5 Tips to Fix Stuttering in Valorant – Ultimate Guide

Are you experiencing frustrating stuttering while playing Valorant?

This article will explore what stuttering is in Valorant, the common causes such as high ping and outdated drivers, and provide practical solutions on how to fix Valorant lag in the game.

From lowering graphics settings to updating drivers and checking for overheating, we’ve got you covered.

Stay tuned for some valuable tips on preventing stuttering in Valorant for a seamless gaming experience.

What Is Stuttering in Valorant?

In Valorant, stuttering is a phenomenon in which the image on your monitor freezes, repeatedly jumping one to a few frames as a result. Stuttering can make playing the game difficult and may even produce screen blindness in some people, as they can lose track of where opponents are when the image is only partially updating. If you are frustrated with losing games due to objects and characters teleporting, you may be experiencing stuttering.

What Are the Causes of Stuttering in Valorant?

The causes of stuttering in Valorant can be divided into three broad categories including natural stutter triggers, background software performance issues introduced by players’ computers, and server-related performance factors. Natural stutter triggers are characteristics of the game and can be caused by a variety of things including but not limited to large explosions, excessive smoke during firefights, client server delays, sudden changes in game obstructions such as smokes and mollys, excessive teammate pings on the player’s client, and gun models default settings including their viewmodel field of view (FOV). These triggers are the most difficult to fix and the only solution if one feels the interrupting stutter is affecting them, is to learn to bear with it (most likely by lowering settings), or to switch to a less demanding game. The background software performance issues causing stutter are introduced by the local rig playing Valorant, and can be addressed by players themselves through the mitigation and elimination techniques outlined earlier in the document. Server-related performance factors are introduced by the Google S o Paulo, Dallas, and London Fried servers, which in practice are the most commonly used by players, and can only be fixed by their provider. Here is a brief overview of the causes of stuttering with a lot of crows to help it be less visually boring.

High Ping

Stuttering in Valorant may be caused by an unstable internet connection or high ping. Ping rate refers to the time a signal takes to travel from your computer to the game server. Anything above 100 ms can result in this lag which causes stuttering in gameplay as seen in laggy and error-laden internet-based voice calls. Most players can expect their games to perform at a high level every time by making sure their ping reaches between 0-20 ms. This should stop stuttering and input lag issues that result from high ping.

You can determine if high ping is affecting Valorant gameplay by pressing ALT+ F while playing Valorant. A white square will show up at the top left of your screen where you can see your current ping rate. Dropped packets or jitter can also contribute to stuttering in games. Recommended measures include testing if other devices and applications are using up bandwidth and upgrading to faster internet. You can also apply these fixes for Ping Variability or Ping Fluctuations if your internet speed is varying.

Outdated Drivers

Drivers are pieces of software that a computer uses to communicate with the various pieces of hardware installed in it such as GPUs, CPUs, and network cards. Just like any other software, they are updated over time to fix bugs, increase performance, and improve compatibility. Old drivers may have bugs that cause stuttering under high frames-per-second conditions.

Most manufacturers of computer hardware, especially those specializing in producing GPUs and CPUs, frequently update the drivers on their website to keep them bug-free and working smoothly. Companies like Nvidia and AMD regularly issue updates to their GPU drivers. Drivers for the network cards used in computers can also cause stutter. Network cards have received less attention in driver updates lately with built-in Windows network drivers being fine for most users, but if upgrading your graphic drivers did not help solve Valorant stuttering, Valorant packet loss, or any other technical issue, try updating this driver to see if the problem resolves.

One of the big consumer-generic Wi-Fi network card providers is Realtek. The company offers downloads of new drivers for their cards on their support website. Most Windows computers will automatically update the drivers from time to time. However, an overly broadly chosen automatic update may choose the incorrect driver if it encounters more than one possibility on a computer with a variety of hardware components. Creative Live! sound cards are a good example of this.

Everyone’s system will be different, but the following general Windows Navigation guide and Realtek Wi-Fi card update process provides the basic functionality

Overheating Computer

Overheat occurs when CPU or GPU temperatures rise above the normal operational level. This phenomenon is particularly common on laptops with restricted airflow. Overheating can be caused by the following:

CPU Overload: The CPU performs most of the calculations and numerous operations of the instructions of a computer program. When a program or computer application is running, any delays or lags take place due to the slow working of the CPU. This is another significant cause of game stuttering as the CPU overheats and cannot handle the game’s high-quality graphics. GPU Overload: The Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) is likely to be the source of the problem as it undergoes persistently heavy workload. Most computer games stress out the GPU, and overheating causes the GPU to slow down the operation of the computer, resulting in stuttering. Moisture Buildup: Causes overheat, except surprisingly, prevent overheating. An overheated computer will accumulate water vapor ,leading to an add-on or multiplier heat issue. Moisture prevents machines from functioning properly, so lowering the computer’s temperature requirement water vapor and improving airflow can have beneficial effects for stuttering games. Fingerprint Marks: Blocking the computer’s air vent leads to the accumulation of moisture, as does dust. When the excess debris is hot to the touch while breathing exhaust, this is a sign of an investment build-up. Taking the laptop apart and physically vacuuming the dust out is the easiest way to tackle this kind of issue.

Incompatible Graphics Settings

Another known and commonly experienced problem that causes stuttering in Valorant is incompatible graphics settings. A user on the Tom’s Guide forum reported that changing his graphic settings (such as running the game windowed, and trying different resolutions) brought a 90% reduction in his stuttering, as he had previously been running it on 1920 x 1028 with Fullscreen which wasn’t the default resolution for his system.

The Fixed Frame Rate (VSync) setting tends to help as well. If the issue persists, revert the changes back or slowly change the settings to see if the initial hunch was correct. Users can also go to the Riot forums, crowdsourced technical documentation on YouTube, a Reddit forum such as r/Valorant, or speak to a tech advisor on a site like Quora.

How to Fix Stuttering in Valorant?

To fix stuttering in Valorant, players may need to configure the game settings. Here is a four-step process to find out how to fix stuttering in Valorant:

1. Get the frame rate values with Release Win + G (Windows) and check the statistics to see if GPU processing or networking are the source of the problem.
2. Check that there are not too many resources being used. If GPU processing is highlighted, turn off all programs using excessive processing.
3. Valorant players report turning off the /dev/shm file option on the vanguard.exe file helped reduce stuttering. Using the procedure below, Valorant informs the system that a shock-associated memory file should not be created or accessed. Once the /dev/shm function is disabled, Valorant should in theory run better. Disabling this option helped improve Valorant stuttering for many users.
4. The Valorant update process is fairly automatic, but some issues can be fixed by doing a manual update with the following steps. Uninstall Vanguard Right-click on the Start menu Select Device Manager from the list of options Under the Display adapters category, right-click your graphics card and select Uninstall device Select Uninstall Restart PC Download and install the latest graphics driver from the manufacturer's website Play Valorant and see if the stuttering persists.

It is not always guaranteed that one of these solutions will work, as it all depends on the cause of the issue. Start with a logical step by step process to fix low FPS in Valorant before moving onto the other solutions. Others have said they disabled the switch of their device into power saving mode and turning on universal plug and play might help if your router is the problem. A wired connection is also the most reliable way to diagnose network lag if you are playing on a device with a wireless connection. In the worst case, upgrading your equipment may be the solution if nothing else is helping and you want to continue playing with no issues.

Lower Graphics Settings

If your internet connection is regularly causing stuttering in Valorant, you can reduce the game’s impact by lowering graphic settings if you know how. This can help somewhat, but Battlenonsense on YouTube illustrates how network issues usually cause lags and stutters in online first-person-shooter video games.

Conduct periodic tests and potentially change internet service providers if ongoing network issues cannot be ameliorated, as stuttering and lag can ruin your gameplay experience. If your system is not up to the task of games, shuttering is probable, in which case updating graphics drivers or potentially upgrading gaming hardware is an option.

Update Drivers

Mouse and keyboard stuttering in Valorant may be due to outdated drivers. To determine if your drivers are out of date, press Win + X and navigate to Device Manager. Search for your video card, mouse, and keyboard models right click and choose Update driver. Quickly resolve this by navigating to the manufacturer’s official website and downloading the most recent driver if this doesn’t work. To easily update drivers in Windows 10, 8 and 7 use the DriverFix software. DriverFix is available in a free and paid version, both of which are compatible with Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10. The main difference between the free and paid DriverFix versions is real-time information and automatic driver updates. The paid version costs $10-50 and provides support for thousands of devices, so look into the specifics of your system’s devices or skip the subscription and find the drivers you need manually. By press Win + R, typing dxdiag in the popup, and pressing Enter to view your system summary.

Close Unnecessary Programs

Both the game and your computer’s resources may be overloaded with too many running programs open, which can slow down your game and make it run less smoothly, causing stutter. It is suggested in the Common Solutions section of Riot Games’ How to Repair Your Game article to Disable background applications and your software overlays.

Stutter may show up differently depending on your computer, but when you research your computer you may see high memory use percentages that indicate that background applications should be closed. Settings for the menu instructions will vary by computer, and perhaps by specific computer, but the general principles will be the same. As an example, with Windows 10 on a laptop, you right-click on the Windows button in the bottom corner, left-click on Task Manager and select More details if not already selected.

Windows 10 users would then click on the Memory panel, at which point it will sort all processes by memory use. You should take note of what is sucking up memory and stop or delete the program if it is unnecessary.

Use a Wired Connection

Some users experiencing stutters on the RIOT forums express that if they plug their machines directly into their network with an ethernet cable they experience a temporary improvement or removal of the stutter. Often the diagnosis of the ethernet plug-in solving stuttering would indicate that the issue belongs to one of wifi’s common causes for stuttering.

It is absolutely within the realm of possibility that many routers are so weak and faulty in traffic governing using wifi as an intermediary that LAN Ethernet connections are the only way to have safe results. If you switch to LAN-only and find your stutter disappears, you can try diagnosing your wifi further by reproducing the error via wifi and attempting to pinpoint the interference source. Device usage, router heating, concrete structural interference with signal-AoC, and simply a bad connection or router are frequent issues that could be causing stutter.

According to Optimum, your streaming buffer will be faster with a wired connection, meaning that they can move the data packets quicker and more efficiently than wireless. Though a wired connection may result in better output, you may lose mobility and deal with further connection issues. It is worth checking if a wired connection makes a difference. If it solves building or input stutter it is likely that your wifi is the problem and diagnosing can often be a fix.

Check for Overheating

Modern high-performance computers and game consoles have safety measures that will throttle performance, shutdown part of the system, or entirely shut down the system if they become too hot and have not been managed properly.

Do not let this happen. Always try to play without the stuttering occurring and then check your system temperatures. For laptops, check the temperature of CPU and GPU, ensure the vents and fans are clean, and perhaps reapply the thermal paste. Desktop graphics cards and processors often have their own software utilities for monitoring temperatures and controlling overclocks, and water-cooled systems may not actually be water cooled.

Reinstall the Game

If you are unable to fix the stutter issue in Valorant through the above methods, some corrupted game files may be the root cause. A reinstall will resolve these corruption issues and may fix the stutter. Fixing stutter by reinstalling is a rare solution; re-installing the entire game is the nuclear option where nothing else has succeeded, and the problem is almost certainly not solved on your end. Strevival Candidate – 1 player at the Reactor University in India tried reinstalling the game. There was no change while reinstalling the game. So he tried calling his ISP. He is yet to be connected with them and says that it seems like it’s totally their fault. He has opted to not play for the time being. Why would he recommend reinstalling if it has already served him no benefit and the problem appeared not on his end? Example From Real Life with no success realized by a reinstall process suggesting the fault was not on the user end in the first place. Refer to Valorant Commandments Article for guidance.

What Are Some Tips to Prevent Stuttering in Valorant?

Some tips to prevent stuttering in Valorant include the following:

1. Disable the Xbox DVR function. This setting can lead to lag, packet loss, and screen tearing.
2. Force your game to run in full-screen mode. This can lead to smoother playback and reduce stuttering.
3. Run the game on a Windows high power profile, limiting background apps. This can improve gameplay and reduce stutter.
4. Opt-in to the Vanguard Beta Client. This client has Rapid Click Filtering, Frame Synthesis, and CPU Time Slice instead of Memory Management. This can lessen the impact of background apps and help various machines. This can help with cheats, but the client is disruptive.
5. Enable future frame rendering in Nvidia Control Panel in Valorant settings. This can reduce input lag and smooth gameplay and improve stuttering in some machines.
6. Disable mouse acceleration in Valorant settings. This can improve gameplay and reduce stuttering.
7. Limit your framerate and adjust in-game video settings. Set limits to just below your monitor’s refresh rate. Aim for a smooth player experience. This can reduce stuttering by optimizing for performance. This means reducing visual effects, resolution, or limiting framerate.
8. Turn off V-Sync. This can prevent screen tearing and input lag and improve stuttering.
9. Change priority settings in Task Manager. This can free up resources and improve stuttering.
10. Disable Windows Game Mode. This can fix stutter.
11. Update or roll back GPU drivers in Windows Settings. Sometimes this fixes the stutter.
12. Underclock your graphics card using Nvidia Inspector. This may sound counterintuitive, but sometimes this action can resolve stutter caused by overheating or overworking video cards.
13. Use third-party programs to optimize your PC for performance. FGFPS Booster, Razer Cortex, and Razer Game Booster are popular ones.

Keep Drivers Updated

Keeping drivers updated involves ensuring that a person has the most recent versions of software that equip their system with the latest features, bug fixes, and problem solutions. This is a standard practice for most apps and Operating Systems and typically valid advice. Up-to-date drivers are less of a concern in the near-universal environment of automatically updating drivers, including without-deletion procedures for pre-existing drivers.

That being said, the Hardware Support team emphasizes this point. If there is a suspected driver problem, manually checking them could help fix that problem and improve the stuttering throughout the system. To update the device drivers, customers can visit the Microsoft support website using the link provided in this next passage (https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/4497165/windows-10-update-drivers) for the device manufacturers to update the necessary drivers. NVIDIA and IFNTEL regularly release driver updates, making the process of keeping drivers updated all the more simple and convenient.

Use a Wired Connection

If stuttering is due to packet loss or bad ping, consider using a wired connection to get a better internet connection. Public Wi-Fi or potentially crowded 2.4GHz channel in densely populated apartment buildings can cause connection issues. Power-line adapters (PLA) are inexpensive and can offer a good enough connection in certain scenarios.

Close Unnecessary Programs

If you have multiple programs open while playing Valorant, you can experience stuttering. Since your computer has a finite number of resources, tasks that are running in the background can consume some of it. You can try closing some of the non-essential programs to see if there is an improvement.

Lower Graphics Settings

A stutter in Valorant refers to brief distractions from the game visual and auditory environment that decrease the quality of the video game experience and impact success by interfering with game play. There are multiple possible causes of stutter in Valorant. Playvalorant.com recommends following these steps to potentially fix your stutter in Valorant.

If none of these steps are effective, try to determine the specific cause of the problem by adjusting the settings one at a time in order to better diagnose the issue. When in-game, make all of the settings the same except for one that you want to troubleshoot. Go ahead and toggle it to see if the problem gets fixed or is less severe. Problems appearing are likely to be created by this specific setting, so adjust it as necessary. Concurrently, if you see no changes or even the problem worsening, it is probably not to blame.

Visualization or gaming stutter can be caused in Valorant from too many background processes as well, or the AMD Radeon software incompatibility as previously discussed.

Check for Overheating

Overheating can cause stuttering in gaming as a system uses up available processing power to keep the system within operating temperature limits. Download a hardware monitor such as MSI Afterburner or Core Temp to check temperatures. High temperatures are a sign your devices are overheating and causing stuttering in gaming.

Processors and video cards can work at high temperatures up to a certain point. Components like GPUs and CPUs usually do not show any signs of failure due to heat until they have operated at higher temperatures for longer periods of time. Overheating components will either moveto a lower clock speed or shut down entirely to prevent the processor from failing. Thus, you will notice stuttering or hiccups when playing Valorant or other games. Unless you have issues related to the fans, fans not strong enough, but laptop design and bad product quality, and just use the laptop or PC with the overheating issue, heating will lead to lagging and long-term failure of internal components.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to Fix Stuttering in Valorant?

1. Why is my Valorant game stuttering and how can I fix it?

Stuttering can occur due to various reasons such as outdated graphics drivers, insufficient RAM, or high background processes. To fix it, make sure to update your drivers and close any unnecessary programs running in the background.

2. Can changing the in-game settings help reduce stuttering in Valorant?

Yes, changing certain in-game settings can help reduce stuttering. Lowering the graphics quality, disabling V-Sync, and reducing the resolution can improve performance and reduce stuttering.

3. How can I check my system’s compatibility with Valorant?

You can check your system’s compatibility by using the “Can You Run It” tool on the game’s official website. It will analyze your hardware and display if it meets the minimum requirements for the game.

4. Does having a high ping affect stuttering in Valorant?

Yes, a high ping can contribute to stuttering in Valorant. Make sure to select the correct region in the game’s settings and try to connect to a server with a lower ping for a smoother gameplay experience.

5. Is there a way to optimize my PC for Valorant to reduce stuttering?

Yes, you can optimize your PC for Valorant by closing any unnecessary programs, disabling background apps, and making sure to have enough free space on your hard drive. You can also try using a game booster program for better performance.

6. Can reinstalling Valorant help fix stuttering issues?

In some cases, reinstalling the game can help fix stuttering issues. However, make sure to back up your game settings and data before doing so. It is also recommended to clear the game’s cache before reinstalling.