Retina MacBook Pro OS X FPS Settings Guide with Screenshots Walkthrough for CSGO

Detailed graphics settings (with screenshots!) of every Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO) Video Settings options on a Retina MacBook Pro running OS X 10.9. Biggest surprise: most of the settings DO NOTHING to change the fidelity and the FPS?!

Introduction

After scouring the web for over half a day, I wasn't able to find a definitive listing with screenshot examples of every advanced graphics setting in CSGO so I went ahead and made one on my own.

I'm on the 2012 Retina MacBook Pro with 2.6 GHz i7, 16GB DDR3, GeForce GT 650M, 256GB SSD, OS X 10.9 for reference.

tl;dr: The majority of options have NO EFFECT on visual fidelity or FPS on the Mac as of this writing. No idea if this is also true for Windows machines (but I doubt it.) Read on to figure out the ideal changes to make under OS X.

Hopefully this guide will be useful for those with questions about the specific changes each graphics option makes. If anyone's interested, I could re-do these tests on Windows 8.1 and expand upon why some decisions were made. Hit me up in the comments or on Twitter @MechMykl.

Global Shadow Quality

Recommended Setting: Very Low

Testing all of the different options for Global Shadow Quality on Mac OS X shows NO DISCERNIBLE DIFFERENCE in either fidelity or FPS.

.
Very Low Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

.
Low Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

.
Medium Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

.
High Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

Model / Texture Detail

Recommended Setting: Medium

The change between Low and Medium actually makes a difference in the graphical fidelity of the game, and has a marginal impact on the FPS. Look at the ground near the CT to see the largest difference. Strangely, switching from Medium to High does nothing.

.
Low Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

.
Medium Fidelity / FPS: Improvement!

.
High Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

Effect Detail

Recommended Setting: High

It was difficult to figure out exactly what counted as "effects" in the game engine, so I tried some screenshots of an exploding grenade. Looks like another setting that doesn't change anything on Mac OS X.

.
Low Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

.
Medium Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

.
High Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

Shader Detail

Recommended Setting: High

From what I can tell, this setting makes the most difference in the overall graphic fidelity of the game. Interestingly enough, the only change here that makes a difference on Mac OS X is from Low to High: the other modes don't do anything.

.
Low Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

.
Medium Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

.
High Fidelity / FPS: Improvement!

.
Very High Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

Multicore Rendering

Recommended Setting: Enabled

This setting probably only takes effect on game relaunch, but for the sake of keeping everything under the same conditions it was just switched in-game.

.
Disabled Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

.
Enabled Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

Multisample Anti-Aliasing (MSAA)

Recommended Setting: 2x MSAA

I was surprised by this setting. If the graphics card supports it, why doesn't the game/driver/config? I chose the machine gun since it'd be higher-poly (and therefore display more jaggies).

.
Off Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

.
2x Fidelity / FPS: Improvement!

.
4x Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

.
8x Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

Full-Screen Anti-Aliasing (FSAA)

Recommended Setting: Enabled

Testing all of the different options for Global Shadow Quality on Mac OS X shows NO DISCERNIBLE DIFFERENCE in either fidelity or FPS.

.
Disabled Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

.
Enabled Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

Texture Filtering Mode

Recommended Setting: Trilinear

Testing all of the different options for Global Shadow Quality on Mac OS X shows NO DISCERNIBLE DIFFERENCE in either fidelity or FPS.

.
Bilinear Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

.
Trilinear Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

.
Anisotropic 2x Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

.
Anisotropic 4x Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

.
Anisotropic 8x Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

.
Anisotropic 16x Fidelity / FPS: Unchanged

Best Settings for FPS / Visuals

With these settings I wanted to get the right balance between visual fidelity and high FPS:

• 1920x1080 full-screen resolution
  
• Global Shadow Quality: Very Low
  
• Model / Texture Detail: Medium
  
• Effect Detail: High
  
• Shader Detail: High
  
• Multicore Rendering: Enabled
  
• Multisampling Anti-Aliasing Mode: 2x MSAA
  
• FXAA Anti-Aliasing: Enabled
  
• Texture Filtering Mode: Trilinear
  
• Wait for Vertical Sync: Disabled
  
• Motion Blur: Disabled

Average FPS: 70-110


.
Hopefully this guide will be useful for those with questions about the specific changes each graphics option makes. If anyone's interested, I could re-do these tests on Windows 8.1 and expand upon why some decisions were made. Hit me up in the comments or on Twitter @MechMykl.

[[toj.cc]MechMykl]

@Laisenberg Yep, still following, and I'm having the exact same performance degradation you're seeing. In the years since I posted this, some combination of Apple's updates / Valve's neglect of macOS has led to me experiencing ~30fps with all settings on lowest while running 1920x1080. It's abysmal, and my hope that the latest rMBP refresh would save us was dashed earlier this year. I'm planning to revise this guide with updated stats sometime in the future.

[Laisenberg]

idk if you are still following this, but I have been getting shit fps even on low settings. I have the same macbook as yours. The get around 80 fps on the lowest setting, with 1280x1024. It has been bad ever since they added shadow. i have tried everything and none of them works for me. I can play league on high setting at 1080p so I think my macbook is fine.

[[toj.cc]MechMykl]

@yung_sack Huh. Never heard of that issue happening before. I'd delete the game files and reinstall, or try to set the HD resolution on another game to rule out that variable. Let me know what you find!

[yung_sack]

Hey there, going through your guide and it's extremely helpful but I'm having trouble with the resolution. Any time I try to get the game in a 1920x1080 resolution either in console or launch properties it puts my into 4:3 resolution 800x600 or it just doesn't work. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[[toj.cc]MechMykl]

@Bonkay Make sure that CS:Go didn't reset your custom settings with one of the recent updates-- you don't want the visuals configed to Auto. I've got an autoexec.cfg that I use that further boosts 10-20 fps if you're comfortable setting that up?

[mikeW]

I need help I lowered my setting completely and I'm getting 35FPS and I am MacBook Pro with i7 help me what could be interfering?

[Furakae]

Thanks for sharing, I'll try your settings right now and see how it works.

[[toj.cc]MechMykl]

@Melksedek Mac OS X handles the switch between integrated and dedicated graphics, but there may be a way to force dedicated to always run in Terminal. Make sure you’re running the latest version of your OS.

@Bonbo I get insane frame rates on Source as well, mostly because the older engine doesn’t have nearly as many shaders or effects. I actually feel like my frame rate has degraded in recent OS X updates, so I’m going to re-do this guide now that El Capitan is out.

@akotlar Do you see frame rates dropping in large fire fights? That’s definitely normal, but if it’s happening randomly (while walking around the level for example) then you’ll have to drop fidelity.

[ganjapeek Xd]

@Melksedek same problem here.. i was hoping to find a solution here :/

[trap]

So for some strange reason putting laptop power saving mode on for me makes my VAR drop a ton which helps and then I just put fps_max 129 and I run 100+ fps with around .3 VAR