With the release of Counter-Strike 2, players have been experimenting with new lineups to adapt to the enhanced smoke mechanics. However, an unexpected bug has surfaced in the newly-launched game, leaving players confused as their smokes appear as black boxes rather than the promised interactive gray fog.
If you’ve run into this frustrating bug and are seeking a solution, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s walk you through the steps to fix CS2’s black smoke problem.
How To Fix Black Smoke Bug In CS2?
You can fix CS2’s black smoke issue by simply updating your graphics drivers. While the exact cause of this bug is unknown so far, it’s most probably caused by old GPU driver versions and not by CS2 itself.
While updating your graphics drivers, make sure that all traces of the old driver, including registry entries and files, are removed from your system so that there are no conflicts while installing the new drivers.
There are a lot of reports of the black smoke bug being mostly encountered by players running CS2 on older GPUs, such as the AMD Radeon R7 series. However, the theory that the bug originates in older GPUs was put to rest by the Counter-Strike YouTuber 3kliksphilip, who recently tested CS2 on a bunch of old graphics cards and didn’t seem to encounter any black smoke.
So, the only solution we have left is to download the latest version of your graphics driver, as failing to do so may result in the issue persisting.
How To Safely Reinstall Your Graphics Card Drivers?
Messing around with drivers can be risky business, especially if you don’t have prior experience. Luckily, you can safely reinstall your drivers using DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) by following the below steps:
- Download DDU from their official website. Meanwhile, make sure that you have another device, such as your mobile phone, nearby since you’ll have to restart your computer into safe mode to complete the steps.
- Once the download is complete, unzip the file and open the folder named DDU.exe.
- Press the Win + I hotkey to enter Settings.
- Next, click on Update & Security (Windows 10) or System (Windows 11) and select Recovery on the left pane.
- Now, choose Restart now → Troubleshoot → Startup Settings.
- When the PC reboots, you should see a list of different startup options. Press the 4 key on your keyboard to enable Safe Mode.
- Let your PC restart normally. Once done, simply open the DDU app.
- Close the Options window when it pops up, and from the right pane, select your device type and GPU company (NVIDIA, AMD, etc.).
- Click on the Clean and restart button.
Finally, you’ve successfully reinstalled your graphics driver. Phew! Now, hopefully, you shouldn’t encounter the black smoke issue again while playing CS2.
Conclusion
The black smoke bug might be frustrating to come across, but the good news is that you can easily resolve this issue by updating your graphics card driver. Let us know in the comments if our guide helped fix the bugs for you. And if you found this guide helpful, don’t forget to explore our other articles on CS2!