The CS2 Practice Config That Actually Works

You load an offline map, paste a practice config you found on Google, throw a smoke, and no trajectory line appears.

No error. No warning. The console scrolls past and everything looks like it worked.

It did not. The config you pasted was written for CS:GO, and the command that draws the grenade path does not exist in CS2 any more. The game accepted it silently and ignored it.

Here is the config that actually works, what each line does, and the practice loop that makes lineups stick.

The commands that quietly died in Source 2

This is the part that wastes people's evenings.

sv_grenade_trajectory is gone. It was the CS:GO command for drawing the arc of a thrown grenade, it is in almost every practice config on the internet, and in CS2 it does nothing at all.

The replacement is sv_grenade_trajectory_prac_pipreview 1, which opens a picture in picture view showing the whole flight and the landing spot. It is better than the old line, but it has a different name, so nobody copying an old config ever turns it on.

sv_grenade_trajectory_time is gone too. The CS2 version is sv_grenade_trajectory_prac_trailtime, and it caps at 8. Setting it to 10 or 30, as the old configs do, gets you 8 seconds and no explanation.

net_graph is gone. Use cl_showfps 2 instead.

The reason this keeps happening is that CS2 does not reject unknown commands loudly when they come from a config file. A dead config and a working config look identical from the outside, which is why people conclude their practice server is broken rather than their config.

The config, block by block

Four groups, and each one solves a specific problem with practising alone.

Unlock. sv_cheats 1 is the gate. Nothing below it works without it. bot_kick removes the bots so nothing shoots you mid lineup, and mp_warmup_end skips the warmup phase so the round actually starts.

Time and money. mp_roundtime 60 and mp_roundtime_defuse 60 give you an hour per round instead of restarting every two minutes. mp_freezetime 0 removes the wait at the start. The money commands plus mp_buy_anywhere 1 mean you can rebuy anything from anywhere on the map without walking back to spawn.

Utility. sv_infinite_ammo 1 stops you reloading. ammo_grenade_limit_total 5 lets you carry five grenades at once rather than the normal limit, which matters when you are learning a four nade execute. Then the two trajectory commands from the section above.

Feedback. sv_showimpacts 1 and sv_showimpacts_time 10 draw where every bullet actually landed, client side in blue and server side in red. This is the single most useful command in the list and almost nobody uses it, because it shows you the difference between where you thought you hit and where the server says you did.

Then mp_restartgame 1 to apply everything.

The three binds that make it usable

The config alone is not enough. Three keys turn it into an actual practice tool.

bind "mouse5" "noclip" lets you fly. Throw a smoke, then fly to where it landed and look back at your lineup from the other side. Half of learning a smoke is understanding what it actually blocks.

bind "n" "sv_rethrow_last_grenade" replays your last throw exactly. This is the one that changes everything. You throw once, then you can watch that same throw from anywhere on the map, as many times as you want, without having to reproduce the lineup.

bind "j" "cl_removedecals" clears bullet holes and blood so your wall lineups stay visible after a few minutes of practice.

The loop

Having the config is not the same as knowing what to do with it. Here is the cycle that actually puts a lineup into memory.

Throw it. Watch the preview to see the arc and the landing point. Fly to the landing spot and look back so you understand what the smoke covers and from which angles. Rethrow it and watch the same throw from that new position.

Then do the lineup again from scratch, without the preview, and check whether it landed in the same place.

That last step is the one people skip. Watching a smoke land correctly teaches you nothing if you only ever do it once. The lineup is learned when you can hit it cold, three times in a row, without thinking about the pixel you were lining up against.

Where to put the file

Make a plain text file called practice.cfg and save it in your CS2 config folder, inside csgo/cfg. One command per line.

Then launch a map offline. In the console, type map de_mirage, wait for it to load, and type exec practice.

Two things that catch people out. Make sure the file ends in .cfg and not .cfg.txt, which Windows hides by default and which is the most common reason nothing happens. And remember that every one of these commands is locked on official matchmaking, so none of this works in a real game.

If you are also setting up your main config, the binds guide covers which binds are still legal after Valve's crackdown, and the launch options guide covers the startup side.

What to practise, and for how long

A practice server is a tool, not a plan. The most common mistake is loading one, throwing smokes at random for forty minutes, and finishing with nothing retained.

Pick one map. Pick three smokes on that map, the ones you actually need on the site you play most. Learn those three until you can hit them cold, then stop. Three lineups you can hit under pressure beat thirty you half remember.

Fifteen minutes is enough. The 20 day training routine runs on exactly that principle for mechanics, and utility works the same way: short, specific, repeated, rather than long and unfocused.

And before any of it, make sure the sensitivity you are building that muscle memory on is one you are going to keep. Check it against your mousepad with the eDPI Calculator, because a lineup learned on one sensitivity does not survive a change to another.