CS2 Demos l How to download and watch

Demo recordings, aka demos, are an important part of every player who wants to progress not only by improving their shooting, but also by gaining knowledge.
We watch our demos to find out the mistakes that caused us to lose rounds or whole games, so that we can avoid them in the future. Watching the demos of professional players you can see how people whose skills are close to perfect : move, position crosshair, play clutches, pick to opponent, play a particular position. Official matches are a collection of useful grenades, chips, and tactics that can be adopted for use in your own games.
However, not everyone knows how to find, download and run demos. This guide is designed to help you figure that out.

Contents of the manual

• Preparing for viewing
  
• Installing demo recordings from different resources
  
• Unzipping a file
  
• Enabling a demo
  
• Binds and console commands

Preparing to View

Archiver

The first thing we need is an archiver to convert the installed file into dem format.
It is enough to download one of the most popular variants 7-Zip[www.7-zip.org] or Winrar [www.win-rar.com]

Folder for demos

All our demos will be stored in the folder located at this path My computer -> Local disk (C:) -> Program Files (X86) -> Steam -> steamapps -> common -> Counter-Strike Global Offensive -> game -> csgo

Install demos from different resources

Classic Games (Competitive and Premier Mode)

Open Steam -> My Profile -> Games -> On the Counter-Strike 2 tab select "My Game Stats" -> Personal Stats -> Ranked Competitive Mode / Premier Matches -> Select the desired match and click "Download Record".

Faceit

Open Faceit -> My Profile -> Stats -> Scroll down and find the list of all your games -> Click on the desired match -> In the "Overview" tab click on "Download demo"

To install another player's demo, do the same thing, but open not your personal profile, but the one whose game you want to watch.

HLTV

Open HLTV [www.hltv.org]-> Events -> Archive -> Use filters to find the tournament where the desired match took place -> In the "Results" tab select the match and open it -> In the right column click "Demo sponsored by...".

Unzip File

After installing the demo file - it needs to be converted to dem format. Open the archiver -> Find the file and click "Extract" -> Extract to csgo folder.

For convenience, before extracting the file - rename it to make the demo easier to find, for example "Inferno1"

Enabling demo recording

Go to the game and open the developer console with the "~" key -> Write in the console playdemo Inferno1 (Or the name you made) -> press enter.

If you don't have the developer console enabled for some reason, then open Settings -> Game -> In the first line "Enable developer console" select "Yes"

The demo control panel is enabled by Shift+F2 key combination (FN+Shift+F2 on laptops).

To select the player you want to watch - close the control panel and press the number of the desired player from 1 to 0[//code]

Binds and console commands

Binds are not necessary, the in-game control panel may be enough for you.
If you want to use binds, you will need to download Notepad++[notepad-plus-plus.org] or its analog to work with CFG files, as well as create a separate configuration file for demo recordings.

To create a file we open a folder located on the path My computer -> Local disk (C:) -> Program Files (X86) -> Steam -> steamapps -> common -> Counter-Strike Global Offensive -> game -> csgo -> cfg copy any CFG file and paste it into the same folder

Also change the name of the file to a convenient one, for example "config".
Then using Notepad++ open this file and delete everything in it, replacing them with these:

bind "J" "demo_gototick -320 relative"
 
bind "K" "+ffw20"
alias "+ffw20" "demo_timescale 20"
alias "-ffw20" "demo_timescale 1"
 
bind "L" "+ffw50"
alias "+ffw50" "demo_timescale 50"
alias "-ffw50" "demo_timescale 1"
 
bind "I" demo_togglepause

bind "P" demoui
 
bind "O" "toggle spec_show_xray"

What these binds do :
The "J" key takes us 5 seconds back in time
The "K" key speeds up the demo by 20 times as long as we hold it down.
The "L" key speeds up the demo by 50 times as long as we hold it down.
The "I" key pauses the demo.
The "O" key opens and closes the console so that you don't have to use Shift+F2 key combination every time
The "P" key turns on and off X-ray (backlighting of players).

You can replace the keys to your convenience, here are the ones I use.

To run our config - write in the developer console -> exec config (If you have named it differently, do not write "config", but your name).

Conclusion

I hope this guide has helped you to understand how demo recordings are organized.
I can only advise you one thing - do not watch games where you made 30+ kills in the main time or won with the score 13-2, there is nothing to watch in them.
In order to learn from your own mistakes - watch games where you lost most duels and often made wrong decisions.

If you still have any questions - you can write them in the comments and I will try to answer them all. GLHF

[KYKYSHONOK]

Most likely, you tried to do this through the steam application, errors often occur in it. Try to download the match using the browser

[calimar]

i've been trying to download a prem match, but whenever i try and download it, it just doesn't do anything, ive restarted so idk what the problem is

[KYKYSHONOK]

Hey. Read more carefully the point about HLTV - you can find any match from the professional scene on this site.
On the Archive [www.hltv.org] page you can find any tournament that has already ended. And select the desired match there
On the Results [www.hltv.org] page it is easier to find a match that ended today or a few days ago
If you are looking for a team or a player, but you don't know when the match you need took place - just use the search on the site

[Qeunzy]

hey did you know how to download any pros demos? im trying find demos from pro match but cant find it?

[KYKYSHONOK]

Open folder with your demo file and press to demo file shift+right mouse button . Select "Copy as a path" and try start demo again.

[F1end]

everytime i try this i get a message on the console saying: invalid pBuffer
couold not extract addons from files

[KYKYSHONOK]

It's good that you were able to resolve your issue :)

[fellah]

i found the fix :D

[KYKYSHONOK]

I'm afraid I can't help you with that question, as this is a portal unknown to me. I can only advise you to open the match you want to download on this portal and look for a tab like "Download demo", "Download replay", "Game replay", something like that

[fellah]

HOW TO OPEN .DEM FROM ESPORTAL?