Some people change their sensitivity, resolution or even gear to make the game feel fresher or even push past slumps. Even though this might work for some, in general we advice against it. Changing your crosshair is the best way to refresh your game (at least when it comes to settings) and stay consistent at the same time.
Changing Your CS:GO Crosshair
Changing your crosshair is easy:
The Usual Way (Developer Console)
- Enable Developer Console from Menu -> Game Settings -> Game -> Enable Developer Console
- Bind Console to a key of your choice from Menu -> Keyboard Mouse -> UI Keys -> Toggle Console
- Start switching crosshair command values (we’ll talk about them below)
You can see your current crosshair settings in the developer console by using command “find cl_crosshair“
Alternative Ways
crashz’ Crosshair Generator (Custom Map)
The custom map made by crashz is rather genius and really noob friendly. Just launch an offline game that runs the map (this is really easy) and start switching your crosshair by shooting certain marks on the map.
It allows you to customize a crosshair of your own or even pick up crosshairs used by pro CS:GO players and see them immediately on your screen without the extra hassle of copypasting and switching between desktop and in-game.
- Go to https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=308490450
- Log into Steam on your browser and click on the green button that says “Subscribe”
- Launch CS:GO and go to: Play -> Workshop Maps -> Pick the correct map from the list -> Press Go
- Start playing around
CS:GO Crosshair Generator By Dathost
This one is also simple but since crosshairs don’t look the same on different resolutions there’s not much point in using it when you have the possibility to use the workshop map that runs on your in-game settings.
- Go to https://tools.dathost.net/
- Create a crosshair by using the sliders and buttons
- Copy and paste the given commands in your console
CS:GO Crosshair Commands
These are probably the most commonly switched commands once you get into the habit of changing your crosshair:
- cl_crosshairsize
- cl_crosshairgap
- cl_crosshairthickness
- cl_crosshaircolor
- cl_crosshair_drawoutline
- cl_crosshairstyle
Now let’s have a brief look on what they do.
cl_crosshairstyle
- cl_crosshairstyle 0
- cl_crosshairstyle 1
- cl_crosshairstyle 2
- cl_crosshairstyle 3
- cl_crosshairstyle 4
- cl_crosshairstyle 5
Style 0 is irrelevant once you get past the total beginner phase and styles 1 and 2 are extremely rare amongst the better end of the competitive players pool. Most of the good competitive players stick to styles 3-5.
- cl_crosshairstyle 3 is a dynamic crosshair, meaning that it spreads when you move and shoot.
- cl_crosshairstyle 4 stays the same all the time.
- cl_crosshairstyle 5 comes from the previous iterations of the game (1.6/Source) and is also dynamic but it only spreads when you shoot
Since the concept of spray patterns (recoil) and not moving and shooting at the same time might be something that takes a while to internalize when you first start playing CS:GO, it might be of help to use a dynamic crosshair as a “reminder”.
Once you get better and start focusing on things like crosshair placement, you probably find it distracting that your crosshair spreads when you move.
cl_crosshairsize
- cl_crosshairsize 1
- cl_crosshairsize 4
- cl_crosshairsize 7
This one’s pretty self-explanatory. Ranges from 0 to God-knows-how-high and can be tweaked .5 units at a time. Generally speaking anything beyond 5 starts to get a bit too chunky but each to their own.
cl_crosshaircolor
- cl_crosshaircolor 0
- cl_crosshaircolor 1
- cl_crosshaircolor 2
- cl_crosshaircolor 3
- cl_crosshaircolor 4
Developer console allows you to choose from five different preset colors (red, green, yellow, blue, cyan) but you can also tweak the color by using cl_crosshaircolor 5 and manually inserting RGB values.
- cl_crosshaircolor_r 0-255
- cl_crosshaircolor_g 0-255
- cl_crosshaircolor_b 0-255
cl_crosshairalpha
- cl_crosshairalpha 50
- cl_crosshairalpha 255
cl_crosshairalpha sets the transparency of your crosshair. The lower the value the more transparent the crosshair is, 255 is maximum.
cl_crosshairthickness
- cl_crosshairthickness 0.5
- cl_crosshairthickness 1
- cl_crosshairthickness 2
You can change the thickness of the crosshairlines by modifying cl_crosshairthickness value – the value can be changed at 0.5 units at a time.
cl_crosshairgap
- cl_crosshairgap -2
- cl_crosshairgap 0
- cl_crosshairgap 2
Crosshairgap is also pretty straightforward. You can also completely remove the gap by going low enough.
cl_crosshair_drawoutline
- cl_crosshair_drawoutline 0
- cl_crosshair_drawoutline 1
Adding an outline improves the visibility of your crosshair. You can also modify the thickness of the outline by cl_crosshair_outlinethickness 0.1-3. The default value of the outline is 1.
cl_crosshairdot
- cl_crosshairdot 0
- cl_crosshairdot 1
Adds a dot in the middle of the crosshair.
cl_crosshair_t
If you want to remove the top line of your crosshair to make it T-shaped, enable cl_crosshair_t 1.
cl_crosshair_sniper_width
You can also change the thickness of the scope crosshair lines by using cl_crosshair_sniper_width. Some people use value 2 because they feel the thicker lines are easier to see when they get blurred while moving.
Dot Crosshair
If you want a dot crosshair without the lines, use the following commands:
- cl_crosshairstyle 4
- cl_crosshairsize 0
- cl_crosshairdot 1
Then you can modify the size of the dot by changing cl_crosshairthickness and the color with cl_crosshaircolor.
CS:GO Pro Crosshairs
You should always create your own config by trying out what works best for you, but it doesn’t hurt to check out what others are doing, maybe you’ll find some inspiration and tweak it for your own taste.
Here’s a few examples from top professional CS:GO players, we tried to pick up a good collection of different styles. The screenshots are all taken in full hd so the crosshairs might look different than intented.
- arT
- coldzera
- dev1ce
- gratisfaction
- JUGi
- s1mple
- shox
- stewie2k
- tarik
- VINI
