How to Boost FPS in VALORANT on Windows 11 (2026) — 12 Tweaks That Actually Work

This is the single biggest FPS win most players are missing. Windows defaults to Balanced power plan, which actively throttles your CPU when it detects "idle" moments — including the microseconds between frames in a competitive game.

There are three power plans. Most players know about "High Performance." Almost nobody knows about the hidden fourth: Ultimate Performance — a Microsoft-built plan originally designed for workstations that eliminates all CPU power-saving behaviour entirely.

1. Press Win + S, search for Command Prompt, right-click → Run as Administrator
2. Paste and run this command to unlock the hidden plan:

3. Open Control Panel → Power Options (or press Win+R → type powercfg.cpl)
4. Select Ultimate Performance from the list

Out of the box, NVIDIA and AMD GPUs operate with power-saving logic that caps performance. You need to tell them: gaming mode, full power, no compromises.

NVIDIA (GeForce RTX/GTX): Right-click desktop → NVIDIA Control Panel → Manage 3D Settings → Program Settings → Add VALORANT

AMD (Radeon RX): Open AMD Software → Gaming → VALORANT profile → Set these:

Xbox Game Bar is a screen overlay and recording system baked into Windows 11. Even when you're not using it, it runs in the background consuming CPU cycles and RAM — during every single game session.

1. Open Settings → Gaming → Xbox Game Bar → Toggle Off
2. Still in Gaming → click Captures → set "Record in the background while I'm playing a game" to Off
3. Optional but recommended: Settings → Apps → Xbox → Advanced Options → set Background App Permissions to Never

VALORANT's default settings are not optimised for competitive play. These are the settings used by the majority of professional players — not for aesthetics, but because they provide the smoothest, most consistent frame delivery.

Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling (HAGS) is a Windows feature that lets your GPU manage its own VRAM scheduling. On newer GPUs it can help. On older ones, it causes frame time instability.

Rule of thumb:

1. GTX 10/16 series, RX 500/5000: Disable HAGS — it hurts more than it helps
2. RTX 30/40 series, RX 6000/7000: Leave it on or test both

To toggle: Settings → System → Display → Graphics → Change default graphics settings → Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling

Nagle's Algorithm is a TCP optimisation built into Windows that bundles small network packets together to reduce traffic — great for web browsing, terrible for gaming. It deliberately introduces a small delay to wait for more data. In VALORANT, this manifests as ping spikes and inconsistent hit registration.

1. Press Win + R → type regedit → OK
2. Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces
3. You'll see multiple subkeys (GUIDs). Find the one with your IP address listed (check the DhcpIPAddress or IPAddress value)
4. Inside that key, right-click → New → DWORD (32-bit) Value
5. Name it TcpAckFrequency → double-click → set value to 1
6. Create another DWORD: TCPNoDelay → set value to 1
7. Restart your PC

Windows 11 runs animations, transparency effects, and shadow rendering in the background even when you're in fullscreen. These consume real GPU and CPU resources that should be going to VALORANT.

1. Press Win + R → type sysdm.cpl → OK
2. Go to the Advanced tab → click Settings under Performance
3. Select "Adjust for best performance" (disables all effects)
4. Manually re-check two items: "Smooth edges of screen fonts" and "Show thumbnails instead of icons"
5. Click Apply → OK

Windows manages CPU resources across every running process. By default, VALORANT gets the same priority as your browser, Discord, and everything else in the background. You can tell Windows to put VALORANT first.

1. Launch VALORANT and get into a match (or practice range)
2. Open Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc)
3. Click the Details tab
4. Find VALORANT-Win64-Shipping.exe
5. Right-click → Set Priority → High

You've experienced this: you load into a new map and for the first 30–60 seconds the game hitches every few seconds. That's your GPU compiling shaders on the fly because the cache is too small. Fix it once, and it stops forever.

1. Open NVIDIA Control Panel → Manage 3D Settings
2. Under Global Settings, find Shader Cache Size
3. Change from Driver Default (4GB) to 10 GB
4. Click Apply

For AMD users: AMD Software → Preferences → Graphics → Shader Cache → set to maximum available.

Mouse acceleration (called "Enhance Pointer Precision" in Windows) makes your cursor travel further when you move the mouse faster. On the desktop this feels natural. In a game it's a catastrophe — your muscle memory trains to a movement that changes based on how fast you flick.

Disable it in Windows:

1. Settings → Bluetooth & devices → Mouse → Additional mouse settings
2. Go to the Pointer Options tab
3. Uncheck "Enhance pointer precision" → Apply

Confirm in VALORANT: Settings → General → Raw Input Buffer → On. This bypasses Windows entirely and reads your mouse directly.

Every app that launches with Windows is competing for RAM and CPU before you've even opened VALORANT. These are the top offenders consuming resources you don't need:

1. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc → Startup apps tab (Windows 11) or Startup tab (Windows 10)
2. Right-click each unnecessary app → Disable

Every tweak in this guide — plus 30 more — is automated inside Valo Optimise, a free Windows desktop app built specifically for VALORANT players. One click applies everything: power plans, GPU settings, network tweaks, CPU priority, startup cleanup.

No game files are modified. No scripts. No guesswork. 100% Vanguard-safe by design — Riot's anti-cheat operates at the kernel level and does not flag OS-level performance optimisations.