (CPU + GPU)

13700K, 5070 Ti and 32GB DDR5

Originally posted by Nesquik (Milk-Mix):

How often do you encounter cheaters in DM, Matchmaking and Premier?

DM is filled with farm bots, not "cheaters". Premier is pretty bad. It's all new accounts with better stats than all pro players combined.

Originally posted by Nesquik (Milk-Mix):

Have you ever seen a VAC Live match cancellation?

I wish.

Originally posted by Nesquik (Milk-Mix):

How bad is the FPS drop when throwing molotov + smoke?

Not noticeable beacuse my avg fps is around 700-750 if I uncap it. 1% lows are around 240-270 depending on the map and what's happening. I've set fps_max 300 and this way I get basically no bad fluctuations and the game feels smooth and consistent.

[Mood]

I have lower specs than you don't don't have any fps drops. the game is choppy even when running at 150fps but those drops are on your side bud