League of Legends — best graphics settings (2026)

Typical impact 0-5% · 3% fps cost

In League of Legends, we recommend Texture Quality at Very High (3% fps cost).

Controls the maximum mipmap resolution loaded for surface textures. Higher levels stream larger texture maps (2K/4K) from disk into VRAM via the texture streaming pool. The GPU samples these during fragment shading using the currently bound sampler state. The FPS cost is minimal when VRAM is sufficient because texture fetch latency is hidden by the cache hierarchy, but exceeding VRAM capacity triggers page-faulting and hitching as textures are swapped between system RAM and VRAM.

In League of Legends: Riot's engine streams champion skin textures, terrain tiles, and prop maps into a fixed VRAM pool. At Very High, the engine loads full-resolution 2K texture maps for all visible surfaces; Low uses aggressively downscaled variants. Because the fixed camera keeps total on-screen geometry modest, even Very High rarely exceeds 2 GB VRAM at 1080p. Texture quality has essentially zero FPS impact as long as VRAM is sufficient — the only risk is hitching on very low-end integrated graphics with shared system RAM acting as the texture pool.

Typical impact 8-25% · 4% fps cost

In League of Legends, we recommend Shadow Quality at Medium (4% fps cost).

Controls shadow map resolution, filtering method, and cascade count for dynamic shadows. The engine renders the scene from each light source perspective into depth-only shadow map textures. Higher settings increase shadow map resolution (1024 to 4096 texels), add more cascaded shadow map splits for the directional light (improving near-field resolution), and enable softer PCF or PCSS filtering which requires more depth comparison samples per pixel during the lighting pass.

In League of Legends: The shadow system renders dynamic shadow maps for champions, towers, and minions from the sun directional light. At Very High, the engine uses high-resolution cascaded shadow maps with soft PCF filtering across all on-screen entities. Off disables shadow map rendering entirely, eliminating the shadow pass draw calls. In dense 5v5 teamfights where 10 champions plus dozens of minions are all casting shadows simultaneously, this is the heaviest GPU pass in the engine — reducing from Very High to Low or Off can recover 15–25% GPU frame time.

Typical impact 3-15% · 4% fps cost

In League of Legends, we recommend Effect Quality at High (4% fps cost).

Controls the visual fidelity of gameplay effects including explosions, weapon impacts, ability VFX, and environmental interactions. Higher settings increase particle emitter counts per effect, use higher-resolution flipbook or mesh particles instead of simple sprites, enable GPU particle simulation via compute shaders, and add dynamic lighting from effects (each explosion spawning a temporary point light). The cost is highly variable — intense combat with multiple overlapping effects can produce 4-8x overdraw from layered transparent particles.

In League of Legends: Controls particle density on champion abilities. Lower settings reduce visual clutter in 5v5 teamfights — some players prefer Low for competitive clarity.

Typical impact 3-10% · 3% fps cost

In League of Legends, we recommend Environment Quality at High (3% fps cost).

Controls the visual fidelity of the game environment including terrain detail, prop density, and environmental effects. In Riot's engine (League of Legends), this governs the quality of Summoner's Rift map rendering — higher settings enable parallax-mapped terrain surfaces, higher-resolution ground textures, denser decorative props, and more complex water shader effects in the river. The terrain shader at higher settings samples additional detail normal and height maps for parallax displacement, adding 2-4 extra texture fetches per pixel.

In League of Legends: Governs the rendering fidelity of the Summoner's Rift map itself — terrain surface shader complexity, parallax-mapped ground textures, river water shader quality, decorative prop density, and detail normal map sampling. At Very High, the terrain shader samples additional height and detail normal maps for parallax displacement on jungle paths and river banks, adding extra texture fetches per ground pixel. Because the fixed camera keeps ground plane coverage large on screen, the terrain shader runs on a significant pixel count every frame. Dropping to Low simplifies the ground shader noticeably and reduces texture bandwidth on the geometry pass.

Typical impact 2-15% · 4% fps cost

In League of Legends, we recommend Anti-Aliasing at MSAA 2x (4% fps cost).

Smooths jagged edges (aliasing) on geometric boundaries. FXAA is a single-pass edge-detection blur — cheap but softens the image. TAA accumulates multiple frames using motion vectors, sampling sub-pixel jitter offsets to reconstruct smoother edges — moderate cost with potential ghosting. SMAA uses pattern-matching edge detection with a more intelligent blend. MSAA runs the rasterizer at 2x/4x the sample count, evaluating coverage for each triangle edge — expensive because it multiplies ROP work and render target memory, but produces sharp geometry edges without blur.

In League of Legends: Riot's engine offers FXAA and MSAA up to 4x. FXAA is a single-pass post-process edge blur — cheap, but softens champion ability indicators and minimap text. MSAA 2x and 4x engage the rasterizer's multi-sample pipeline, evaluating triangle edge coverage at 2× or 4× the sample density. Because the engine renders a relatively modest triangle count from the fixed top-down view, MSAA 4x is less expensive here than in open-world titles, but still multiplies ROP memory bandwidth. On high-refresh-rate setups targeting 240fps+, MSAA 4x can meaningfully reduce headroom — FXAA or Off is the competitive choice.

Typical impact 0% · no measurable cost

In League of Legends, we recommend V-Sync at On (no measurable cost).

Synchronizes the GPU's framebuffer swap with the monitor's vertical blanking interval to prevent screen tearing. When enabled, the GPU holds the completed frame until the monitor signals it is ready. If the GPU cannot maintain the refresh rate, VSync forces the frame to wait for the next blanking interval, causing framerate to drop to a fraction (e.g., 60fps to 30fps on a 60Hz display). This introduces up to one full frame of input latency. Triple buffering mitigates the fractional drop but adds more latency.

In League of Legends: When enabled, the engine locks swap presentation to the monitor's vertical blanking interval, eliminating screen tearing. Because League is frequently CPU-bound during teamfights, VSync can cause the framerate to stall at a half-multiple of the refresh rate (e.g., dropping from 144 to 72fps on a 144Hz panel) if a single frame misses the blanking window. This adds up to one full frame of input latency — particularly undesirable in a game where reaction timing and ability dodging are central. Competitive players universally disable VSync and use an FPS cap instead to control tearing without the latency penalty.

Typical impact 2-8% · 3% fps cost

In League of Legends, we recommend Character Quality at High (3% fps cost).

Controls the polygon count, texture resolution, and shader complexity for champion/character models. Higher settings load denser character meshes, use higher-resolution diffuse/normal/specular texture maps, and enable additional shader features like rim lighting, fresnel effects, and per-skin special materials. In Riot's engine (League of Legends), the CPU computes skeletal animation blending for each visible champion — higher quality models have more bones in their skeleton, increasing the per-character matrix palette computation. The GPU cost comes from more vertex shader invocations and more complex fragment shaders.

In League of Legends: Affects champion model detail and skin effects. High-quality legendary skins can have more complex shaders — minimal FPS impact on modern hardware.