How to Reduce Ping in VALORANT — The Complete Network Guide (2026)

Ping, packet loss, and jitter are three completely different problems with different causes. Applying the wrong fix wastes your time. Press Shift + F1 in VALORANT to open the network stats overlay and identify what you're actually dealing with.

This is the single most impactful change for most players and the one most people avoid because running a cable is inconvenient. The numbers are stark:

If you can't run a cable, here's the priority order:

1. Powerline adapter (£25–40) — sends network signal through your electrical wiring. Near-Ethernet performance in most houses
2. MoCA adapter — uses your coaxial cable lines. Lower latency than powerline in newer builds
3. WiFi 6E on 5GHz, within 5 metres of router — if you must use wireless, this is the closest to wired you'll get
4. Disconnect all other 2.4GHz devices from your network while playing — smart bulbs, IoT devices and old phones all cause interference

Your DNS server translates domain names (like play.valorant.com) into IP addresses. Your ISP's default DNS is often slow and poorly routed — meaning your game data takes a longer path to reach Riot's servers than it needs to.

Switching to a faster DNS doesn't reduce your ping to VALORANT's servers directly, but it reduces connection setup time and improves routing to some regions significantly.

How to change your DNS on Windows 11:

1. Press Win + I → Network & Internet → click your connection (Ethernet or Wi-Fi)
2. Scroll to DNS server assignment → click Edit
3. Change from Automatic to Manual
4. Toggle IPv4 on, enter:
   Preferred DNS: 1.1.1.1
   Alternate DNS: 1.0.0.1
5. Click Save

Nagle's Algorithm is a TCP optimisation that deliberately holds small packets and waits to bundle them with other data before sending. This is designed for web browsing efficiency. In a real-time game, it adds artificial delay to every input you send to the server.

This is the most common cause of inconsistent ping — where your average ping looks fine but you experience occasional 80–200ms spikes during gunfights.

1. Press Win + R → type regedit → OK
2. Navigate to:

3. You'll see several subkeys with long GUID names. Click each one and look for DhcpIPAddress or IPAddress — find the one that matches your PC's IP address (check with ipconfig in Command Prompt)
4. Right-click inside that key → 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 puts your network adapter into a low-power state during perceived idle periods — including the brief moments between game packets. This causes the adapter to wake up with every burst of data, creating jitter that shows up as an unstable, bouncing ping counter.

1. Press Win + X → Device Manager
2. Expand Network Adapters → right-click your Ethernet or WiFi adapter → Properties
3. Click the Power Management tab
4. Uncheck "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" → OK
5. Also go to the Advanced tab and look for Power Saving Mode or Energy Efficient Ethernet → set to Disabled

Quality of Service (QoS) is a router feature that lets you tell your router which traffic gets priority when your connection is under load. Without it, your game data competes equally with someone's Netflix stream, a Windows Update download, or your phone's background sync.

Every router has a different admin panel, but the general process is:

1. Open your browser and go to 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 (your router admin panel)
2. Log in — credentials are usually on a sticker on the bottom of your router
3. Look for QoS, Traffic Priority, or Bandwidth Control in the settings menu
4. Enable QoS and add a rule prioritising your PC's IP address (find it with ipconfig)
5. Alternatively, prioritise these UDP ports used by VALORANT: 7000–8000

Several apps run background network activity on a schedule and do it aggressively — Windows Update being the worst offender. A download starting mid-round can spike your ping from 30ms to 200ms for several seconds.

Windows Update — set Active Hours so it never updates during play:

1. Settings → Windows Update → Advanced Options → Active Hours
2. Set to cover your entire gaming window (e.g. 2:00pm to 3:00am)
3. Also toggle Delivery Optimisation → Advanced Options → set upload bandwidth to 5% — stops Windows using your connection to deliver updates to other PCs

OneDrive and cloud backup:

1. Right-click OneDrive tray icon → Pause syncing → Until tomorrow
2. If you use Google Drive or Dropbox: set to pause while gaming, or limit upload speed to 10KB/s in their settings

Check what's using your bandwidth right now:

1. Open Task Manager → Performance tab → click Open Resource Monitor
2. Go to the Network tab — you can see exactly which process is sending/receiving data and how much
3. If anything unexpected is active — right-click → End Process

VALORANT automatically selects the server closest to you, but it occasionally connects you to a suboptimal server — especially if your DNS is slow or you're near the boundary between two regions.

1. Open VALORANT → Settings → General
2. Scroll to Server Location — check which servers are ticked
3. Untick all servers except the ones closest to you geographically
4. The ping number shown next to each server is your actual latency — use this to verify

UK/Ireland players — correct server selection:

Your network adapter has a set of advanced properties that default to "efficient" settings designed for general use. For gaming, you want raw, uninterrupted throughput. These settings are accessed through Device Manager.

1. Press Win + X → Device Manager → Network Adapters
2. Right-click your adapter → Properties → Advanced tab
3. Find and change each of these settings:

Fixes 03, 04, 05, 07, and 09 from this guide are automated inside Valo Optimise. It applies them in one click and re-applies them after Windows updates reset your settings.

Specifically for network optimisation, Valo Optimise handles:

1. Nagle's Algorithm — disabled on every network adapter automatically
2. DNS — switched to Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 with one click
3. Network adapter power management — disabled across all adapters
4. Background process bandwidth — kills known offenders before VALORANT launches
5. TCP auto-tuning — configured for gaming traffic patterns