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Modern Warfare 2, Season 1 is here, and with new maps, weapons, and modes, it’s more important than ever that you have a competitive advantage over enemies with the best PC settings. Here are our top tips to optimize MW2 on your PC, helping you get high FPS and clear visibility.
Modern Warfare 2 has had a blockbuster release, quickly becoming the fastest-selling Call of Duty game in history. With Warzone 2 now launched, along with plenty of new content in Modern Warfare 2 Season 1, there’s no better time to jump into the action.
Whether you’re ranking up your Season 1 Battle Pass or leveling up weapons for Warzone, you’ll want to maximize your PC’s performance for multiplayer matches.
Boosting all your settings to the highest level may make the game look pretty, but will almost definitely cost you performance unless you have an extremely high-spec rig. That’s why we’ve put together our guide to the best Modern Warfare 2 PC settings to help you boost your FPS while making sure the game looks good.
- Modern Warfare 2 PC system requirements
- Best Modern Warfare 2 graphics settings for high-end hardware
- Best Modern Warfare 2 graphics settings for low-end hardware
- How to update graphics drivers
- How to use NVIDIA DLSS in Modern Warfare 2
Modern Warfare 2 PC system requirements
First off, you’ll want to make sure your PC is capable of running Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Check out all of the minimum and recommended PC spec requirements for Modern Warfare 2 below.
| Minimum | Recommended | Competitive | Ultra 4K | |
| OS | Windows 10 64 Bit (latest update) | Windows 10 64 Bit(latest update) or Windows 11 64 Bit (latest update) | Windows 10 64 Bit (latest update) or Windows 11 64 Bit (latest update) | Windows 10 64 Bit (latest update) or Windows 11 64 Bit (latest update) |
| CPU | Intel Core i3-6100 / Core i5-2500k or AMD Ryzen 3 1200 | Intel Core i5-6600K / Core i7-4770 or AMD Ryzen 5 1400 | Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 7 1800X | Intel Core i9-9900K or AMD Ryzen 9 3900X |
| RAM | 8GB RAM | 12GB RAM | 16GB RAM | 16GB RAM |
| Storage Space | 72GB at launch | 72GB at launch | 72GB at launch | 72GB at launch |
| Hi-Rez Assests Cache | Up to 32GB | Up to 32GB | Up to 32GB | Up to 64GB |
| Video Card | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 or AMD Radeon RX 470 | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 580 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060ti or AMD Radeon RX 5700XT | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 or AMD Radeon RX 6800XT |
| Video Memory | 2GB | 4GB | 8GB | 10GB |
| Graphic Driver | NVIDIA: 516.79 or AMD: 21.9.1 | NVIDIA: 516.79 or AMD: 21.9.1 | NVIDIA: 516.79 or AMD: 21.9.1 | NVIDIA: 516.79 or AMD: 21.9.1 |
Best Modern Warfare 2 graphics settings for high-end hardware
Display
- Display Mode: Fullscreen
- Constrain Mouse to Game Window: Off
- Display Monitor: Your primary gaming monitor
- Display Adaptor: Your graphics card
- Screen Refresh Rate: Refresh rate of your monitor (e.g. 144)
- Display Resolution: Your monitor’s resolution (e.g 2560×1440)
- Dynamic Resolution: Off
- Aspect Ratio: Automatic
- V-Sync (Gameplay): Off
- V-Sync (Menus): Off
-
Custom Framerate Limit: Custom
- Gameplay Custom Framerate Limit: Your monitor’s refresh rate (e.g 144)
- Menu Custom Framerate Limit: 60
- Minimized Game Custom Framerate Limit: 15
- Display Gamma: 2.2 (sRGB)
- Brightness: 55
- Focused Mode: Off
High Dynamic Range
- High Dynamic Range (HDR): Off
Global Quality
- Quality Presets: Recommended
- Render Resolution: 100
-
Fidelity CAS: On
- AMD Fideltity CAS Strength: 75
- Anti-Aliasing: SMAA T2X
- Nearby Level of Detail: High
Details & Textures
- Texture Resolution: Medium
- Texture Filter Anisotropic: Low
- Particle Quality: High
- Bullet Impacts & Sprays: On
- Shader Quality: Low
- Tessellation: Nearby Only
- On-Demand Texture Streaming: On – You can turn this off if you’re experiencing packet burst
- Streaming Quality: Low
If you’re having issues with packet burst in Modern Warfare 2, make sure you turn off the On-Demand Texture Streaming options, as this is often a setting that can alleviate the load on your internet.
If you are experiencing packet bursts, turning off the "On-Demand Texture Streaming" option in the #MWII Beta settings might help, as that uses internet to download textures while you're playing.
— CharlieIntel (@charlieINTEL) September 22, 2022
Shadow & Lighting
- Shadow Map Resolution: Low
- Spot Shadow Quality: Low
- Cache Spot Shadows: On
- Cashe Sun Shadows: On
- Particle Lighting: Normal
- Ambient Occlusion: Off
- SSR: Off
Post Processing Effects
- NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency: On + Boost
- Depth of Field: Off
- World Motion Blur: Off
- Weapon Motion Blur: Off
- Film Grain: 0.00
View
- Field of View: 110
- ADS Field of View: Affected
- Weapon Field of View: Wide
- 3rd Person Field of View: 80
- Vehicle Field of View: Default
- 1st Person Camera Movement: 100
- 3rd Person Camera Movement: 100
Best Modern Warfare 2 graphics settings for low-end hardware
Display
- Display Mode: Fullscreen
- Constrain Mouse to Game Window: Off
- Display Monitor: Your primary gaming monitor
- Display Adaptor: Your graphics card
- Screen Refresh Rate: Refresh rate of your monitor (e.g. 144)
- Display Resolution: Your monitor’s resolution (e.g 1920×1080) – you can turn this down to get more FPS but your game won’t look as good)
- Dynamic Resolution: Off (turn it on if you’re getting inconsistent frame rates but it will affect the game’s visuals)
- Aspect Ratio: Automatic
- V-Sync (Gameplay): Off
- V-Sync (Menus): Off
-
Custom Framerate Limit: Custom
- Gameplay Custom Framerate Limit: Your monitor’s refresh rate (e.g 144)
- Menu Custom Framerate Limit: 60
- Minimized Game Custom Framerate Limit: 15
- Display Gamma: 2.2 (sRGB)
- Brightness: 55
- Focused Mode: Off
High Dynamic Range
- High Dynamic Range (HDR): Off
Global Quality
- Quality Presets: Recommended
- Render Resolution: 100
-
Fidelity CAS: On
- AMD Fideltity CAS Strength: 75
- Anti-Aliasing: SMAA T2X
- Nearby Level of Detail: High
Details & Textures
- Texture Resolution: Low
- Texture Filter Anisotropic: Medium
- Particle Quality: Medium
- Bullet Impacts & Sprays: Off
- Shader Quality: Low
- Tessellation: Off
- On-Demand Texture Streaming: Off
- Streaming Quality: Low
Shadow & Lighting
- Shadow Map Resolution: Low
- Spot Shadow Quality: Low
- Cache Spot Shadows: Off
- Cashe Sun Shadows: Off
- Particle Lighting: Medium
- Ambient Occlusion: Off
- SSR: Off
Post Processing Effects
- NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency: On + Boost
- Depth of Field: Off
- World Motion Blur: Off
- Weapon Motion Blur: Off
- Film Grain: 0.00
View
- Field of View: 95 – 110
- ADS Field of View: Affected
- Weapon Field of View: Wide
- 3rd Person Field of View: 80
- Vehicle Field of View: Default
- 1st Person Camera Movement: 100
- 3rd Person Camera Movement: 100
Setting your FOV slightly lower will lessen the load on your PC for those with lower-end PC builds.
How to update graphics drivers
Before you start playing Modern Warfare 2 on PC, we heavily advise that you make sure your graphics drivers are up to date. If an update is available, make sure you do this before jumping on the game.
How to update NVIDIA graphics driver
If you have an NVIDIA graphics card, the GeForce experience app will handle this for you.
- Download GeForce experience through NVIDIA.com.
- Open GeForce experience.
- Select the ‘Drivers’ tab.
- Click ‘check for updates’ in the upper right corner.
- If an update is available, follow the steps.
How to update AMD graphics driver
If you have an AMD GPU, you can use the Radeon Settings to update your drivers.
- Right-click on your desktop.
- Select AMD Radeon Settings.
- Click on the Home icon.
- Click ‘New Updates’ on the bottom left.
- Select ‘check for update’.
- If an update is available, follow the steps.
How to use NVIDIA DLSS in Modern Warfare 2
Modern Warfare 2 features NVIDIA DLSS to boost your FPS while keeping the resolution high, so here’s how to activate it in Infinity Ward’s shooter.
- Launch Modern Warfare 2
- Head to Settings and navigate to the Graphics tab.
- Select Quality then open the Upscaling/Sharpening drop-down list.
- Click on NVIDIA DLSS.
- For more options, click Show More where you can select the quality and strength.
Most Modern Warfare 2 players playing at 1440p should only need the Quality or Balanced settings, but 4K players or those whose rigs are dropping frames can use Performance or Ultra Performance to squeeze out as many frames as possible.
There you have it, those are the best PC settings to use in Modern Warfare 2 for low and high-end PCs. If you’re more of a console player, make sure you check out our best controller settings for Modern Warfare 2 and how to enable 120 FPS on PS5.
Image Credits: Activision