Valorant is a first-person tactical shooter game created by Riot Games that takes inspiration from the Counter-Strike series.
Apart from sharing similar mechanics – like bomb defusing and buy menus – Valorant differs from its classical predecessor in that it employs the Hero Shooter system, similar to games like Overwatch and Paladins, which allows the player to play as one of many “agents” with skills unique to them.
Unlike Overwatch or Paladins, however, most of these skills or specialties also need to be bought from the in-game buy menu.
Valorant has also taken the world of eSports by storm, also similar to both Counter-Strike and Overwatch. Despite borrowing mechanics from its predecessors, it is an entirely new playing field on its own, and competition among its players is definitely fierce.
No matter how successful Valorant has turned out, it cannot escape the average gamer’s day-to-day issues like lag and slow updates. Let’s take a look at how to troubleshoot these common Valorant problems, so you or your child can play the game smoothly.
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Understand Valorant’s Minimum Requirements
As with all games, Valorant comes with its own system requirements. If your specs are not up to par with even one of these requirements, your game is likely not to run smoothly. The following are Valorant’s minimum requirements:
- CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 / AMD Athlon 200GE
- RAM: 4GB
- VRAM: 1GB
- Storage: 20GB
- OS: Windows 7 64-bit
- GPU / Video Card: Intel HD 4000 / Radeon R5 200
- Pixel Shader: 3.0
- Vertex Shader: 3.0
Evaluate Your GPU to Determine Whether It Can Support Valorant
Your GPU is key to the smoothness of your game. Think of it as a processor that, instead of focusing on calculating and processing data for software functionality, processes all the needed code for graphics and display, leaving you with optimal, smooth, and amazing graphics.
Valorant needs the specifications listed above (or better), and if your system doesn’t satisfy these requirements, your game won’t be playing the way it should be.
Chances are, it will keep freezing, hanging, and even crashing. The best thing to do is to upgrade your system to be able to handle these specifications (or greater).
If your GPU is up to par and your Valorant requirements check out, try out the following fixes for that nasty Valorant lag.
Make Sure You Are Running the Latest Valorant Patch
Since Valorant constantly releases code changes and updates called “patches” to keep the game fresh with new weapons and characters while keeping the game balanced, you need to be aware of when new patches are released.
It’s important to run the latest Valorant patch – which the client usually tells you to install upon opening.
Opening the game via the client is a great way to know whether your game is up to date or not.
Another good way of keeping yourself updated is by following Valorant’s social media pages.
Valorant Patch Stuck While Downloading
It’s a common problem for the Valorant patch download to get stuck – some even for more than a day! If your copy of
Valorant won’t update successfully, there a few easy fixes to solve these freezes:
- Restart your computer. This is one solid way to make sure that no other application is interfering with Valorant upon restart.
- Reinstall Riot Vanguard, Valorant’s security software. Make sure to uninstall, restart, re-download, then reinstall via opening Valorant.
- Run Valorant as an administrator (right click its executable file and click Run as Administrator).
- Close background applications, such as your web browser or any other app that might be sharing bandwidth and processing power with Valorant.
- Check Windows and Graphics Driver updates.
- Check your internet connection and restart your router (maybe even contact your ISP if it is not a router-related issue) if there are issues.
Valorant Update is Really Slow
There are a lot of reasons why updates or patches tend to slow down, such as slow internet speed or subpar PC performance.
Download traffic is also a huge factor, especially if the patch has just been released – people tend to update their games as soon as the patch drops, clogging up the Valorant server’s capacity for handling patch downloads.
However, there are a few things you can do to speed up the download:
- Minimize the client during download and try to close other applications running in the background as well.
- Reset your router or contact your ISP once you determine that your router isn’t due to faulty internet.
- Add a DNS resolver. It tends to help with internet speeds.
Valorant Won’t Start After Update
If you’ve successfully updated Valorant and it still won’t start, chances are you either have connection issues or permissions issues.
Sometimes the system already detects that Valorant is running and won’t allow you to open it “again.”
To solve these problems, you can do as follows:
- Reinstall Valorant, Riot Vanguard, and the Riot Client.
- Disable unnecessary processes upon your computer’s startup.
- End all Riot and Valorant processes via the Task Manager.
- Run Valorant as Administrator.
- Restart your computer and your router.
What to Do if Your Valorant Client is Slow or Laggy
Your Valorant client may be prone to lag or stuttering, so if you’re always getting into rough and slow games with your Valorant client, you should try your hand at the following fixes:
- Update your graphics drivers (go to the NVIDIA or AMD websites respectively to look for the most up-to-date driver for your graphics card).
- Log out of Discord and close it – or at the very least, restart Discord. Sometimes bad Discord configurations can lead to stutters in other games. If your game has improved since logging out, consider reinstalling Discord.
- Set CPU Priority to High in the Task Manager (found in Processes, then right click Valorant – make sure it’s running first).
- Disable background applications, Cortana, and Windows’ Action Center.
If your problem is more of a network problem than a graphics/hardware/software problem, try the following:
- Reset your network via searching “Network Reset” in your Windows Settings found in the Start window.
- Download an optimization program online – a lot of software exists that can help optimize your network experience with Valorant, such as TCP Optimizer, Valorant Net Optimizer, and NetLimiter.
Resolving Valorant Frame Drops
Another thing that can slow Valorant down is the dropping of frame rates.
Frame drops happen when the frames per second (FPS) sinks too low. The higher the FPS, the smoother the animation and display. Also, a higher FPS means that there is less delay for data travel between the server and what is being displayed on your screen.
To resolve frame rate drops in Valorant, try out the following:
- Lower most, if not, all in-game graphics settings, especially those that are effects-heavy.
- Head to your graphics card’s control panel and add settings for Valorant.
- Turn off Antistrophic Filtering, Antialiasing, Vertical V-Sync, and Multi-Frame Sampled AA.
- Turn on Low Latency mode.
- Prefer Maximum Performance on Energy Mode.
- Set Pre-rendered Frames to 1.
- Install all Windows updates.
- Choose a high-performance power plan for your PC or laptop whenever you play Valorant.
Ensure You Have the Best Settings for Valorant Configured
The best settings for Valorant tend to vary wildly, depending on who you ask.
Beginners and advanced players may give differing opinions, and as for customizing crosshairs and in-game graphics, it might all boil down to preference.
These are, on average, the best settings for Valorant. Some could be game-changing, while others might not be for you. Feel free to tweak them as you go along.
For video settings, playing on a 144Hz monitor is the most ideal.
Faster refresh rates, after all, entail smoother animations.
A great tip would be to turn cast shadows on in the Graphics Quality settings, since you’ll see enemy shadows more clearly, even within an enemy Viper’s ultimate (and it could be a bit of a help with any other vision-impeding skill, for that matter).
The best key bindings are entirely up to your preference and where you’re comfortable – which is all dependent on your keyboard position and wrist position.
A dot crosshair is the best for pros, but if you aren’t comfortable with it, then use those lines. Change the color to what you can see the best.
Finally, for the mouse sensitivity settings, professionals tend to use arm movements over wrist movements, setting their DPIs lower instead of higher, for more accuracy.
On the other hand, some pros also vouch for high DPIs for quick wrist-flicking action. This one’s another setting down for personal preference.
A good tip would be to try both high and low mouse sensitivities and see which one suits you best.
Make Sure Your Firewall isn’t Causing Issues with Valorant
There is also a known Valorant firewall issue that you might want to troubleshoot to better your quality of play.
If you’ve encountered Error Code 29, there’s a high chance that Windows Firewall is getting in the way of your connectivity to Valorant’s servers.
To solve this, you have to configure your firewall to recognize Valorant as a good and trusted entity. To do this, try the following steps:
- Go to your Windows Defender Firewall (you can search it on your Windows search bar upon pressing your Start button)
- Click “Allow a program through Windows firewall.”
- Click Change Settings.
- Remove any Valorant or Riot Client entries on the list, then add a new one with the “Allow another app” button.
- Locate your Valorant.exe file (usually found in C:Riot GamesVALORANTlive) for the new exception’s location, and click OK.
- Repeat the same process for Riot’s anticheat software (vgc.exe) usually found in C:Program FilesRiot Vanguard.
- Finally, repeat the same for the Riot Client (RiotClientServices.exe), usually found at C:Riot GamesRiot Client.
Another way to alleviate this issue is to run the game as administrator (by right-clicking the executable file and clicking Run as Administrator).
I hope you find these Valorant lag-fixing tips helpful! If you have encountered any similar issues, or if you have tips of your own, make sure to leave them in the comments – everyone would love to hear them.
