Counter-Strike 2 is out, but if you've been paying any attention, you'll notice that AMD is the only one offering an official launch driver for Valve's new tactical shooter. That's right, Nvidia technically has not launched a new Game Ready driver for CS2 , even though Nvidia Reflex is already in the game . But don't worry, we know why this is the case.

Back in March of this year, before CS2 was announced, leaks surrounding the CS:GO sequel unexpectedly cropped up from — you guessed it — Nvidia's graphics drivers. X (Twitter) user @gabefollower revealed that Nvidia's February driver update included two new game profiles in the Nvidia Control Panel, including csgos2.exe and cs2.exe. But that's not all; another leak soon afterward revealed that GeForce Experience also had a CS2/CSGO2 profile active all the way back in March.

Now that the game is out, these previous leaks confirm that Nvidia had been developing driver optimizations for CS2 well before the game was even announced. Nvidia and Valve probably partnered up to ensure the game runs well on GeForce hardware and ensure Nvidia Reflex support was implemented on day one.

The good news is that the last several driver updates probably include CS2 optimizations, meaning you shouldn't need to immediately upgrade your GeForce drivers if you want to play the game. Nvidia's recent X (Twitter) posts on Counter-Strike 2 subtly confirm this, recommending the latest game-ready driver for Counter-Strike 2, even though the patch notes for Nvidia's latest driver, version 537.42 , make no mention of game-ready support for CS2 . But, if you have troubles, it is probably worth upgrading to the latest GeForce driver version, as Nvidia recommends. There could be additional CS2 optimizations that didn't make it into the patch notes.

As previously stated, AMD has already published a new driver update, adding support for Counter-Strike 2 and a couple of other games. The latest version, Adrenalin Edition 23.9.3 , supports Counter-Strike 2, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, and PayDay 2 . MeanVarianceNormalization (MVN) and Stable Diffusion variant optimizations have also been implemented for users working with AI-accelerated applications.

In addition, Intel does not have a game-ready driver available on launch day, similar to Starfield. Its latest update, version 31.0.101.4826 , features game-ready driver support for Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Payday 3, Lies of P, and Party Animals , but no support for Counter-Strike 2 . Technically, Intel Arc users (and integrated graphics users) should be able to run the game at decent frame rates, but there's no guarantee it will run smoothly and without bugs.