There’s nothing more frustrating than lining up the perfect Yasuo ultimate in a 5v5 teamfight, only to have your game stutter, drop to 12 FPS, and miss the play entirely. I’ve been there back in my Silver climb days, running LoL on a beat-up 2018 laptop that could barely handle more than two Chrome tabs at once. If you’re tired of random frame drops and lag ruining your ranked matches, learning how to increase fps for league of legends doesn’t require a full PC upgrade – most fixes take less than 10 minutes to implement, and cost nothing at all.
Adjust In-Game Video Settings for Quick FPS Improvements
The fastest way to get an immediate FPS boost is to tweak your in-game video settings, since many default options are set to prioritize visuals over performance even on low-end hardware. You don’t have to turn everything down to the lowest possible setting to see big gains, either – a few targeted adjustments will give you most of the FPS lift without making the game look like it’s running on a 2000s console.
- Set Shadow Quality to Off: This single setting can boost your FPS by 15-25% on most mid to low-end builds, with almost zero impact on your ability to see and react to plays
- Lower Environment and Character Quality to Medium: You won't lose enough visual clarity to impact gameplay, but you'll see a 10-18% FPS lift that makes teamfights far smoother
- Disable Anti-Aliasing and Vertical Sync (Vsync): Both settings add unnecessary input lag and eat into frame rates for minimal visual benefit, especially if you’re playing on a 1080p monitor
- Cap your frame rate at 10 FPS above your monitor's maximum refresh rate: This prevents overworking your GPU and reduces random stutters that often pop up during large teamfights
- Turn off all post-processing effects, including bloom, lens flare, and motion blur: These effects add almost no value to gameplay, and can even make it harder to track fast-moving skill shots
One setting I always leave turned up, even on low-end builds, is Effect Quality. Keeping this at medium or higher makes it easier to see enemy abilities like Lux’s ultimate or Zed’s shadows, which is far more important than having pretty grass in the jungle. If you’re still seeing low FPS after these tweaks, you can drop Effect Quality to low, but I only recommend that as a last resort.
How to Increase FPS for League of Legends With System Level Optimizations
Even if your in-game settings are perfectly tuned, background processes and system settings can eat up resources that would otherwise go to running LoL smoothly. These tweaks take a little more time to set up, but they’re one-time changes that will boost performance for all your games, not just League.
First, close any unnecessary background apps before you launch the game. Chrome with 10 open tabs, Discord, Spotify, and even cloud storage syncing services can use up 20-30% of your RAM and CPU power without you noticing. If you don’t want to close all your apps manually, turning on Windows Game Mode will automatically prioritize LoL’s access to CPU and GPU resources, and pause background updates while you’re in game.
You should also make sure your graphics card drivers are up to date, as Riot often works with GPU manufacturers to release driver optimizations for new LoL patches. That said, if you notice FPS drops right after updating your drivers, don’t panic – new driver releases sometimes have bugs, and rolling back to a stable previous version will usually fix the issue. If you’re playing on a laptop, always make sure it’s plugged in while you play, and set your power plan to High Performance – power saver modes cut GPU performance by up to 50% to save battery, which is a common cause of unexpectedly low FPS.
Fix Common Hardware Issues That Cause LoL Frame Drops
If you’ve adjusted all your settings and still see random frame drops, the issue might be related to your hardware, but that doesn’t always mean you need to buy a brand new PC. Most common hardware-related FPS issues are easy to fix with low-cost or even free adjustments.
Overheating is the number one cause of unexpected performance throttling for both desktops and laptops. If your CPU or GPU hits 85C or higher, it will automatically lower its performance to avoid damage, leading to sudden FPS drops in the middle of matches. For desktops, clean out dust from your case and fans every 6 months to keep airflow high. For laptop users, a $15 cooling pad can lower operating temperatures by 10-15C, which is often enough to stop throttling entirely.
If you’re running LoL on a traditional hard drive (HDD), moving the game to a solid state drive (SSD) is one of the best upgrades you can make. Not only will load times drop from 2 minutes to 20 seconds, you’ll also eliminate the stutters that happen when the game loads new assets mid-match, like when a new champion walks on screen or a big teamfight breaks out. Upgrading your RAM is another low-cost fix if you have less than 8GB total system RAM – LoL uses roughly 4GB of RAM on its own, so if you only have 4GB total, background processes will constantly fight for space, leading to consistent stutters.
Troubleshoot Unusual FPS Drops That Don’t Respond to Standard Fixes
Sometimes you’ll do all the standard fixes and still see random FPS drops for no obvious reason. These cases are almost always caused by small, easy-to-miss issues that only pop up after patches or system updates.
The first thing to try is the built-in repair tool in the Riot Client. Corrupted game files are a common issue after big patches, and running the repair tool will scan for and fix any broken files that are causing performance issues. You should also try disabling all third-party overlays, including Discord, Nvidia GeForce Experience, and any LoL add-ons you use. These overlays often don’t play well with new patches, and can cause hidden FPS drops even if they work fine for months at a time.
Background Windows updates are another common culprit for sudden FPS drops. If you notice your game is stuttering for no reason, open your Windows Update settings to check if an update is downloading in the background. Pausing updates while you play will immediately free up bandwidth and system resources. If you’re still having issues, try restarting your router – sometimes lag from a spotty internet connection can feel exactly like FPS drops, and it’s easy to mix the two up if you don’t check your ping first.
At the end of the day, LoL is designed to run on almost any hardware, so you don’t need a $2000 gaming PC to get smooth, consistent frame rates. I used all these exact tips on my old 2018 laptop a few years back, and jumped from an average of 38 FPS to 112 FPS, which made climbing from Silver to Platinum far less frustrating. Learning how to increase fps for league of legends is all about small, targeted tweaks that prioritize performance where it matters most, instead of wasting resources on unnecessary visual flourishes. If you try all these tips and still have issues, start with the cheapest upgrades first – an SSD or extra RAM will make a far bigger difference for LoL than a fancy new GPU for most players.