Solved Severe CS2 stuttering and FPS drops on new laptop

[karbono]

Good morning

I’m writing to seek help with some persistent and severe performance issues I’m facing with Counter-Strike 2 on my new laptop. The main problems are significant FPS drops and stuttering, which make the game largely unplayable.

Interestingly, I initially got the game running perfectly through Bottles. The performance was smooth and stable. However, after a reinstallation (I’m not entirely sure what I did differently), I have been unable to replicate that success. It seems I broke the working configuration and can’t get it back.

Since then, I feel like I’ve tried everything. I’ve spent the entire week troubleshooting and have reinstalled the game countless times. My attempts include:

• Native Steam: Using multiple Proton versions (Experimental, the latest GE releases, and stable versions).
• Flatpak Steam: To rule out library issues with the native package.
• Bottles: Re-creating the setup, but it no longer performs well.
• Different runners and compatibility tools.

At this point, I’ve hit a wall and I’m not sure how to proceed. I suspect the issue might be related to the hybrid graphics setup on these new Intel Core Ultra processors, but I’m not sure what to look for.

Any guidance or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I’m ready to provide any logs (inxi, nvidia-smi, journalctl, etc.) that might be needed to diagnose the problem.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Here are my system details:

---

• Hardware Model: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. Pulse 17 AI C1VGKG
• Processor: Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 155H × 22
• Memory: 32.0 GiB
• Graphics (dGPU): NVIDIA Corporation AD106M [GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile]
• Graphics (iGPU): Intel Corporation Meteor Lake-P [Intel Arc Graphics]
• Disk: 1.0 TB

• OS: CachyOS (Rolling)
• Kernel Version: Linux 6.15.8-2-cachyos
• Desktop Environment: GNOME 48
• Windowing System: X11
• Firmware Version: E17T3IMS.10D

I have reinstalled again Steam and CS2 with bottles and see it’s going good. But I have lot of “low jitter” or something like that.

I think it’s about the WiFi maybe? I have WiFi 6 but seems that it doesn’t matter at all…

I will investigate.

Now game also crash and kick me completely… I opened it with terminal but it also has been close… I can’t understand what's happening.

Thanks so much in advice.

 

[f33dm3bits]

• Windowing System: X11

Switch to a Wayland session. Try switching to Vulkan if you're not using that. Try using Proton instead of the native version of CS2? Look through the following page and try adding launch options recommended by others.

https://www.protondb.com/app/730

 

[karbono]

Switch to a Wayland session. Try switching to Vulkan if you're not using that. Try using Proton instead of the native version of CS2? Look through the following page and try adding launch options recommended by others.

https://www.protondb.com/app/730

Thanks for the fast reply.

When I tried to switch to Wayland session it doesn't appears.
When you said switching to Vulkan, do you mean to use Vulkan instead NVIDIA drivers, right?

May I need to install it? Would investigate about that because I want to understand it at all.

If I'm not mistaken, I can choose to use Proton with the native version of CS2. Will look it later.

Thanks!

 

[f33dm3bits]

When I tried to switch to Wayland session it doesn't appears.

What doesn't appear? What happens?

When you said switching to Vulkan, do you mean to use Vulkan instead NVIDIA drivers, right?

Just quoting what someone else said from that ProtonDB page.

Playable performance using launch options. Performance seems to be better without -vulkan flag

I think that person is referring to in most games, you can choose which graphics api you want to use, ie: dx11, dx12 or vulkan. In most games you are able to set that under the graphic settings. If the game doesn't have it you should be able to set it with a launch option "-vulkan".

 

[karbono]

What doesn't appear? What happens?

Just quoting what someone else said from that ProtonDB page.

I think that person is referring to in most games, you can choose which graphics api you want to use, ie: dx11, dx12 or vulkan. In most games you are able to set that under the graphic settings. If the game doesn't have it you should be able to set it with a launch option "-vulkan".

Doesn't appears the Wayland session to choose in the login screen. Maybe I need to activate it, I don't know.

I will check the ProtonDB page later with my laptop and do the changes, including the Wayland session.

Thanks.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Doesn't appears the Wayland session to choose in the login screen. Maybe I need to activate it, I don't know.

It should be the default option by now, that's odd. You can try this.

sudo ln -s /dev/null /etc/udev/rules.d/61-gdm.rules

Then restart gdm or your pc and the Wayland session you show up as an option under sessions in gdm.

GDM - ArchWiki

All the requirements listed there should already be met by the current Nvidia driver. .

 

[karbono]

It should be the default option by now, that's odd. You can try this.

sudo ln -s /dev/null /etc/udev/rules.d/61-gdm.rules

Then restart gdm or your pc and the Wayland session you show up as an option under sessions in gdm.

GDM - ArchWiki

All the requirements listed there should already be met by the current Nvidia driver. .

I have switched to Wayland and used Bottles instead native (same problems), and... running perfectly with 180FPS, when I was limited to 100-120 the other way.

Just played 10min, but looks very good. Thanks so much!! I have been suffering this for a week installing, removing, and starting again...

These days I will confirm and solve the thread!

 

[f33dm3bits]

I have switched to Wayland and used Bottles instead native (same problems), and... running perfectly with 180FPS, when I was limited to 100-120 the other way.

Have you tried using Steam, not the steam-native-runtime package.Then also have you tried using Proton instead of using the Native option for CS2 as I have found that Native Linux games are less developed than the ones that are developed for Windows and run through Proton.

 

[karbono]

Have you tried using Steam, not the steam-native-runtime package.Then also have you tried using Proton instead of using the Native option for CS2 as I have found that Native Linux games are less developed than the ones that are developed for Windows and run through Proton.

The problem using Proton it's that Valve doesn't allow you to play cause of this:

I tried all versions of proton, experimental, hotfix, GE... And no one works. I remember that after so many attempts... one of them, I'm not sure since there have been so many tests, actually worked with some launch parameters using Proton. I've tried to locate and use them, but without success.

 

[f33dm3bits]

I have switched to Wayland and used Bottles instead native (same problems), and... running perfectly with 180FPS, when I was limited to 100-120 the other way.
The problem using Proton it's that Valve doesn't allow you to play cause of this:

Oh yeah the anti-cheat thing. But out of curiosity how do you have CS2 setup with bottles, because Bottles is just a front-end for wine and managing prefixes which would essentially mean that you are running it through wine there as well? Or did you mean you tried Bottles ran into the same issue and are now using the native version of CS2 on Steam where it works?

 

[karbono]

Oh yeah the anti-cheat thing. But out of curiosity how do you have CS2 setup with bottles, because Bottles is just a front-end for wine and managing prefixes which would essentially mean that you are running it through wine there as well? Or did you mean you tried Bottles ran into the same issue and are now using the native version of CS2 on Steam where it works?

Bottles has an option to install Steam and other plataforms. Once installed it, I just downloaded CS2 and run it. It has the option to select soda or system as runner, or something like that.

I think it runs over wine. I will update with screenshot as soon as possible.

 

[karbono]

If you choose the "Install programs" you can search for Steam

And then I run it, and doesn't appears the Compatibility option to choose between proton, Steam runtime, etc. So it runs under wine I think.