CS2 crosshair update adds outline colors and a Static Quadrant style

Valve kept working on Counter-Strike 2 crosshairs on Sept. 30, eight days after the Sept. 22 update rebuilt them.

What changed on Sept. 30

• A new option sets the color of the crosshair outline.
• A new crosshair style: “Static Quadrant.”
• Grenade crosshairs now show during freeze time, for lining up instant smokes: hold any grenade attack button.
• The classic dynamic style allows negative gaps, and its transparency now changes in steps of 0.01.
• Scope dot size and color are now saved in the crosshair share code.
• The share code format has changed to fit the new settings.
• The display of weapon inaccuracy and spread was fixed.

How the new crosshairs work

Since Sept. 22, crosshairs no longer depend on screen resolution. The settings live in a new Crosshair/Scopes tab, and the default crosshair is “Dynamic Quad,” which Valve says “better represents weapon accuracy.”

In the Sept. 23 patch notes, Valve explained the new units. Thickness, length and gap are now set in pixels: “if you want a 1-pixel wide crosshair with a bar length of 8 pixels and a gap of 4 pixels, then you would set: thickness = 1, length = 8, and gap = 4.” When you change resolution, the game scales the crosshair to keep it the same size relative to the screen. Valve’s example: a crosshair two pixels thick, set up at 1280x720, becomes four pixels thick at 2560x1440.

More from the Sept. 23 patch

The same patch added a static square style and half-outlines, which draw only the top-left part of the outline. It also lowered the minimum dynamic spread distance to 64 pixels. The dynamic styles show the real spread and inaccuracy of the weapon, and the “Dynamic Spread Limit” setting caps how far the crosshair can spread.

On Oct. 2, Valve fixed how the grenade crosshair is drawn at a thickness of three pixels; more in our story on that update.