Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

This page is for the original 2009 release. For the 2020 campaign remaster, see Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered. For the sequel to the 2019 reboot, see Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

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
Reception
Metacritic	86
IGDB	94
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	First-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Action, FPS, Shooter
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	South America, Contemporary
Series	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
Subseries of Call of Duty
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare	2007
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2	2009
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3	2011
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered	2016
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	2019
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered	2020
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II	2022
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III	2023

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.

General information

Official Call of Duty series site

CallofDutyMaps - A detailed Website for all included multiplayer maps.

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		2 DVDs
Steam
Amazon.com (unavailable)
(unavailable)

All versions require Steam DRM.

DLC and expansion packs

Name	Notes
Stimulus Package	Adds five new maps with two maps from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Bailout - a multi-level apartment complex. Storm - an open industrial park littered with heavy machinery. Salvage - a snowy junkyard fortified by stacked debris and crushed cars. Crash - a war-torn urban environment (CoD 4). Overgrown - features a massive dry creek bed (CoD 4).
Resurgence Pack	Adds five new maps with two maps from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. "Carnival," a large abandoned theme park that offers lots of unique vantage points that work well for all game modes. The once vibrant rides now sit idle and neglected as perfect cover points in one of the most original multiplayer locations for Modern Warfare 2. "Fuel," a massive oil refinery with extremely long sightlines great for medium- to long-range firefights. The spacious surroundings offer a great sniper advantage; offices, warehouses, and buildings house objectives and provide opportunity for close-range firefights. "Trailer Park," a medium-sized mobile estate with a maze of tight flank routes and lots of cover. Junk covered yards, deserted trailers, and debris-riddled surroundings offer intense firefights with a wide variety of vantage points and routes available. "Strike," a large urban desert town, excellent for medium-to-large team games. The large monument, connecting streets, and surrounding buildings offer great firefights in Team Deathmatch, and great vantage points for objective team games (CoD 4). "Vacant," a deserted Russian office complex offering a great mixture of interior and exterior combat. Long hallways with minimal cover points offer a fast escape route for potential runners, but high accuracy and fast aiming is required when advancing through this large complex (CoD 4).

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Edit config file
Go to the configuration file(s) location. Open config.cfg. Change seta intro "1" to seta intro "0" Save the file.

Skip logo

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

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\players\
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/10180/pfx/

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\ <path-to-game>\players\settings_c.zip.iw4 <path-to-game>\players\settings_s.zip.iw4
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/10180/pfx/

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
Steam Cloud		Syncs only multiplayer progress.

Video

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor			See the WSGF entry or use Widescreen Fixer.
Ultra-widescreen			See the WSGF entry or use Widescreen Fixer.
4K Ultra HD			Does not work with in-game fullscreen enabled
Field of view (FOV)		Default is 65° vertical. See Field of view (FOV).
Windowed		Toggle using Alt+↵ Enter or change 'seta r_fullscreen "0"' to 'seta r_fullscreen "1"' in configuration file
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See Anisotropic filtering (AF).
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS
120+ FPS		Frame rate in multiplayer is capped at 91 FPS. Use MW2 FPS Unlocker or BetterCOD. For multiplayer after the 2023 update, use Market by PierroD AKA: LINDRA.
Ray tracing (RT)

Field of view (FOV)

For multiplayer after the 2023 update use Market by PierroD AKA: LINDRA. Infinity Ward does not treat FOV adjustment as cheating.

For campaign and special ops use Call of Duty: SCZ FoV Changer, or the fix below.

Edit config.cfg

1. Open the 'players' folder located within your game folder, find and open "config.cfg" with a text-editing tool 2. Find the line "seta monkeytoy" and change its value from "1" to "0" 3. Add the following lines seta thereisacow "1337" bind w "+forward;cg_fov 80;cg_fovScale 1.125" 4. 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. Weapon models are affected by changes in FOV. Warning: There has been several tweak suggestions online for adding 'sv_cheats "1"' into the config file to enable the console menu. While this has been true for the previous game, Modern Warfare 2 had a stricter stance on cheating thereby adding 'sv_cheats' may well crash the game on startup and even deletes the config file afterwards. Make sure to backup the config file if you are to risk adding the line. That said, the FOV tweak mentioned will work fine.

Anisotropic filtering (AF)

Edit config files[citation needed]

Go to <path-to-game>\players For singleplayer, edit config.cfg. For multiplayer, edit config_mp.cfg. Find a line seta r_texFilterAnisoMin "1" and change the value to either "2", "8" or "16" (max). 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

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration		Disabled by default. See Mouse acceleration.
Mouse sensitivity		Does not show how high the sensitivity is manually, must go into config_mp to directly change
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Mouse acceleration

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

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

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound		Only 5.1
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Czech				Fan translation.
French
German
Hungarian				Fan translation, link #1, link #2.
Italian
Japanese
Polish
Russian
Spanish
Slovak				Fan translation.
Turkish				Fan translation. Details missing—please edit this page and add it.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Players	Notes
LAN play		18
Online play		18

Connection types

Type	Native	Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP

Ports

Protocol	Port(s) and/or port range(s)
TCP	28960(MP), 28961 (Spec-Ops)
UDP	28960(MP), 28961 (Spec-Ops)

This game supports Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) for automatic port configuration.

VR support

3D modes	State	Notes
vorpX		G3D, Z3D User created game profile, see vorpx forum profile introduction.

Devices
3RD Space Gaming Vest

Issues unresolved

Cannot install the game from retail DVDs

Use Phoenix extractor

Extract the game files from DVDs using tutorial Start downloading the game in Steam (redeem the code from the back of the manual if you got a new copy) Place extracted files in the game's Steamapps folder you chose during Steam game installation Verify integrity of game files in Properties>Local game files clicking RMB on the game After verification, downloading of additional few gigabytes will start

Issues fixed

Ambient Occlusion issues on Nvidia GPUs

Ambient Occlusion set to Performance.

Ambient Occlusion set to off.

Disable Ambient Occlusion inside NVIDIA Control Panel
iw4sp.exe is for Singleplayer, iw4mp.exe is for Multiplayer. Open the Nvidia Control Panel. Go to 3D Settings, Manage 3D settings, Program Settings. Click Add, Browse and select iw4sp.exe or iw4mp.exe inside <path-to-game>. Set Ambient Occlusion to Off.

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

Mouse stuttering/skipping

Uncap framerate
Disallow RTSS or other similar programs from capping your framerate and disabling Vsync will help reduce mouse stutter as well as a lower mouse polling rate

Stuck in The Gulag level

Playing at high fps results in a stuck in The Gulag Level.

Enable Vsync in the options game and set monitor to 60hz[citation needed]

Other information

API

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

Mods

High(er) Resolution Textures

Upscales the Textures to minimum 1024x

HD Blood decals

This replaces the game's default 128 x 128 blood decals with a new, hi-res 2048 x 2048 texture

System requirements

Windows

macOS (OS X)

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	XP	Vista
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium 4 3.2 GHz AMD Athlon 64 3200+	Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz
System memory (RAM)	1 GB	2 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	Nvidia GeForce 7800 GT ATI Radeon X1800

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