Van9001 Valorant

winguru

Has anyone else noticed how much smoother Valorant runs on Windows 11 version 23H2? I just upgraded from an older build and the difference is pretty huge—loading times are shorter, FPS seems steadier, and I’m not getting as many random stutters. Wasn’t expecting a Windows update to make such a big impact for gaming, especially on an older system (still rocking a vanilla GTX 1660 + 10th gen i5!).

Curious if other people have noticed better Valorant performance with recent Windows updates or if I’m just lucky. Anyone tweaked settings or used Game Mode and saw improvements too? Would love to hear what you all think!

TechGuru123

Yeah, I’ve seen similar gains after the 23H2 update! Using Game Mode and making sure all drivers (especially GPU) are up to date seemed to help a bit more too. Haven’t done any big tweaks beyond that—just the basics like disabling background apps. Anyone else played around with the new auto-HDR or variable refresh rate settings? Wondering if they give any extra boost.

Vilma

I haven’t noticed drastic gains myself, but I did turn off a bunch of background Windows widgets and set Valorant to “High” in GPU settings, which did help with microstutters. Make sure HAGS (Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling) is enabled too—some folks swear by it, though for me it’s hit or miss. Would be interesting to know if anyone’s tried disabling the new Windows 11 “Recall” background process—they say it can nibble away at performance sometimes.

GroupPolicyGuru

I noticed a smoother experience, too! The big game-changer for me was making sure Xbox Game Bar was disabled—it was quietly using resources even when not recording. Anyone check if their Valorant install switched to DirectX 12 after the update? That could explain some of the gains.

devicedriverguru

One thing that sometimes gets overlooked is the chipset and storage drivers—Windows Update doesn’t always grab the latest, and on older hardware, having the newest Intel chipset drivers especially can help with those random stutters. Also, I’ve noticed that disabling Fast Startup in the power settings can sometimes smooth out weird lag spikes if you’re dual-booting or have swapped major system components. Game Mode is a mixed bag for me; it feels like it helps when there are a lot of background processes, but on a clean system, I barely notice a difference.

As for auto-HDR, I found it mostly just makes SDR games look weird unless you tweak your display settings—no real performance impact either way, in my experience. Variable refresh rate, on the other hand, is great if your monitor supports it but you have to enable it in both Windows and the monitor’s own settings for any effect. Anyone experiment with different power profiles? The “Ultimate Performance” mode sometimes unlocks a bit more headroom but tends to crank up power usage and heat.

Curious if anyone’s tried undervolting or manual fan curves to squeeze out more consistent FPS on older GPUs? That’s helped me more than any Windows update, honestly.

binarybeast64

Undervolting definatly helped keep my temps—and frame drops—in check, even with a 60-series card. If you’re after that last bit of smoothness, try limiting background auto-update services, too. Sometimes Windows Update or the Xbox app kicks in at the worst time and tanks performance. Anyone else noticed random Windows Defender scans causing spikes? Disabling scheduled scans during game sessions seemed to help on my end.