How to Fix FPS Drops on Valorant?

Are you having trouble performing to the max of your potential in Valorant due to in-game stutters and lag as well? A huge number of Valorant players have frequently reported FPS drops in their games, which completely ruins their experience.

The word FPS is an acronym for the term ‘frames per second’ and is an important measure of how smoothly your game runs. Having low FPS will cause your game to be jittery, and slow down, or even completely hinder your in-game movement, making the game unplayable.

There can be different reasons behind a poor framerate in Valorant, ranging from hardware to software issues,  but applying the fixes given in this article will get you back to one-tapping enemy heads in no time!

Possible Fixes For FPS Drops:

If you have absolutely no idea about whatever might be causing your FPS to drop and your game to lag, you should first try and determine whether you have issues in your hardware  setup or your software configuration.

Fixing FPS Drops Caused By Computer Hardware:

Low framerates and extreme lag in Valorant may be caused by your hardware for multiple reasons. Usually, fixing these requires you to make physical changes to your computer, such as buying new components or fixing the ones you already have.

Upgrading Your Computer:

If you have poor hardware in your computer, like an old processor, insufficient RAM, or a weak graphics card, it is no surprise that you aren’t getting great FPS in Valorant. Although it is a very well optimised game, Valorant still needs semi-decent computer specs to maintain constant 60 FPS, especially in gunfights.

You can get a huge FPS boost by upgrading your computer hardware, especially the processor. It is well established that Valorant is a CPU-intensive game, and having a good CPU will definitely fix your FPS problems if the rest of your computer hardware is not too weak.

If you game on a laptop, plug it into the charger whenever you want to play the game because laptops have limited performance capabilities on battery, and give you the best FPS only with the charger plugged in.

Fixing Thermal Issues:

If you have an expensive computer with great specs, but still experience FPS drops after gaming for a while, chances are that your computer is being bottlenecked by thermal issues. Thermal throttling limits the performance of your computer, and you experience FPS drops as your computer starts heating up.

If you have a PC, you should try installing a good heatsink or properly placed fans for increased heat dissipation. Undervolting the CPU may also help you reduce the temperature of your PC. For a laptop, it is recommended to use a cooling pad when gaming, and reapplying thermal paste on your CPU if you haven’t done so in a long time.

Fixing Low FPS Due To Software Issues:

If your computer is not suffering from the hardware issues mentioned above, or if the fixes given above did not fix your FPS, you probably have some software side issues in your computer. Thankfully, these are relatively easier to fix.

Set Your Computer Settings To Maximum Performance:

Windows offers different power plans for your computer that can be found in the control panel. These usually include an efficient Power Saving mode, a Balanced power mode, and a High Performance mode.

If you want to maximise your FPS, make sure that you set your computer to the “Ultimate Performance Power Plan” if your computer has it listed there. However, most laptops do not have this mode, and if that is the case for you, just pick Best Performance mode.

Update or Reinstall Your Graphic Drivers:

Graphic drivers can make or break your in-game FPS completely on their own. An outdated or a corrupted installation of these can easily cause severe stutters and FPS drops in Valorant.

Simply updating them from your graphic card manufacturer’s website or utility software usually fixes this issue. However, completely uninstalling your drivers then fresh installing the latest ones is an even better option and can give the best results.

Lower Your In-Game Graphic Settings:

If you play on the highest graphic settings, it is possible that your low FPS are caused by that. Using settings like high quality textures, anti-aliasing and tessellation present inside Valorant’s Graphic settings tab may cause performance issues for you if your PC is not capable enough.

Try playing around with Valorant’s Graphics Quality page in settings and set the game to a lower resolution there if you want a simple way to increase your FPS.Turning settings like anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering to off, and lowering texture and environment quality can also give your FPS a big boost.

Turn Off Compatibility Settings For Valorant:

A lot of Valorant players have reported that disabling Windows optimisations for Valorant fixed their FPS drops. You can try to do the same if no other option is working for you.

Simply right click on the Valorant icon that you use to launch the game. Go to the Compatibility tab after clicking on Properties. From there, check the boxes for “Disable Fullscreen Optimisations” and “Run As Administrator”, and you are done!

Adjust Mouse Polling Rate:

No one really knows why this is an issue for Valorant since it seems something completely unrelated to it, but adjusting (usually decreasing) your mouse’s polling rate can help you fix your valorant frame drops.

This is a really simple thing to do, and you can do it by simply finding the relevant software utility of your mouse, and changing the polling rate from there. For example, if you have a Logitech mouse, you can do this in the Logitech Gaming Software.

Clean Install Windows:

If nothing else works, a fresh and clean install of Windows will. Doing this will fix all your software related issues, and you might be able to get rid of your FPS drops in Valorant once and for all.

However, this should be your last resort, since it will remove all the data on the drive on which you have Windows installed. Make sure to back all your data up before you do this, and then wipe your PC clean in the Windows installation toolbox.

Also check: How To Check How Many Hours You’ve Played Valorant?

Final Thoughts:

FPS drops in Valorant are extremely annoying, but are a very widespread issue that appear to just pop up out of nowhere for the unlucky ones. However, going through the fixes given in this article will most likely fix this irritating issue for most people.

Let us know in the comments below which of these fixes works for you, so that other readers can benefit from your experience and finally have an enjoyable Valorant experience.