Best Valorant settings: more FPS, less input lag

The short answer

Five settings matter most among the Valorant graphics options. Each carries its level in the text, so you know what you risk before you click.

• Essential: lower Material, Texture, Detail and UI Quality.
• Essential: switch on NVIDIA Reflex if you own a GeForce, GTX 900 series or newer.
• Worth testing: fullscreen display mode, which Riot suggests trying.
• Worth testing: Multithreaded Rendering, built for powerful machines.
• Advanced (experienced players): turn VSync off to aim for lower latency, at the cost of tearing.

The rest of the page covers each setting, from safest to riskiest. For the operating system, start with Windows for Valorant. For the driver and your monitor, see the graphics card and monitor page.

Essential: no risk, apply these first

These settings undo in a few clicks. Open Valorant, then Settings > Video.

Lower the quality sliders. Go to the Graphics Quality tab. For better performance, Riot names Material Quality, Texture Quality, Detail Quality and UI Quality as the most useful settings to turn down. That is Riot's own support page, the most direct source for this game. Drop one notch at a time, check that the picture stays readable, and keep what suits you.

Switch off surplus effects. Riot adds that you can try disabling Improve Clarity, Experimental Sharpening, Bloom, Distortion and Cast Shadows. The wording is "try": turn them off one by one, and put back the one that stops you from spotting an enemy.

Turn on NVIDIA Reflex. Look for the NVIDIA Reflex option in the video settings; its exact label depends on your game version. NVIDIA says the Reflex mode works on GeForce cards back to the GTX 900 series. For Valorant, it states PC latency of less than 10 ms and performance as high as 600 FPS on a GeForce RTX 40 Series card with Reflex. Read that figure for what it is: a maker's claim on high-end hardware. It is not the gain you will get. The setting stays Essential because NVIDIA documents it for Valorant and one click undoes it.

Do not stack Reflex and the control panel mode. When Reflex and the driver's Ultra Low Latency mode are both on, Reflex overrides it. The second adds nothing on top; its setup is explained on the graphics card and monitor page.

Worth testing: reversible, effect varies

A setting at this level breaks nothing, but nobody can promise its effect on your PC. Change one thing at a time, judge the effect as explained in "Measure before and after", then keep it or cancel it.

Fullscreen. Riot suggests testing Fullscreen display mode under Settings > Video > General. The page puts no number on the gain: your own test decides.

Reflex with Boost. In NVIDIA's SDK, Low Latency Boost keeps GPU clocks high when the game is CPU-bound. NVIDIA warns this can consume significantly more power, calls the benefit modest, and notes that Reflex works without Boost. If your menu offers a Boost variant, compare it against the plain one. On a laptop, keep an eye on the battery.

Multithreaded Rendering. Riot presents it as a video setting that can improve CPU performance on high-spec machines. It asks for at least 8 GB of RAM, 2 GB of VRAM and a CPU with 8 cores, physical and virtual. You switch it on under Settings > Graphics Quality. The same thresholds appear on the PC requirements page.

AMD Anti-Lag 2. Valorant patch 12.09 adds support for it, and Riot writes that it reduces input latency in certain GPU-bound scenarios. It needs compatible hardware and drivers dated March 9th, 2026 or later. On an AMD card, update the driver before you hunt for the option.

VSync in the game. Riot says that with VSync off you may see visual artifacts and other issues. You turn it on under Settings > Video > Graphics Quality by setting VSync to ON. Leave it on until you have measured something. The next section covers the opposite move, with its price.

How to judge the effect. Change a single setting, replay the same situation, then compare. If neither the Stats graphs nor your feel move, cancel it: a setting with no visible effect has no place in your setup. The section "Measure before and after" says where to find those graphs.

Advanced (experienced players)

Only one setting lives here: letting FPS run past your monitor's refresh rate. The risk is real (tearing on screen) and recoverable with one precaution: write down the original VSync value before you change it.

Turning VSync off, with no FPS cap

• What it does: you set VSync to OFF in Graphics Quality and let the game produce more frames than the screen shows. NVIDIA recommends turning VSync off to cut latency, as long as you accept tearing.
• Measured gain: no reliable measurement published for Valorant. NVIDIA states PC latency under 10 ms and up to 600 FPS on an RTX 40 Series card with Reflex. That is the maker's figure, taken from its own measurement on specific hardware, not an independent measurement, and not a gain to expect on your machine.
• Risks: Riot reports visual artifacts and other issues with VSync off. Riot also states that turning VSync off may cause visible screen tearing.
• How to undo: set VSync back to ON under Settings > Video > Graphics Quality. Riot advises turning it back on if the tearing bothers you more than the gain helps.

Tearing against latency is a real trade-off, not a rule: your machine, your monitor and how much tearing bugs you decide it.

Measure before and after

What counts here is felt latency in game, and Valorant's performance graphs are the right instrument (see below). The reaction time test has 5 trials. The wait before the green signal is random, from 1 to 4 seconds, so you cannot anticipate it. Keep it for tracking your reaction over time, not for judging a graphics setting.

The test runs in your browser: it is a reference for feel, and it does not measure Valorant's internal latency. Your monitor, mouse and browser add their own delay to the result, so compare your tests on the same device.

On the game side, open the performance graphs under Settings > Video > Stats: they help you work out whether you are GPU-bound or CPU-bound.

To check that a new setting does not hurt your aim, replay one scenario from the benchmark. Its scenarios are played in KovaaK's. The benchmark has 3 levels: Novice, Intermediate and Advanced. A routine session lasts 20 minutes. The warm-up generator offers 10 or 20 minute sessions. If you try fullscreen in the game, run the Sensitivity Finder in fullscreen too: the perceived speed there matches the game, 103° FOV.

On the Road2Radiant side, the site is free and only the Sensitivity Finder uses tokens.

What these settings do not change

No graphics setting replaces training. A smoother game removes obstacles, it does not put your crosshair on target and it wins you no rank. The gain depends on your hardware: on a machine that is already smooth, it will be small, and that is normal.

To get started:

1. Lower Material, Texture, Detail and UI Quality, then switch on Reflex if you own a GeForce.
2. Test one "Worth testing" setting at a time and judge it by how the game feels; the reaction test is there to follow your reaction over time.
3. Turn VSync off only if you know how to turn it back on, and watch whether tearing bothers you.

Next, open the whole section or sort out Windows first. To follow your aim over time, create your account: it is free.