How to Optimize Valorant for Performance (2026) Optimization Guides

Quick Answers

Common questions answered at a glance

How much FPS can I gain?

Valorant is already one of the lightest competitive shooters on the market. Most players can hit 200+ FPS on mid-range hardware with the right settings. The gains here are less about raw FPS and more about consistency, frame pacing, and input lag reduction — which is what actually wins gunfights.

Why optimize if it already runs well?

Will any of this get me banned?

The Valorant Performance Picture

Valorant was built to run on anything. Riot designed it to hit 30 FPS on 10-year-old hardware and 144+ FPS on most modern systems. It uses a modified Unreal Engine 4 that’s been stripped down specifically for competitive performance.But “runs well” and “optimized for competitive play” are two different things. Windows is still running background processes. Your Video Card’s control panel is still set to defaults. And Vanguard (Riot’s anti-cheat) runs at kernel level, which means it’s always active — even when you’re not playing. Every optimization you make here stacks.

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Step 1: In-Game Settings That Actually Matter

Valorant’s settings are straightforward, but a few need explanation. According to ProSettings.net’s analysis of 599 professional players, here’s what the competitive standard looks like.Material Quality — Low. Controls surface detail and reflections. Low removes distracting shiny surfaces and provides a small FPS gain. Every pro uses Low.Texture Quality — Low or Medium. Low for maximum FPS, Medium if you have VRAM to spare and want slightly cleaner walls. No competitive advantage either way.Detail Quality — Low. Reduces small environmental props. Less visual clutter, more FPS. No reason to go higher competitively.UI Quality — Low. Affects HUD element quality. Low saves resources with zero impact on gameplay readability.Anisotropic Filtering — 1x. Controls texture sharpness at extreme angles. 1x is the lightest. Some pros use 4x or higher for slightly sharper distant textures — the FPS cost is tiny.Anti-Aliasing — None or MSAA 4x. This is one where pros are split. None gives maximum FPS. MSAA 4x makes enemy outlines slightly cleaner at range. If you’re above 200 FPS, try MSAA 4x — the clarity helps in long-range duels.Multithreaded Rendering — On. This is the single most important performance setting. It spreads rendering across multiple Processor cores. Turning this off can halve your FPS. Always on.Vignette, VSync, Distortion, Cast Shadows — All Off. Vignette darkens screen edges (distracting). VSync adds input lag (never). Distortion adds screen warping effects (useless). Cast Shadows adds player shadows — some pros keep this on for enemy shadow intel, but most turn it off for FPS.Bloom — Off. Adds glow to bright surfaces. Purely cosmetic. Off.

Step 2: NVIDIA Reflex — The Biggest Competitive Advantage

Valorant was one of the first games to implement NVIDIA Reflex, and it remains one of the best implementations. According to NVIDIA, Reflex reduces system latency by 20–50% in Valorant depending on your hardware.Set NVIDIA Reflex to On + Boost. This is in Valorant’s Video settings. “On” reduces the render queue. “Boost” keeps your Video Card clocks high even in lighter scenes (like buy phase), so latency stays low at all times. There is zero reason not to enable this on any NVIDIA card.For AMD users: Valorant doesn’t have native AMD Anti-Lag integration. Use Radeon Anti-Lag from Adrenalin Software instead (enable it per-game). It’s not as tightly integrated as Reflex but it helps.

Step 3: Display and Input Settings

Display Mode — Fullscreen. Not Windowed Fullscreen. True fullscreen gives the game exclusive display control for the lowest possible input lag.Resolution — 1920x1080. 68% of professional players use 1920x1080. Unlike CS2 where stretched 4:3 is meta, Valorant pros overwhelmingly play native 16:9. The game’s art direction and UI are designed for it.Frame Rate Limit — Unlocked or slightly above monitor refresh. Higher FPS = lower input lag, even if your monitor can’t display all the frames. If you have a 240Hz monitor, running at 300+ FPS still gives you fresher frames. Only cap if your system produces inconsistent frametimes.Raw Input Buffer — On. This reads mouse input directly from the hardware driver, bypassing Windows processing. 99% of professional players enable this. There is no reason to leave it off.

Step 4: Windows Settings

Valorant is light, but Windows background processes still steal frames and add latency.Disable Memory Integrity (VBS). Enabled by default on Windows 11. Costs 5–10% FPS. Note: Vanguard (Valorant’s anti-cheat) requires Secure Boot and TPM 2.0, but it does NOT require Memory Integrity. You can safely disable it. Settings → Privacy & Security → Windows Security → Device Security → Core Isolation → Off. Restart required.Disable Xbox Game Bar. 200–400MB RAM and 18–23ms input latency. Settings → Gaming → Game Bar → Off.Enable Game Mode. Settings → Gaming → Game Mode → On.Ultimate Performance power plan. Open Command Prompt as admin: powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61. Desktop PCs only — laptops use High Performance.Clean up startup programs. Task Manager → Startup tab. Disable non-essentials. Frees 1–4GB RAM.Enable HAGS. Settings → System → Display → Graphics → Change Default Graphics Settings → On. Restart required.Disable fullscreen optimizations for Valorant. Navigate to your Valorant install folder, find VALORANT-Win64-Shipping.exe, right-click → Properties → Compatibility → Check “Disable fullscreen optimizations.” This prevents Windows’ Desktop Window Manager from interfering.

Step 5: NVIDIA and AMD Control Panel Settings

For NVIDIA: Right-click desktop → NVIDIA Control Panel → Manage 3D Settings → Program Settings → Add VALORANT-Win64-Shipping.exe.Power Management Mode — Prefer Maximum Performance. Prevents the Video Card from clocking down during lighter moments like buy phase.Low Latency Mode — On. Since you’re using in-game Reflex, set this to “On” (not “Ultra”). They can conflict when stacked.Shader Cache Size — 10 GB. Prevents shader recompilation stutters when entering new areas or encountering effects.Texture Filtering Quality — High Performance.Vertical Sync — Off.For AMD: Anti-Lag → Enabled (per-game profile for Valorant), Surface Format Optimization → Enabled, Tessellation → Off, Texture Filtering Quality → Performance, Wait for V-Sync → Off. If you’re on an RX 5000 or 6000 series and experiencing shader stutters, try clearing the DXNavi shader pipeline cache from AMD’s registry entries.

Step 6: Network Optimization

Riot built their own network infrastructure called Riot Direct. It’s a dedicated backbone that routes your game traffic optimally. This means your ISP’s routing matters less than in most games — but your local connection still matters a lot.Use Ethernet. WiFi jitter and packet loss create the “my shot didn’t register” feeling. A $10 cable fixes it.Port forwarding for Valorant: TCP 2099, 5222–5223, 8393–8400. UDP 7000–8000. Setting these up on your router ensures Valorant’s traffic isn’t being filtered or delayed by NAT.Switch DNS to Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) or Google (8.8.8.8). Faster initial server connections.Address bufferbloat. If your ping spikes when someone else on your network is streaming or downloading, your router has bufferbloat. Enable SQM (Smart Queue Management) on your router if supported, or use a router that supports fq_codel. This is one of the most underrated network fixes for any online game.

Step 7: What the Pros Actually Use

Based on ProSettings.net’s database of 599 professional Valorant players:Average eDPI: 267. Median: 240. That’s extremely low — roughly a 45cm mouse swipe for a full 360° turn. If your eDPI (DPI × in-game sensitivity) is significantly above 400, you’re likely overshooting targets.TenZ plays at 800 DPI, 0.4 sensitivity (eDPI 320), 1920x1080, all settings Low, NVIDIA Reflex On + Boost, on a 360Hz monitor.Demon1 plays at 800 DPI, 0.27 sensitivity (eDPI 216), 1920x1080, all settings Low, NVIDIA Reflex On + Boost.68% play at 1920x1080. Unlike CS2, stretched resolutions are not popular in Valorant. The game’s art and UI are optimized for 16:9.47% use 360Hz+ monitors. The competitive standard has moved beyond 240Hz. Even if your FPS exceeds your refresh rate, higher FPS means fresher frames and lower input lag.99% enable Raw Input Buffer. This bypasses Windows mouse processing for the most direct input path. If you haven’t enabled this, do it now.

Step 8: Hardware-Specific Tips

Valorant is lighter than most competitive shooters, but it still benefits from the right hardware configuration.Budget PC: Everything Low, Multithreaded Rendering On, target 144+ FPS at 1080p. Even a GTX 1050 Ti can hit this with optimized settings.Mid-range: Everything Low, target 240+ FPS. An RTX 3060 or RX 6600 handles this easily.High-end: Everything Low (yes, even with a 4090 — it’s about consistency, not visual quality), target 400–600+ FPS. The goal is maximum frame freshness for minimum input lag.Enable XMP/DOCP in BIOS. RAM speed matters because Valorant is partially Processor-bound. Your RAM is likely running at 2133MHz instead of its rated speed. Enabling the profile gives 10–15% better performance.Dual-channel RAM is mandatory. Two sticks is significantly faster than one.SSD is required. Valorant on a hard drive means long loading screens and potential agent select stutters. Install it on an SSD.Laptop: Always plugged in. High Performance power plan. Valorant is light enough that most gaming laptops can hit 144+ FPS without thermal issues, but prop up the rear just in case.

Common Valorant Issues and Fixes

Stuttering during agent select or round start. Usually shader compilation. Set NVIDIA Shader Cache to 10GB. Also make sure Valorant is on an SSD — HDD causes loading stutters that manifest during agent select animations.FPS drops when abilities are used. Lower Material Quality and Detail Quality to Low. Also ensure Multithreaded Rendering is On — if it got turned off somehow, ability effects will tank your FPS.Mouse feels sluggish or inconsistent. Enable Raw Input Buffer in Valorant’s settings. Check that VSync is off both in-game and in your Video Card control panel. Disable “Enhance Pointer Precision” in Windows mouse settings (Settings → Bluetooth & Devices → Mouse → Additional Mouse Settings → Pointer Options → uncheck “Enhance pointer precision”).Vanguard causing issues after Windows update. Vanguard runs at kernel level and can conflict with certain Windows updates. If Valorant won’t launch after an update, try: restart your PC (Vanguard requires a reboot after install), check that Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 are still enabled in BIOS, and run Valorant as administrator once.High ping despite good internet. Check your server selection — Valorant sometimes routes you to a farther server. Also check for bufferbloat (see Step 6) and make sure nothing else on your network is consuming bandwidth.

The Short Version

5 minutes? Do these:1. All graphics settings to Low, Multithreaded Rendering On2. NVIDIA Reflex On + Boost (or AMD Anti-Lag)3. Raw Input Buffer On, Fullscreen mode, VSync Off4. Disable Memory Integrity and Xbox Game Bar in Windows5. Enable XMP/DOCP in BIOS6. Use Ethernet, not WiFiThat covers 80% of the competitive advantage. Everything else in this guide is the remaining 20%.Now go clutch that round.