This is being addressed in the upcoming patch by rate limiting. Additionally, in the patch after, we've made some performance optimizations so pings don't dip your a framerate when they happen.
Thanks for reporting! The best places for these are the bug megathread which we view often. New threads are actually more likely to get missed than the bug megathread. (as /u/PankoKing already noted)
Really useful info! Does the game recognize which CPU cores are true cores and which ones are hyperthreaded ones? There's some "easy" mild performance uplift on using real cores instead of the other ones, if the game doesn't use this to it's favor I think that you guys should consider implementing this!
I also want to thank you for all the active and helpful support!
Yup, the game can differentiate virtual threads from physical ones on the processor. We set thread priority to inform the OS what's important and try to let it do it's job. Scheduling is an incredibly complex problem all by itself so we let the OS choose the cores given that information. You have to make considerations like how a virtual core can share cache or not. It's widely different across the different CPU architectures. Needless to say we trust that Microsoft's engineers have put far more time, effort and thought into how their scheduler works across a number of CPU architectures. We focus where we have the expertise which is on the game code and threading model itself.
Here.
This is fixed on our side. Will patch when we can.
We've also done some work to make pinging significantly less of a performance drop as well.
Do you know if given a clock speed, do we get greatly improved fps with more cores/threads? I remember in some games, it is actually beneficial to disable HyperThreading even if the CPU is locked to the same clock speed.
It's going to vary a lot CPU to CPU. That being said I think you'll stop seeing gains from additional cores after 4. There are 4 big threaded things in VALORANT.
1 : Main Thread : Gameplay,Character,AbilityLogic,UI,etc. Usually 100% usage
2 : Render Thread: CPU side rendering things like occlusion, draw call submission. Usually 50-100% usage
3 : Audio Thread : Audio processing engine, ~25% usage
4 : Worker threads : Animation, Particles, Misc things. ~3% usage for each. There can be a lot of work threads depending on game events.
So you're really looking at really benefiting from 3 cores or maybe 4. You can reduce the latency on some things but I would expect to see diminishing returns after 4+ cores. After that, you're better cranking up clock speeds. Of course, this assumes you have no other programs running on your computer. Depending on what you're running in the background you might benefit for more cores for that.
This makes me feel a little better for all those times I got fragged for unnecessarily reloading my mag while missing 1 bullet. That little mag at least gets to enjoy it's new home.
Awesome, your input it's been a massive help and I've learned something new.
The reason I asked this question is because I'm trying to get started out on twitch so I've been looking for a way to stream and play at 144hz - but it looks like I'll need a dedicated streaming PC or a better graphics card for NVENC, or I'll be stuck playing at 60fps. How you've replied has given me the exact information I need.
Thanks dude, I appreciate you. Thanks for your work on the game so far too, I hope you keep it up. I moved from Top 50 in Overwatch (cree main) on Overwatch for this game, so if you're in it for the long haul, I am too. :)
Edit: Just wanna say Multithreading (like how PUBG updated to use 6+ cores instead of 2) would be huge, I think AMD are really pushing the market when it comes to more cores. Before we know it, it'll probably be normal to have 8+ cores in the next 5 years or so.
Glad to help!
Oh we're definitely in it for the long haul. I worked on LoL for 6 years and I could easily see myself doing the same for Valorant. Both teams are really strong and dedicated.
I was a McCree main in OW too! I wasn't nearly as good as you though. I was always a few points short of Diamond.
I agree multi-threading could be a huge benefit. We're definitely looking into that as one of our options.
To be clear, if you want to improve your perf, the best bet is not to buy a capture GPU. It's to increase your clock rate of your CPU. You can do this by purchasing something with a higher clock rate or if you're tech savvy (sounds like you are) you might see how much room there is to overclock single core turbo boost on AMD processors.
I gotta put this: Disclaimer: This isn't a Riot official recommendation to overclock your hardware and you do so at your own risk.
That's understandable, I get that it's a work in progress and nothing will be 100% yet - thanks for confirming it's CPU bound too. So from my understanding now, my CPU isn't getting maxed out because it's tied to a single thread instead of multi-thread and it's not GPU intensive, so general usage across both components will be low? Is that right?
I rebooted my computer and I can confirm the RiotClient issue is gone. Thanks for the quick fix, I must have missed that patch.
Exactly right, if you have 8 cores we're probably hitting ~2 full cores worth of usage. So it would end up being 2/8 or ~25% usage. Maybe more or less depending on what's happening in game.
Getting the game to be more multi-threaded can be a steep technical challenge so we're weighing our options there against just making better usage of the cores that we're already using. It's a fine balance, our end goal is just to get framerate higher. We're not necessarily focused on using 100% of all cores if that makes sense. Either way, rest assured we're working on getting more frames for all.
Sorry to hear that you're not getting the performance you expected from your rig.
At higher specs Valorant is generally CPU bound on the main game thread. The biggest limiter to FPS on higher specs is going to be core clock speed of your CPU. That is to say, a 2.7GHZ 32 core processor will perform worse than a 4.5Ghz 4 core processor in most cases. GPU is only one factor of your performance and having a powerful GPU alone will not necessarily guarantee you a higher framerate.
Closed Beta is definitely still a WIP and we're looking into optimizations for both CPU side for higher specs and GPU side for lower end specs. It's just a balancing act of trying to optimize for a wide variety of specs. You're always going to be limited by one or the other.
In terms of the RiotClient issue, I believe that was fixed in a patch pushed out last night. If you're still having problems can you try rebooting your computer? Maybe something prevented you from getting that ...
Read moreI'm glad it's feeling good for you! Thanks for the kind words :-)
As a former potato-gamer myself, it's really important to me that everyone has a shot at solid framerate in the game.
+1 to this. Koalifier and the rest of us on the Gameplay Integrity team sweat over this stuff daily. Trying to make it the best experience possible for as many players as possible.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but you're technically below the minspec here. Definitely going to see sub 30 FPS.
From what I can find online I think this card supports Shader Model 4.0 (required by VALORANT) if you have the latest drivers installed.
The game MAY run but it's going to be heavily GPU limited. We don't test this spec internally so even if it runs on launch we won't guarantee future patches will continue to support it.
The CPU is also only 1.8Ghz instead of the 3.0 Ghz we recommend.
I think you'll have a really hard time unfortunately.
In terms of things you can do to try and make it better. You should be sure your laptop has two memory sticks in it to make use of the increased memory bandwidth. 2x2GB is going to outperform 1x4GB by quite a bit. If you can find a reseller you might be able to find a stick for cheap ~$5. This is especially true for players using integrated chipsets.
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