Step-by-Step Guide: How to Play CS:GO on Your Mac!

9 months ago 174

CS:GO is one of the most classic esports shooter games there is. And although Mac is far not the best platform to game on, it is possible to play and enjoy CS:GO on it. The latest M1 Pro MacBooks have actually pretty decent hardware to allow games like CS:GO to play at a stable 100 fps.

The game can be easily played through Steam or by using a cloud gaming service. The choice depends on the model of your Mac and how good your internet connection is.

How to Play CS:GO on a Mac

Many games are Windows exclusive. That means you have to use a third-party tool to launch those games on Mac. CS:GO, however, is a game that you can play natively on Mac without any additional steps.

To play CS:GO on Mac:

  1. Download and install Steam
  2. Launch Steam
  3. Create a new account or log in to the existing one
  4. In Steam, head to the “Store”
  5. Search for “csgo” in the search bar
  6. Open the game’s page and press “Play Game”
GO Steam store page to play the game on MacCS:GO Steam store page

Steam will now ask you to select a path to install the game to. Select a folder you want and wait until the download is finished. This usually takes around 20 minutes. After that launch CS:GO from your Library and wait while it prepares for the first-time launch. After that you can freely play CS:GO on your Mac

In a case of a bug that it does not launch properly, add the following commands in the game’s launch options: -w 800 -h 600 -refresh 60. This will mess up the resolution but you can freely change it in the settings. This usually happens if you play using MacBook’s native screen rather than an external monitor.

How to Play CS:GO Using a Cloud Gaming Service

Another way you can play CS:GO on your Mac to escape hardware limitations is by using a cloud gaming service like GeForce Now. We will talk about GeForce Now as it’s the most popular cloud gaming service but there are many more out there if you want something else.

All you need is your game, stable internet, and a valid subscription plan, free or paid. GeForce Now offers three plans, but for CS:GO, a free one will do just nicely.

GO on Mac

Free - 0$/month
Priority - 9.99$/month
Ultimate - 19.99$/monthNvidia GeForce NOW cloud gaming subscription plans

It does say “1-Hour Session Length” but you are not limited to how many sessions a day to play. It just means you will have to relaunch the game every hour. And in case you play Competitive, we recommend relaunching after every match.

CS:GO Mac Benchmarks

How well CS:GO will run on your Mac depends entirely on your laptop’s model and whether you have a MacBook Pro or Air (unless you are playing on an actual Mac PC).

Either way, these are the official CS:GO system requirements for MacOS:

  • OS: MacOS X 10.11 (El Capitan) or later
  • Processor: Intel Core Duo Processor (2GHz or better)
  • Memory: 2 GB RAM
  • Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 2400 or better / NVIDIA 8600M or better
  • Storage: 15 GB available space

The system requirements are old and do not include the latest M1/M2 chips developed by Apple, but we can assure you that they work just fine on the latest MacBooks.

Here are a few benchmarks by Mac Gamer HQ on 2020/2021 MacBooks to give you a general understanding of what to expect from your apple when playing CS:GO:

  • M1 Max MacBook Pro 16-inch (2021), 32 GB: 100+ fps (Medium settings, 1920×1080)
  • M1 Pro MacBook Pro 14-inch (2021), 16 GB: 80+ fps (Medium settings, 3024×1964)
  • M1 MacBook Pro 13-inch (2020), 8 GB: 60+ fps (High, 1920×1080)
  • M1 MacBook Air (2020), 8 GB: 45+ fps (Medium settings, 2048×1280)

Most of MacBook Pros will allow you to play CS:GO with a comfortable framerate. But still, you might want to juice out as many fps as possible. The borderline 60 fps may be acceptable in most games, but not in a competitive title like CS:GO.

How to Increase FPS in CS:GO on Mac

There are a few things that you can do to increase fps in CS:GO on your Mac but most of them can be applied to Windows PCs as well.

Video Settings

The most effective way to increase fps is by lowering CS:GO video settings. Don’t worry about missing out on quality as CS:GO is an old game and there are no graphics to look at anyway. Even more, you can get a competitive advantage by having lower settings since fewer particles on the screen means better visibility. This is why pros always have their settings on low by the way.

To change CS:GO video settings:

  1. Launch CS:GO
  2. Open settings on the left
  3. Head to “Video”
  4. Disable “Laptop Power Savings”
  5. In “Advanced Video” lower everything except for “Multicore Rendering”
GO video settingsCS:GO video settings

You can lower the settings by one to start with and then see if you have any increase in fps. Keep doing it until you meet a playable framerate.

If your Mac’s performance looks very grim, try lowering the resolution of the game. This will give you a good boost of fps but make your game look worse which is why we only mention it now. Don’t feel too bad about it though as many pros prefer to play with a lower stretched resolution for more comfort.

Activity Monitor

Make sure to close all the unnecessary programs before you play CS:GO on your Mac. Anything running in the background has a risk of impacting the game’s performance. After you close your apps, it’s always good to launch the Activity Monitor and kill unnecessary processes.

To close tasks through the Activity Monitor:

  1. Press Command + Space to open Spotlight
  2. Search for “Activity Monitor” and open it
  3. Click on the unnecessary process and press “X”

Only kill processes that you know to avoid messing up your computer. If you don’t know the process, Google it or leave it be.

Launch Options

The last thing you can do to optimize CS:GO is to add launch options in Steam. We have a CS:GO launch options guide but here’s a quick rundown.

To set launch options for CS:GO:

  1. Launch Steam
  2. Find CS:GO in your library
  3. Right-click on the game and select “Properties”
  4. In the “General” tab find the “Launch Options” box at the bottom
  5. Enter desired commands
  6. Close the “Properties” window and launch CS:GO
GO Steam launch options windowCS:GO Steam launch options

There are many launch options that you can add. But the following list is made go-to commands to improve the game’s performance:

-novid -high -tickrate 128 -lv -console -freq 144 +cl_showfps 1 +cl_forcepreload 1

Simply copy and paste it to the launch options box in Steam and launch CS:GO.

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