Smoke reduces CS:GO's FPS performance.
Smoke reduces CS:GO's FPS performance.
I don't notice any FPS drops when smoke is present, but I do when players appear on the screen.
There's nothing you can really do about it. The fps drops are related to the lack of hardware you have. I used to have the exact same issue on laptop with a 2core intel CPU and AMD 6630M. It's not driver related and there's nothing you can do about it. It happens in any game with dense particle effects. For instance, putting my camera in a particle effect such as fire in world of warcraft would make my fps go from 55 down to 8. I'm 95% sure it's caused by you CPU being at 100% usage when you go into the smoke... it just can't handle it. The setting that lowers smoke quality is 'effect detail' and that's already on the lowest settings sadly.
I used to have a Core 2 Duo E7400 that slowed down in smoke or with too many players. I believed upgrading to the best LGA 775 CPU would solve these issues. Let me know—I was a bit let down. But now it runs smoother, and I occasionally hit 200+ frames per second. Thanks for the advice!