8 Effective Ways to Stop Valorant Servers Lagging

If you’re experiencing Valorant server lag, it can make competitive play frustrating. This kind of lag often shows up as rubberbanding, input delay, or high ping — and can be caused by either your connection, Riot’s servers, or routing issues in between.

Here are the most effective ways to stop Valorant server lag:

✅ 1. Use a Wired Ethernet Connection

• Wi-Fi is prone to interference and packet loss.

• Ethernet = lower ping, more stable connection.

🧪 Test it: Run a ping test to 8.8.8.8 (Google DNS) over Wi-Fi vs Ethernet — you’ll see the difference.

🌍 2. Choose the Correct Server Region

Valorant doesn’t always auto-select the best region.

To manually check:

1. Open the Valorant client.

2. On the login screen, click your name/profile icon.

3. Click “Region” and select the one closest to your location.

If your account is locked to the wrong region, you’ll need to contact Riot Support to change it:
https://support-valorant.riotgames.com/

Also Read : Expert Guide to Fix Error Code E20 Steam

🛠 3. Change Your DNS (to Cloudflare or Google)

Sometimes bad DNS causes poor routing to Riot’s servers.

Use these faster DNS:

• Google DNS: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

• Cloudflare DNS: 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1

How to change (Windows):

1. Go to Network & Internet Settings > Change adapter options

2. Right-click your active connection > Properties

3. Select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)

4. Set DNS manually to above values

🚫 4. Close Background Apps & Limit Bandwidth Hogs

Apps like:

• Netflix, YouTube, Discord screen share

• Windows Update

• Torrent clients

…can choke your bandwidth or spike ping.

Try this:

• Close unnecessary apps

• Pause Windows updates

• Use Task Manager → Performance tab to see bandwidth usage

📡 5. Use a Gaming VPN (for Bad Routing)

If your ISP routes traffic inefficiently, a VPN can lower ping by improving the path to Riot’s servers.

Popular low-ping VPNs:

• ExitLag (popular among Valorant players)

• NoPing

• WTFast

• Mudfish (low cost)

🧠 These tools won’t help if the lag is due to your internet being slow — they only help routing.

🔄 6. Restart Your Router & Use QoS

• Power cycle your modem/router every few days

• Enable QoS (Quality of Service) on your router and prioritize traffic for:

  • Valorant.exe

  • Port range: 7000–7500 UDP (Riot’s game servers)

🧪 7. Check Riot Server Status or Outages

Sometimes it’s not you — it’s Riot.

Check:

• status.riotgames.com

• Downdetector for Valorant

If server problems exist, there’s nothing you can do except wait or try a different server region.

🔍 8. Use Riot’s Network Diagnostic Tool

Riot uses “Riot Direct”, their own ISP partnerships. Sometimes your ISP doesn’t cooperate well.

You can run traceroute to Valorant servers to see where lag happens:

Or contact Riot Support to help diagnose packet loss or routing delays.

🔥 Bonus: Optimize In-Game Settings

Even if your ping is fine, stutter or FPS drops can feel like lag.

• Set Max FPS to your monitor’s refresh rate

• Use Low Latency Mode = ON + Boost (in NVIDIA Control Panel)

• Turn off V-Sync and Multithreaded Rendering if you’re CPU-bound

🧩 Recap – Quick Checklist