Five years have already passed since the release of Valorant, Riot Games’ answer to Counter-Strike. As a competitive esports title, optimization over raw graphics has always been a priority, but even still, you might be surprised to learn that it runs on Unreal Engine, not the proprietary engine used for Riot’s other esports title, League of Legends. And now, Valorant has been upgraded to Unreal Engine 5.

Patch 11.02 was released last week and marked a “significant milestone” for Valorant. The game has been upgraded from Unreal Engine 4.27 to UE 5.3 – not the most recent 5.6 version. PC gamers can sometimes be quick to blame Unreal Engine 5 for poor optimization in new games, and while it is a valid complaint, new benchmarks show that Valorant runs just as well as ever.

Valorant benchmarked in Unreal Engine 5 after the latest patch

Benchmarks from the German publication ComputerBase reveal that Valorant runs with extremely high framerates across a wide range of GPUs. According to their tests, the following GPUs (and any models better than them) could achieve 240 FPS running at native resolution and maximum graphics settings, including 4x MSAA anti-aliasing. The game doesn’t even have, or really need, upscaling support.

Even in the patch notes, Riot noted that the upgrade “has no direct implication on how you experience the game”. In fact, the developers even claim some small performance improvements. The main reason to upgrade to UE5 is to add “a lot of value for the development team on improving the game in the future”.

Unreal Engine 5 already works well in games like Fortnite or The Finals for FPS gameplay with smooth performance, not to mention Marvel Rivals. On the other end of the spectrum, games with more expansive or detailed worlds like Black Myth: Wukong, Palword, or RoboCop: Rogue City can enjoy solid performance. Cases like Stalker 2 or, more recently, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers show the bad side of UE5 when games are unoptimized.

So, the problem isn’t Unreal Engine 5, but rather, how developers are utilizing it. Valorant doesn’t run on handhelds like the Steam Deck due to its Linux-unfriendly anti-cheat (unless you install Windows), but if it did, it would easily handle it.

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.