Earlier today, Riot released their latest “Ask Valorant” blog post, answering a few common player questions about the game. Foremost amongst these questions were the issues of Framerate drops and performance, which is reportedly being worked on. However, the post also revealed Riot’s plans for the next round of Valorant updates; performance changes for both Viper and Astra.
Valorant Update: Viper & Astra Performance Changes & More
“We’ve identified issues with Viper and Astra and will be working on optimisations to their abilities over the next few patches,” explains Valorant Performance Engineer Brian Fischer. However, the studio’s isn’t focusing on those two Agents alone. “We will be doing a pass on performance for all Agent abilities over the coming months,” Fischer goes on to say; “The overall goal is to increase the lowest FPS you see regardless of what is going on in a match.”
Fischer doesn’t go into detail about what changes players can expect for either Viper or Astra. Indeed, he doesn’t even say whether the studio plans to buff or nerf their performance. However, he does go into greater detail about their plans for FPS (Frames Per Second) performance. “FPS can seem unstable at times because of how rounds play out,” he explains; “Early parts of the round are spent gathering information and watching fights between a fewer number of players. Later in the round when players are attacking or retaking a site, we tend to see many bodies fighting each other and increased ability usage, all of which can decrease FPS.”
Fischer also notes that players tend to see more FPS drops in Deathmatch than in Unrated or Competitive matches. Since there are more players in these matches, it’s natural that performance would be more likely to drop. Fortunately, this appears to be Riot’s prime concern at present, with their goal being to improve CPU performance. “This can be done by either improving baseline performance,” states Fischer; “which results in an average higher FPS or by removing hitches, which will reduce how much FPS drops when there is a more expensive workload.”