League of Legends runs on almost any PC, which is exactly why FPS drops in League are so confusing. The game should not struggle, and yet a five-player team fight under turret can still hitch, and the client can make a perfectly good PC feel slow before the game even starts.

The answer is almost never the graphics card. League is light on the GPU and heavy on one CPU core, and that changes which fixes help. This guide covers the frame rate cap, the client, the in-game settings that matter in fights, what Vanguard means, Windows, the GPU driver and your ping to Riot's servers. Start with the 60-second fix.

The 60-second fix before you queue

• Set Frame Rate Cap to a value at or above your monitor's refresh rate instead of leaving it at a low default.
• Turn off Wait for Vertical Sync. It adds delay to every click.
• Close the browser and launchers you are not using. League's main thread wants a CPU core to itself.
• In the client settings, turn on Low Spec Mode and close the client during games if your PC is older or low on memory.

Why League drops frames on a good PC

One core does most of the work

Most of League's game logic runs on a single main thread. A CPU with many cores does not help much if that one core is shared with background work or parked by the power plan. That is why a PC with a strong graphics card can still drop frames in a fight.

Team fights stack effects

Ten champions casting spells at once is the moment every effect and particle lands. Effects and shadow quality matter most there, and the same settings barely matter in a quiet lane.

The client is a separate program

The League client is a web based app that keeps running while you play unless you tell it not to. On a PC with limited memory or an older CPU, closing it during games frees resources the game can use.

In-game settings that actually matter

Setting	Recommended	Why
Frame Rate Cap	At or above your refresh rate	A low cap feels sluggish; uncapped can be uneven on some PCs.
Wait for Vertical Sync	Off	Removes the delay V-Sync adds.
Anti-Aliasing	Off on weak PCs	Small visual gain for its cost on older hardware.
Shadow Quality	Off or Low	Shadows are among the most expensive options in fights.
Effects Quality	Low or Medium	Spell effects pile up in team fights.
Character Inking	Personal choice	Outlines can help readability; turn off only on very weak PCs.
Hide Eye Candy	On	Removes background decoration with no gameplay value.

Vanguard, and what is safe to change

League of Legends uses Riot Vanguard, the same kernel level anti-cheat as VALORANT. It starts with Windows rather than with the game, and on Windows 11 it can depend on TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot. If League refuses to start right after a BIOS change, check that both are still enabled.

Vanguard looks for software that reads or modifies the game's memory, injects code or interferes with its driver. Power plans, driver options, network adapter settings and background services are ordinary configuration. We do not promise any tool is invisible to an anti-cheat, because that cannot be promised honestly. RIP Tweaks changes Windows and driver settings and does not touch League's memory or files. More in is RIP Tweaks safe and will it get you banned.

The client: the part nobody tunes

Two client options are worth checking. Low Spec Mode reduces the client's animations and memory use, and Close client during game frees what the client would hold while you play. On a fast PC with plenty of memory neither changes much. On an older laptop they are among the most effective fixes available, and they cost nothing.

Windows is the real bottleneck

League is light on the graphics card and heavy on a single CPU core, which is exactly the core Windows likes to use for its own background work.

• Power plan and core parking. On a balanced plan the CPU drops its clocks and parks cores whenever it thinks it is idle, and waking them costs time at exactly the wrong moment.
• Background apps. Launchers, overlays, RGB tools and updaters each wake up on their own schedule. One is nothing. Twenty of them are a stutter every few seconds.
• Timer and scheduling. A coarse system timer makes the game wait longer for its turn, which shows up as uneven frame pacing rather than lower average FPS.
• Storage. A nearly full drive slows every asset load, and that is felt as a hitch the first time something new appears.

All of it can be done by hand if you know which services are safe to touch and how to undo them. We wrote that route up in how to increase FPS on Windows 11.

What RIP Tweaks does for League of Legends

RIP Tweaks finds League of Legends on its own when it is installed through the Riot Client. If it is missing from the Games page, use Add Game and point it at the game's program file. Clicking the game opens a launch panel with two modes.

• Balanced (free) quiets background apps and applies GPU Priority, I/O Priority and Purge RAM Cache before the game starts. It touches nothing risky.
• Performance (Premium) adds Disable Segment Heap and Unbind CPU 0, which keeps the game off the processor core Windows uses most, and can close Explorer for the session. Your taskbar comes back when you stop.

Those settings are tied to the game's program file only, not to your whole PC, and you can untick any of them before you launch. With an NVIDIA card you can also apply the general high performance driver profile to League of Legends from the same panel. There is no League of Legends specific profile, and we would rather say so than pretend. The system wide tweaks for power, timers, network and input apply to every game, with a restore point created first.

What it does not do: it does not change League of Legends's own settings, read the game's memory or touch its files. The in-game section above is still yours to set, and the Games page guide explains the rest.

GPU control panel

NVIDIA: set Power Management Mode to Prefer Maximum Performance for League of Legends and leave Vertical Sync off. League of Legends has no Reflex option, so Low Latency Mode set to On or Ultra is the setting that keeps the render queue short.

AMD: turn on Anti-Lag in the Adrenalin profile for the game, and leave Radeon Chill and Wait for Vertical Refresh off.

Then update the driver, and do it cleanly. A driver installed on top of years of older ones carries their leftovers with it, and a fresh driver also means League of Legends rebuilds its shader cache, so expect the first match after an update to stutter once.

Ping and Riot's servers

League needs a steady connection more than a fast one. A stable ping lets you last hit and dodge skill shots consistently; spikes make abilities feel delayed.

• Use a cable instead of Wi-Fi whenever possible.
• Play on the server for your region. A distant server adds delay no tweak can remove.
• Stop downloads, streaming on other devices and cloud sync while you play.
• Turn off network adapter power saving.

More detail in how to lower ping in games.

Seeing whether any of it worked

League shows FPS and ping in the corner when you press Ctrl+F in a game. Watch your 1% lows across a few matches before and after a change, not your average, and change one thing at a time.

For a proper recording, free tools such as PresentMon or CapFrameX log every frame and calculate the 1% and 0.1% lows for you. If a change did not move the lows, it did not help, however much the average went up.

The checklist

• Frame Rate Cap at or above refresh rate, V-Sync off
• Shadows and effects low, Hide Eye Candy on
• Low Spec Mode and Close client during game on older PCs
• High performance power plan, background apps closed
• Driver clean installed, Prefer Maximum Performance for League
• Wired connection, correct region, nothing downloading
• Frame rate and ping checked with Ctrl+F in a real team fight

Frequently asked questions

Why does League lag in team fights but not in lane?

Effects and abilities pile up on the CPU at once. Lower shadows and effects, close other programs and use a high performance power plan so the main core runs at full speed.

Does a better graphics card fix League FPS?

Rarely. League is limited by the CPU's main thread on most PCs. Background work and the power plan matter more.

Can tweaking Windows get me banned by Vanguard?

Windows and driver settings are normal configuration and not what Vanguard looks for. It looks for software that touches the game's memory or driver, which RIP Tweaks does not do.

Why will League not start after a BIOS update?

A BIOS update or reset can turn off TPM 2.0 or Secure Boot, which Vanguard can depend on under Windows 11. Check both, and check Vanguard is running, before reinstalling anything.