CS GO keeps crashing, freezing or displays a black screen

Counter-Strike Global Offence or CS-GO is one of the most popular PC games. However, according to some Windows users, CS GO keeps crashing, freezing, or showing a Black Screen on their computers. In this article, we are going to talk about solutions that can help in resolving all these issues and get smooth gameplay.

Why does my CSGO keep freezing?

Usually, if your computer is not compatible with running the game, CS GO will start freezing. Since the game is not very demanding, the computer will likely be compatible to run the game. You can close all the redundant tasks from the Task Manager as they will try to complete resources leaving very little for the game to run on. If that’s not the case, then something is wrong with your game or the programs required to run it.

CS GO keeps crashing, freezing or displays a black screen

If CS GO keeps crashing, freezing or showing Black Screen on your Windows 11/10 PC, try the following solutions to resolve the issue with ease.

1. Close all the backgrounds tasks
2. Turn off Compatibility Mode
3. Delete CS GO Executable file and then verify the integrity of the game files
4. Disable Shader Pre-Caching
5. Set Launch Options
6. Update DirectX and Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable
7. Reinstall CS GO

Let us talk about them in detail.

1] Close all the background tasks

The first thing you should be doing if your game is freezing is closing all the background apps that are competing for resources. Since there are limited resources such as memory, CPU, and GPU, if they start competing for them, there will be very little left for CS GO. So, open Task Manager, right-click on the resource-hogging tasks and select End Task. Do this to all the redundant tasks, launch the game and see if the issue is resolved.

2] Turn off Compatibility Mode

One of the things that you can do to fix this issue is turn off Compatibility Mode. A lot of users have resolved the issue by just disabling Compatibility Mode and stopping the game from launching as an administrator. To do the same, we need to configure the properties of CS Go. Follow the prescribed steps to do the same.

1. Go to CS GO executable file. Usually, it will be at the following location, if you didn’t do a custom installation.

   C:\SteamLibrary\SteamApps\common\Counter-Strike Global Offensive\csgo.exe

2. Right-click on csgo.exe and select Properties.
3. Go to the Compatibility tab, and untick Run this program as an administrator and Compatibility Mode options.
4. Finally, click Apply > Ok to save the changes you just made.

Now, launch CS GO and see if that worked. Hopefully, this will do the job for you.

3] Delete CS GO Executable file and then verify the integrity of the game files

According to some users, the issue is caused when the executable file of CS GO gets corrupted. Some of you might start reinstalling the game, even though that can work, you first try this solution. Follow the prescribed steps to do the same.

• First of all, go to your CS GO folder, and delete the csgo.exe file.
• Launch Steam.
• Go to Library.
• Right-click on CS GO and select Properties.
• Navigate to the Local Files tab and click on the Verify the integrity of game files button.

Once the process is completed, restart your computer, this will recreate the file that we deleted. Relaunch the game and see if the issue is resolved. Most probably, the game will start working for you.

4] Disable Shader Pre-Caching

Shader Pre-Caching is a Steam feature that helps the game to load quicker. It allows Steam to delete or hide Shader code which will stop it from getting compiled over time and reduce the performance. However, since this is a new feature, a lot of games are not optimized to work with it in harmony. We should try to disable Shader Pre-Caching to resolve this issue. To do the same, follow the prescribed steps.

1. Launch Steam Client App.
2. Click on Steam > Settings.
3. Go to Shader Pre-Caching.
4. Untick the box associated with Enable Shader Pre-Caching.
5. Click Ok.

After disabling the feature, launch the game using Steam and see if the issue is resolved.

5] Set Launch Options

A lot of users are seeing Black Screen when trying to launch CS GO. To fix that issue, let us try changing the Launch Options, which is nothing but a command argument that you add to the game’s properties. There are two launch options, you can add both of them one by one and see if that worked.

To add Launch Options using Steam, you just need to follow the prescribed steps.

• Launch Steam.
• Go to Library.
• Right-click on CS GO and click on Properties from the context menu.
• In the LAUNCH OPTIONS field, enter any of the following commands work and see if that works.

cl_disablehtmlmotd 1

OR

-autoconfig

After making the required changes, launch the game and see if the issue persists. Hopefully, this will stop the game from crashing and resolve the black screen issue as well. In case, changing the launch option didn’t work for you, move to the next solution.

6] Update DirectX and Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable

Both DirectX and Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable are required to run a game. Most Windows computers come with these two tools preinstalled and with they get updated from time to time. However, sometimes, these tools fail to get updated. Since this doesn’t interfere with most Windows processes, we don’t realize the need to update them. But since CS GO is not launching on your system, go ahead, and download the latest version of DirectX and Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable. Once these tools are downloaded and installed on your computer, launch CS GO and see if the issue persists. Hopefully, this will do the job for you.

7] Reinstall CS GO

If nothing worked, your last option is to reinstall the game. This should be the last thing you try, as CS GO is not a small game by any means. But if your game is corrupted beyond repair, reinstall the game to stop it from freezing, crashing or showing a black screen during startup.

We hope that you are able to resolve the issue using the solutions mentioned in this article.

Also Read: CSGO takes a long time to start in Windows 11

System Requirements to run Counter Strike Global Offence

One of the reasons why CS GO would crash is if your system doesn’t meet the system requirements released by the developers. Following are the system requirements to run Counter Strike Global Offence on a Windows computer.

• OS: Windows® XP or above
• Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6600 or AMD Phenom™ X3 8750 processor or above
• Memory: 2 GB RAM
• Graphics: Video card must be 256 MB or more and should be DirectX 9-compatible
• Pixel Shader: 3.0
• DirectX: Version 9.0c
• Available Storage: 15 GB

If your computer is meeting the system requirements, the game should work just fine.

Read: 10 best Shooter Games for PC from Microsoft Store

How do I fix my CSGO from crashing?

If you are experiencing issues with CS GO crashing, freezing, or displaying a black screen, there are several steps you can take to troubleshoot the problem. These include closing all background tasks, turning off Compatibility Mode, deleting the CS GO executable file and verifying the integrity of game files, disabling Shader Pre-Caching, setting launch options, updating DirectX and Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable, and reinstalling CS GO.

Also Read: Fix hl2.exe has stopped working or is not responding.