Here's a preview of the effects of this guide on my computer:

First of all, make sure you do not have a potato as a PC. Check the minimum requirements, and if you are bellow those settings, well good luck.

Make sure you use the proprietary drivers for you GPU, as those give better performances than the nouveau (open source) drivers.

To install them, first add the graphics repository:

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa

remember to update your package list:

• sudo apt update

then display the available drivers with the command bellow:

• ubuntu-drivers devices

You should get an output like this:
Find the line that ends with recommended, here nvidia-driver-430, then install that driver:

• sudo apt install nvidia-driver-(number)

Here I used sudo apt install nvidia-driver-430 to install the recommended one.


More information here: here[askubuntu.com].


If you have a laptop with an Nvidia card, you most probably have the optimus system installed. Optimus is a system developed by Intel and Nvidia. It allows switching from the integrated graphics (GPU on the Intel processor, less powerful but gives maximum battery life), to the Nvidia Card (the main GPU, drains battery faster but is a lot more powerful).

The state of optimus support under Linux is poor, but still usable. On Linux, you need to reboot to start the Nvidia GPU, while it automatically starts when you launch a game on Windows. As stated in the previous link, the required packages should have been installed along with the driver. You can check this by starting the nvidia-settings app:


To switch from one GPU to the other, start the nvidia-settings app, go to prime profiles like in picture above, and select the GPU you want to switch to. Keep in mind you will need to reboot for the change to take effect.

And that's it for the drivers, you should now be able to run csgo on your GPU.


The default config for nvidia may not be perfect for you (especially if you don't have the latest card). To edit it, start the nvidia-settings program. It can be found by running the command nvidia-settings, or by finding the program in the list of installed apps.
Here, you can set the image quality, for better performances or quality.
You should also set power mizer to performance instead of auto or adaptive if you have the optimus system (sadly this resets on every new session.

Sadly, I do not have any AMD hardware, so I am not able to provide you with information. If you own one and found a way to get better performances, tell in the comments and I'll add it to this section.

Doing the above for nvidia users should be enough for most games, but csgo may still feel laggy despite high fps. For example, I had 120+ fps, but the game did not feel fluid at all when compared to other games.

The cause may be a faulty configuration. In my case, deleting my config did the trick.
Here are the steps:

• Make a backup of the folder /home/USER/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/Counter-Strike Global Offensive/csgo/cfg/ (path may vary on your system)
  
• Delete it
  
• Verify the csgo installation with steam (open steam, right click on csgo, properties, local files, verify integrity of game files).
  
• Disable steam cloud sync for csgo
  
• Make a backup of the folder /home/USER/.steam/steam/userdata/A VERY LONG NUMBER/730/ (the very long number is tied to you account. If you only have one account on your machine, then the only one available is yours. If you have several accounts, well, you can do this for both anyways)
  
• Delete it
  
• Open the game

With the backup you made, you can create a file for your binds and for your crosshair. In my case, I made a file named binds.cfg with all my binds, crosshair.cfg with my crosshair config, put them in the newly created /home/USER/.steam/steam/userdata/A VERY LONG NUMBER/730/local, then in csgo I ran the commands exec binds and exec crosshair.

Doing this helped greatly and it didn't feel like I was playing on a potato.

If you do not have a very powerful computer, use common sense and do not put every video setting on max. You can watch this video to understand which settings have the most important impact on your system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8UIZzUU4Ns&t=86s

For example, use MSAA x2 and FXAA combined instead of MSAA x8, this gives basically the same result but uses far less your CPU. More information here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEbAJHd84ug
Vertical sync in CSGO does not seem to work on Linux, so simply disable it.

If your system has desktop animations, you should disable them while playing. It will improve fps, as well as reducing frame delay.

In Ubuntu, this is called Compiz, in KDE, the compositor.

For example, in Kubuntu (or KDE in general), press alt+shift+F12 to toggle the compositor. If you have a high end GPU, you may not notice a huge difference, so you may want to keep it enabled. You can use various effects in-game, such as a zoom, a fake crosshair, and other funny stuff (use that at your own risk though).

If you really need all the frames you can get, you could kill the desktop manager while in game and reopen it after. This will free some RAM and hopefully improve your fps.
For example, in KDE, you can open a console, type:

• pkill plasmashell

your wallpaper will become black but this is expected as you just killed the desktop manager. When you are finished playing, reopen a console and type:

• plasmashell &

Close that console and you are good to go.

Some users reported that starting a game in it's own separate X-server improved their performances, but I never managed to do it, but feel free to try it on your own if you have the sufficient knowledge.

Thanks to Feral Interactive, we know have a very powerful game optimizer on Linux. Gamemode[github.com] gives top priority to the game while playing, removing stutters and improving fps.

To install gamemode, you can try and see if it is available on your package manager (for example on ubuntu based distros, with sudo apt install gamemode).
If you do not find the package, you can build it from source (this is what I did), which is fairly easy. Simply follow these instructions[github.com].

Once installed, right click on your game in the steam library, properties, set launch option, and enter gamemoderun %command% before any launch option you have.


And that's it, every time you start your game it will be optimized by gamemode. To check whether it is active, open a terminal after you started the game and write gamemoded -s, it should say gamemode is active.

Those are the little tips and tricks I used to get my csgo running perfectly, even on not so recent hardware. In my case, I had a lot of fps, but the game didn't feel smooth at all compared to the windows version. Resetting the config and enabling gamemode did the trick.
Hope it helps a fellow gamer in need.

If you cannot start the game after the panorama update, add -nojoy as launch option. For some reason the game starts after that (this is a know issue[github.com])