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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 cover
Developers
Infinity Ward
macOS (OS X) Aspyr Media
Publishers
Activision
OS X Aspyr Media
Japan Square Enix
Engines
IW 4.0
Release dates
Windows November 10, 2009
macOS (OS X) May 20, 2014
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 guide on StrategyWiki
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on Wikipedia

Warnings

The macOS (OS X) version of this game does not work on macOS Catalina (version 10.15) or later due to the removal of support for 32-bit-only apps.
Call of Duty 2003
Call of Duty 2 2005
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (series)
Call of Duty: Black Ops (series)
Call of Duty: Ghosts 2013
Call of Duty: Online 2013
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare 2014
Call of Duty: Heroes 2014
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare 2016
Call of Duty: WWII 2017
Call of Duty: Warzone 2020
Call of Duty: Vanguard 2021
Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 2022

General information

Official Call of Duty series site
Call of Duty Wiki - A detailed wiki for every Call of Duty game made.
Planet Call of Duty - Very old hub for all Call of Duty games. Has mods, guides, and news on the Call of Duty communities. Hasn't been updated for a while.
Reddit - /r/mw2
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Icon overlay.png
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Amazon.com
Icon overlay.png
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Gamesplanet logo.svg
Icon overlay.png
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Windows
macOS (OS X)
All versions require Steam DRM.

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
Stimulus Package
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Resurgence Pack
Windows
macOS (OS X)

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Go to <path-to-game>\main\video then delete or rename cod_intro.bik, default.bik, IW_logo.bik and legal.bik[citation needed]

Delete/rename image file[citation needed]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>.
  2. Delete or rename splash.bmp.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\players\[Note 1]
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/10180/pfx/[Note 2]
Single player configuration settings are saved in <path-to-game>\players\config.cfg
Multiplayer configuration settings are saved in <path-to-game>\players\config_mp.cfg

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\players\save\[Note 1]
<path-to-game>\players\settings_c.zip.iw4[Note 1]
<path-to-game>\players\settings_s.zip.iw4[Note 1]
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/10180/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
Steam Cloud
Syncs only multiplayer progress.[1]

Video settings

Template:Video settings

Field of view (FOV)

For multiplayer use MW2 MP FoV Changer by AgentRev or BetterCOD. Infinity Ward does not treat FOV adjustment as cheating.[2]
For campaign and special ops use Call of Duty: SCZ FoV Changer, or the fix below.
Edit config.cfg[3]
1. Open your config.cfg
2. Add the following lines
set developer "1"
set sv_cheats "1"
set thereisacow "1337"
bind w "cg_fov 80;cg_fovScale 1.125"
3. Save it. Once in game press w (as you already do to walk forward; you can rebind it to another key if you like) and your FOV will be changed.

Notes

cg_fov adjusts your base hipfire FOV, while cg_fovScale is a multiplier for all FOV levels (including hipfire FOV and the weapon-specific aim down sights FOV levels). You can adjust both to your liking.
Starting a new level will reset the FOV to default but reaching a checkpoint will save your changed FOV, including if you save & quit & resume that same level.

Anisotropic filtering (AF)

Edit config files[citation needed]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\players
    • For singleplayer, edit config.cfg.
    • For multiplayer, edit config_mp.cfg.
  2. Find a line seta r_texFilterAnisoMin "1" and change the value to either "2", "8" or "16" (max).
  3. Find a line seta r_texFilterAnisoMax "4" and change the value to either "2", "8" or "16" (max).

Notes

To bypass the game automatically adjusting settings of anisotropic, set both r_texFilterAnisoMax and r_texFilterAnisoMin to the same value.

Input settings

Template:Input settings

Mouse acceleration

Mouse acceleration is disabled by default. It can be manually enabled by editing a config file.

Edit config file[citation needed]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\players\
  2. Edit config.cfg (single player) or config_mp.cfg (multiplayer).
  3. Change seta cl_mouseAccel "0" to seta cl_mouseAccel "1" to enable mouse acceleration.

Audio settings

Template:Audio settings

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Polish
Russian
Spanish
Turkish
Fan translation. Details missing—please edit this page and add it.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
LAN play
18 Available with a private client here (down)
Online play
18

Connection types

Issues fixed

Singleplayer hangs on launch with black screen and mouse cursor moving

Download DSOAL or other DirectSound wrapper, and put it into the game folder

Multiplayer hangs on launch/startup with splash screen

Delete file mp_playlist_dlc2.ff

Navigate to C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2\zone\english

For some users helped deleting mp_playlists_dlc1.ff or/and mp_playlists.ff

Other information

API

Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
32-bit only.[4]

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) XP
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 4 3.2 GHz
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
System memory (RAM) 1 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 12 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
256 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible
macOS (OS X)
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 10.9.2
Processor (CPU) Intel Core i3 2.2 GHz
System memory (RAM) 4 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 13 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 640M
ATI Radeon HD 4850
Intel Iris
512 MB of VRAM
The following chipsets are unsupported by the OS X version: ATI Radeon HD 2000 series, ATI Radeon HD 6490M, 6630M, 3870, Nvidia GeForce 9000 series, Nvidia GeForce 320M, 330M, Intel HD 3000, 4000, 5000
Hard drive volumes formatted as Mac OS Extended (Case Sensitive) are not supported

Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).
  2. 2.0 2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/10180/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (10180) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References