Best CSGO Crosshairs – How to Pick Good Crosshair Settings for You
10 minutes
Last Updated: May 29, 2024
There is a steep learning curve in CS:GO since you need to master many different traits, and picking the right crosshair is one of them.
This guide will explain everything you need to know about good crosshair settings, and how to pick the best option for you.
Why Change Your CS:GO Crosshair
There is a reason why Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is one of the hardest games to get into, despite being more than a decade old. You can learn lineups to properly use utility, exploit off angles, master spray patterns, weapon capabilities, positioning, peeking, and all sorts of skills.
But the most important aspect of the game is eliminating your opponent before he does the same to you.
The best way to achieve this is by hitting your opponent in the head since it does the most damage regardless of the weapon. To become proficient at this, apart from hard work and tons of practice, the most important thing you will need is a good CSGO crosshair you are comfortable with.
How to Change CS:GO Crosshair
With aiming being so important and your crosshair being the tip of the spear in that equation, there are a lot of things that you must understand about it.
You can change your CS:GO crosshair in different ways and for different reasons, and we are here to help you with that.
There are four different ways you can change your default CSGO crosshair, and they are:
- CSGO settings menu
- CSGO console commands
- Import CS:GO crosshairs
- CSGO Crosshair Workshop maps
Each of them works differently but still manages to accomplish the same goal. So the most important thing is finding the crosshairs that suit you best.
There are quite a few factors to account for. The resolution you are playing on, your sensitivity settings, your play style, your monitor, and video settings, are just some at the top of the list.
Best CSGO Crosshair Settings
If you’re interested in trying the first option, you should be in the CS:GO client right now. Once the game opens up, you should see a vertical dropdown menu on your left side.
With eight different buttons to choose from to take your next action, starting with the CS:GO logo at the top, you need to search for the settings menu.
It’s the last button going downwards through the menu before you hover over the “Quit to Desktop.” Here you can find all the in-game settings you will need, for which we might do in-depth guides moving forward.
But for now, we are interested in crosshair settings for CSGO, so find the “Search” bar and write “Crosshair” in it. The search results will show you several options regarding your crosshair, but you should pick the most basic one.
Once you have made it to the crosshair section, you need to understand many things, so let’s go over how you can create the best CSGO crosshair for you.
Best CSGO Crosshair Style
This will be the first crosshair setting you will encounter, and it determines the base crosshair that you will be editing.
We strongly advise using the classic static crosshair simply because it removes many inconsistencies and variations.
This crosshair doesn’t move or change with the player’s movement and shooting, so it’s naturally the best option. When the game is a matter of millimeters and precise movement and shooting, the last thing you want is a distraction in the middle of your screen.
You also need to look into dot crosshairs. This setting refers to the center dot in the middle of your crosshair, which is a good guide for hitting headshots.
If you decide to use it, it is completely up to you. You can implement it alongside the cross crosshair, but there have been good CSGO crosshairs that are only composed of the center dot.
However, these have many drawbacks and are only good if you have surgical precision to hit only headshots. The thing about CS:GO is that factors like movement, first-shot accuracy, recoil, and many more, impact your shooting.
Choosing a crosshair that forces you into only one playstyle is usually hard to track or spray with and makes your life harder.
Best CSGO Crosshair Size
Length/ Thickness: What you can do if you use a center dot is combining it with a fitting crosshair size. The size of the crosshair is manipulated by adjusting the length and thickness values of your crosshair.
More experienced players coming from the Counter-Strike 1.6 days might be more comfortable with a huge and chunky crosshair, but now smaller is seen as better and the new norm.
Tinkering with these two settings can lead to the biggest changes in your crosshair and can result in some interesting forms other than the simple cross. We have seen dots, circles, T-shaped and rectangle crosshairs for a long time, so feel free to experiment.
Best CSGO Crosshair Gaps
If you are feeling experimental with your new crosshair, make sure to use the gap size option in the crosshair settings. Different values for this setting produce different kinds of crosshairs and work in conjunction with the size of it.
As we’ve mentioned before, smaller is usually better in modern-day CS:GO, but it depends on your aiming technique.
Bigger crosshairs with large gaps mean you put your opponent’s head in between the gap and shoot like that. Smaller crosshairs with little to no gap focus on putting the cross or dot on their head and just clicking them.
In the end, everything about crosshairs is a personal preference, so it might take a while before you find what suits you the best.
Best CSGO Crosshair Outlines
Another very important crosshair setting is the outline, for which you can adjust the thickness. This is the black line surrounding your entire crosshair, helping you distinguish it from its surroundings.
Try out a crosshair that doesn’t use it, and then try implementing it for a few games. See if you notice a difference.
A general rule of thumb is that if you are playing on a lower resolution with a 4:3 aspect ratio, you have eyesight problems or a monitor with low refresh rates and pixel density, you should use thin outlines.
With how much chaos can happen in a round of CSGO, keeping track of your crosshair might be hard if you are not using outlines even when you lit someone.
Best CSGO Crosshair Color
The most important setting when finishing your custom crosshair is the crosshair color. For this, you can choose from a variety of existing and pre-set color schemes or customize the existing ones using different RGB values. This setting once again boils down to preference, but there are some scenarios you should think about.
Green and Cyan are two of the most common colors used in CS:GO, and as great as they are, they might not be the best. This leads us back to the outline setting, crosshair size, and even map choice.
With a lot more maps like Ancient and Cache being released, on which the green color is abundant, having a green crosshair might be suboptimal.
The same could be said about the Cyan crosshair and playing on the map Nuke. Then again, if you are using outlines or are comfortable with the crosshair, it might not affect you.
The best crosshair colors we would recommend you try out are yellow, red, and purple.
Yellow is another color that can be commonly found on maps like Dust 2 and Mirage, but the crosshair variant is a lot lighter, making it stand out. The only exception to this rule is if you are using heavy video effects through your graphics card or monitor. Digital vibrance is one of the first things that comes to mind.
If that’s the case, you would be better off using red and purple, as both colors distort from the same source and can’t be mistaken with anything on CS:GO maps.
CSGO Crosshair Commands
If you are a bit more experienced Counter-Strike player or like doing things the old-school way and adjusting on the fly, you can use the console to change your crosshair. This game’s main principles and engine date back to the 20th century, so writing a few commands still manages to get the job done.
These are the most important and widely used console commands that adjust the crosshair.
Console command | Usage |
cl_crosshairstyle | Set crosshair style and shape |
cl_crosshairsize | Adjust the length and size of your crosshair |
cl_crosshairthickness | Determine the thickness of your crosshair |
cl_crosshairgap | Set value for crosshair gap size |
cl_crosshair_drawoutline | Enabling or disabling your outline |
cl_crosshairdot | Enabling or disabling the center dot |
cl_crosshaircolor | Assigning crosshair color |
CSGO Pro Crosshairs
If you don’t have the time or will to experiment with your crosshairs, choosing one that professional Counter-Strike players use might be your best bet. Preference also factors into this, as some have been using the same crosshair since 2005.
They must be doing something right to reach the level where they are now, so it’s worth giving it a shot. These are some of the best CS:GO crosshairs that professional players use:
ZywOo CSGO Crosshair Settings
French superstar and renowned AWP user Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut has been considered one of the best players in the game these past few years. This is mainly due to some absurd headshot percentages he has posted over that period, all thanks to his lethal crosshair.
Superstars like ZywOo, S1mple, and mONESY all use a similar crosshair, with the latter two implementing a small center dot and firing error.
At this time, ZywOo is using:
- cl_crosshairstyle 4;
- cl_crosshairsize 0.5;
- cl_crosshairthickness 0;
- cl_crosshairgap -3;
- cl_crosshair_drawoutline 0;
- cl_crosshairdot 0;
- cl_crosshaircolor 1;
Fallen CSGO Crosshair Settings
But that doesn’t mean that big crosshairs are going out of fashion. Some of the best players coming from Counter-Strike 1.6 are still using big crosshairs in CS:GO. Fallen, Stewie2K, Shroud, n0thing, Tarik, KennyS, and many more game legends still use large crosshairs with outlines enabled.
At this time, Fallen is using:
- cl_crosshairstyle 4;
- cl_crosshairsize 4;
- cl_crosshairthickness 1;
- cl_crosshairgap -1,5;
- cl_crosshair_drawoutline 1;
- cl_crosshairdot 0;
- cl_crosshaircolor 1;
How to Import CS:GO Crosshair Codes
If you find this method a bit time-consuming and complicated, you are in good luck. That’s because Counter-Strike: Global Offensive developer Valve added a new feature to their game a few years ago.
You can now import CSGO crosshair codes with a few simple clicks to instantly get the crosshair you chose.
This is done by using the Share or Import button after you have accessed the crosshair settings for CSGO, which we have already explained. Just paste and import the crosshair code you want, and the change will occur. Here are the CSGO crosshair codes for some notable professional players on the scene:
Professional Players | CS:GO Crosshair Codes |
Eternal Flame XANTARES | CSGO-xbpe2-E24RJ-YXNuO-pQvt8-ppNAK |
Astralis gla1ve | CSGO-zDttN-kEnho-ZJWKN-QZNPC-LSJvM |
Astralis k0nfig | CSGO-Oa34q-kPJJR-CT8Uc-tssQ8-f8GSQ |
FaZe Twistzz | CSGO-2uABj-Rr3dC-yhVt3-bXe8v-tDu8O |
FaZe karrigan | CSGO-CP44i-z2D7K-dpJhE-TvPaj-MaMbM |
CSGO Crosshair Workshop Maps
Without a doubt, the fastest way to find the CS:GO crosshair that fits your needs is through a Community Workshop Map dedicated to crosshairs. Since Counter-Strike is a very old and popular game, its community is massive and very active.
Most of the maps in the game were designed by the community a long time ago, and workshop maps that serve as tools for improvement are created daily. To access these workshop maps, you need to subscribe to them via the Steam platform.
Subscribe to Steam Workshop Maps
After opening Steam, click the large Community button next to your profile name. You will need to choose the game you are trying to view the community for, CS:GO. After that, you will need to locate the Workshop button, where you can find all the maps created for educational purposes.
After you have found what you need, you will need to Subscribe to the map, and you can open it through the game launcher.
After hitting Play in CS:GO, you can choose from several options, including Official Matchmaking, Community Server Browser, Practice Range with Bots, and Workshop Maps.
You will find your subscribed Workshop map in the last section. Or you can just use this link to subscribe to the most widespread community workshop map for crosshairs:
Conclusion
You must be willing to put in the time and effort if you are trying to become better at anything. But what’s more important is investing that time and effort the right way.
Your CS:GO improvement trajectory will skyrocket if you learn things the right way, starting off with having a good crosshair. If you enjoyed this piece and are ready to climb the latter of this game, make sure to check how CSGO ranks work.