Every second and every action in Valorant makes a world of difference. Get the absolute most out of your PC and perform to the best of your abilities with this settings rundown.

Whether you’re playing from a state of the art gaming rig or booting up from a dated PC, Valorant can run just fine on a wide array of hardware. Designed from the ground up with accessibility in mind, Riot put the emphasis on fine-tuned gameplay as opposed to GPU-pushing visuals.

If you’re just starting out or you’re looking to get the most of your Valorant experience, here’s a full breakdown on every single setting in the game.

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General Valorant settings

Starting out in the General settings tab, this is where you’ll customize nitty-gritty details from map size to network buffering. Most of these will have an impact on moment to moment gameplay in Valorant, instead of performance or visual clarity.

Accessibility settings

Enemy Highlight Color is the only form of colorblind option available in Valorant’s closed beta. While it won’t drastically alter the HUD to help you see things more clearly, it will help illuminate enemies. 

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Red is switched on by default, but the game also offers purple and two differing yellows. If you don’t suffer from any form of colorblindness, leaving this on default is the way to go. The red outline is easy enough to spot from a distance so this option shouldn’t be adjusted.

Enemy targets are highlighted with a subtle outline to distinguish from background textures.

Ideal Mouse settings in Valorant

As with all FPS titles on PC, sensitivity settings are for you to fine-tune. No one else can tell you a perfect sensitivity that will feel right at home. It’s something you need to test in the Practice Range until your aim feels snappy and precise. 

The first Sensitivity slider focuses on the speed of your general aim. While the second is a scoped multiplier. If you find yourself using the Operator a great deal, for instance, pay extra close attention to the scoped setting.

For consistency, you can leave this the exact same as your regular sensitivity. But if you’re looking for quick flicks and montage-worthy snipes, try bumping it up slightly.

Scoped sensitivity should be fine-tuned separately if you often run with the Operator.

The last important aspect of this category is the option to wrap your inventory cycle. When in-game, using the scroll-wheel on your mouse can cycle between your tactical knife, your sidearm, and your primary weapon. 

If this setting is turned off, only two downward scrolls will be needed to shuffle through. You’ll then have to scroll back up to get to get to your blade. If the setting is switched on, however, you can endlessly ‘wrap’ through all three items. 

We recommend keeping this off to save from over-scrolling in the midst of a round and accidentally bringing a knife to a gunfight.

Accidentally scrolling through to the wrong weapon could leave you in a spot of bother.

Valorant’s Minimap settings

The minimap is highly customizable in Valorant as it is a feature that always remains on screen. To start with, you can choose between having the map sit in a fixed position, or having it rotate to the direction of your Agent. 

This setting is entirely up to you depending on your preference. Some pro players opt for the rotating option, while other pros stick to the fixed setting. If you’re just starting out with Valorant, leaving the minimap fixed could help avoid early disorientation as you get used to the maps.

Keeping the minimap the same throughout an entire match is important too. You don’t want to feel lost upon switching sides at the halfway point. To mitigate this issue, select ‘Always the Same’ for the Fixed Orientation setting.

The minimap is a crucial element in Valorant’s moment to moment gameplay.

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Remaining centered on the minimap can help ensure that your eyes are always immediately jumping to your location. However, there are more benefits in turning this setting off, as to keep a full overview of the map at all times. Being aware of your teammate’s positioning and line of sight is just as important as your own.

You want it to be easy to quickly glance at the minimap in the midst of action. Therefore, the map size should be considerable and the entire map should be in focus. We recommend setting the size to 1.1 and maxing out the zoom at 1.

Lastly, Minimap Vision Cones are essential. Without needing to communicate with your teammates, you can easily tell just what they’re looking at thanks to these vision cones. No one should be turning this setting off unless they’re truly up for an unnecessary challenge.

The minimap should be sizeable so that you can easily gather new information with a quick look.

Map settings

The only setting under this category should be kept on by default. When opening up the full-scale map, you want to have callouts tagging each location so that you can easily convey messages to your team. Unless you know every single official callout like the back of your hand, this setting should stay on.

Valorant’s detailed maps come with predetermined callouts.

Other Valorant settings

For the final section in the General settings tab, these options are mostly self-explanatory. Having corpses appear in-game is obviously important as you progress through any given round. 

Leaving mature content on will keep everything in-game the way it was built to be experienced. The same can be said for leaving blood switched on as well. It’s a solid visual indicator as to when your shots are actually connecting. 

Explicit language can indeed be filtered out and we recommend switching this on if you’re brand new to the game and just learning the ropes. Especially if you’re solo queuing. Pesky messages can throw you off your game and leave you feeling frustrated. Your first few sessions should be all about learning the ropes. Not getting flamed by an irritable player with hundreds of hours over you.

None of these settings will make a huge impact but they can be tweaked to further customize your experience.

Instability Indicators should be left on to outline when things are going awry in-game. Meanwhile, Network Buffering should always be kept to a minimum for the smoothest experience.

Last but not least, bullet tracers. These are momentary white lines that follow your shots to their target. This subtle visual indicator can be helpful if you’re just getting familiar with the weapons in Valorant. But if you’re confident in your recoil control, and have a good sense of where bullets will end up, this setting can be switched off to save some visual clutter.

Controls and Crosshair settings in Valorant

Everything in the Controls and crosshair section is entirely up to you. However, here are a few key options to take into account. 

Valorant allows you to change the default movement mode. You can either walk or run. This may not sound like a huge deal, but it plays a vital role in-game. Walking masks the sound of your movement. Whereas, running will alert everyone nearby. 

Some experienced players prefer to manually slow down their movement speed, running by default. Others have their settings flipped around. If you’re just starting out in Valorant, walking by default is how we recommend you play. Once you’re used to the radius of footstep sounds, you can always change this back.

Walking instead of running will save you from a lot of embarrassing deaths.

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Upon loading into Valorant for the first time, figuring out an ideal crosshair should be one of the first things on your to-do list. Even if you come from an FPS background, you’ll still want to find a crosshair that feels right at home. Thankfully, Valorant lets you customize your own with great attention to detail.

You can jump into battle with a giant red square, or a simple yellow dot. The choice is yours to make.

Running with a small dot can help you train for precise headshots.

Valorant’s video settings

This category is where you will truly make the most of your Valorant experience. In a game where every second is crucial, maximizing your frame rate is also crucial. Fortunately, Valorant isn’t the most demanding release of all time. Whether you have a next-level gaming rig or a dated setup, Riot’s FPS should be able to run just fine. Here’s how you can get the most out of the game’s performance.

General settings

If you have more than one monitor, ensure that the game is running on your screen with the highest refresh rate. 

Windowed Fullscreen is the best option if you’re running in a multi-screen setup, as this will allow you to quickly alt-tab and focus on another screen. If you’re needing to optimize, however, stick with the Fullscreen option and close all unnecessary background applications.

Your FPS in-game should be capped out when possible, though Valorant does give you the option of reducing performance in the main menu and in the background. If you’re constantly switching to another monitor, limiting FPS in the Background is a great idea. Otherwise, the majority of these options should be left off.

You can make sure that Valorant doesn’t bog down your PC while it’s in the background.

Optimal Graphics Quality settings

As with all PC games, reducing graphic quality is where you’ll save a great deal of performance. Unless you’re running with a beastly GPU and know without a doubt that frames won’t be an issue, you’re going to want to reduce most of these options. 

To get the most out of the game from a competitive standpoint, the first four options can instantly be dropped to Low. The difference is miniscule. The game will stay relatively similar in terms of looks, but you’ll notice a slight improvement in performance. 

Vignette and VSync are both switched off by default and should be left off. With VSync off, there’s a chance that you’ll be able to achieve a higher frame rate than with the setting switched on, despite the refresh rate of your monitor. The only instance where VSync should be on, is if you’re noticing extreme screen tearing.

Valorant running with all visual settings maxed out.

Valorant running with all visual settings at the lowest possible fidelity.

Anti-Aliasing in Valorant

Here’s where things get a little more interesting. Anti-Aliasing will help smooth out harsh textures and corners in-game. Though it does come at a slight cost in terms of performance. 

You’ll want to try and run with MSAA 4x if your rig will allow it, as this will get the most out of the experience and keep the moment to moment gameplay smooth. Instead of having textures pop in and out. 

Anisotropic Filtering

Similarly, Anisotropic Filtering plays a significant role and you’ll want to get this setting as high as possible. Essentially, this option plays a role in how detailed the game will be from a distance.

If you have it set to 1x, textures a few meters away will appear in the lowest quality possible. However, if you can spare the performance, setting this to 16x will keep every aspect looking sharp at all distances.

Hop into the Practice Range and adjust this setting for yourself. See which option provides the best mix of performance and in-game clarity. So long as you’re above the 1x or 2x options, the game should be looking just fine without a huge hit to your frame rate.

Rendering distance is vital in Valorant to help you spot enemies in the distance.

Other graphics quality options

The final four settings won’t play a huge role in terms of performance, so most of these can be switched on. Improving Clarity is a vague label, but again this will impact visual smoothness from a distance. Leaving this on, along with the Anti-Aliasing settings, will help keep your game sense on-point. 

Distortion is the only setting here that should be turned off. Similar to motion blur or film grain in other titles, anything that will reduce the quality of your overall vision should be disabled. 

These settings won’t change much on the surface.

Valorant Stats settings

This section is for the nit-picky gamer that always wants to see under the hood. With Client FPS enabled, you will always be able to keep an eye on performance. If things suddenly take a turn for the worse, you’ll be able to identify the issue thanks to this in-game stat.

Similarly, if you want to keep your network in-line, you can enable Server Tick Rate, Network Round Trip Time, and Packet Loss to assess your connection.

Audio settings in Valorant

There’s not a great deal to customize when it comes to audio settings in Valorant’s closed beta, as everything is rather streamlined in this section. So long as your voice-chat is all set up, you’re more or less ready to jump into a game. However, there are a few optional tweaks that could come in handy.

After dozens of hours in Valorant, the in-game music could start to get on your nerves. While there’s rarely any distracting audio during the gunplay, you could still opt to turn this slider all the way down. Simply to hard-focus on gameplay-audio alone. 

In a similar vein, Agents often converse at the beginning of the game, at the half, and between rounds. While these are neat interactions and barely take a second, they could distract from your team’s communication. Thankfully, there’s always an option to turn these off in the voice-over tab.

Most of Valorant’s audio settings can be left alone.

With all of these options in mind, you should have a highly-customized experience that feels perfect just for you. Frame rate shouldn’t be much of an issue on any new or dated PC, and clicking heads should be your sole focus moving forward.

This breakdown will be updated with each new patch as Valorant settings are introduced throughout the closed beta.