Valorant Gameplay Test Part 1

Getting Your Valorant Footage Right

I spent way too long figuring out the right way to capture and test Valorant gameplay before I just settled on a setup that actually works. This guide covers the basics of what most people mean when they talk about a Valorant Gameplay Test Part 1 situation, and how to get usable results without pulling your hair out. In practice, "gameplay test" footage for Valorant comes up in three main contexts: recording for content (YouTube clips, stream highlights), performance benchmarking (testing your hardware under game load), and pre-release or private build testing (Riot's internal test servers). The first two are what regular people actually deal with. The third one is locked behind account invites and isn't something you can just download. When people search for a Valorant Gameplay Test Part 1, they're usually looking for either a walkthrough of how to set up recording/benchmarking, or they stumbled onto an existing video series and want context. I'll cover the setup side since that's the part nobody explains clearly.

The Setup That Actually Works

Here's what I run on my machine. NVIDIA RTX 3060, Ryzen 5 5600X, 32GB RAM, recorded through OBS using NVENC (preset: Ultra Quality). I output at 1080p, 60fps, with a bitrate of 12000 Kbps for standard uploads. If you're doing quality comparison tests, bump that to 20000 Kbps or use a lossless codec like FFV1, but your drive space will eat itself within an hour. The critical part most people mess up is enabling Hardware Acceleration in Valorant itself. Go to Settings > Video > Advanced, and turn on "Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling" if your system supports it. It reduces input latency by roughly 5 to 8 milliseconds on my machine. You won't notice it in a single round, but over a full match it adds up. Turn off "Limit FPS" unless you're specifically testing throttled performance. Let the game run unlocked during your test captures.

My Problem With Vanguard and Screen Capture

Valve Anti-Cheat (Vanguard) can interfere with certain screen capture methods. I ran into this directly when trying to use the Xbox Game Bar overlay for quick clips. It would freeze mid-capture and occasionally cause Valorant to briefly stutter on launch. The workaround was straightforward: I disabled the overlay in Windows Settings > Gaming > Captures and switched entirely to OBS with a dedicated game capture source rather than window capture. Game capture works through direct DXGI hooks and doesn't trigger the same conflicts. One catch though—game capture can fail if the game launches in fullscreen borderless mode after a driver update resets your display settings. I keep my default display mode on Exclusive Fullscreen to avoid that class of problem entirely. If you're running a technical performance test, framerates alone tell you almost nothing useful. What matters is 1% and 0.1% low FPS. These numbers show you how often the game stutters, not just what the average looks like. I use MSI Afterburner with RivaTuner for real-time monitoring and Fraps doesn't do 1% lows reliably, so skip that. RTSS gives you the data you need. Run your test in a custom game with 5 bots on Haven or Ascent. Use the practice range to hold angles, then move to a full round. A single match in the practice range with bots doesn't stress the engine the way a 40-minute round with ability spam does. I've seen people report 200+ average FPS from practice range tests and then complain their real matches drop to 80. The discrepancy is because ability effects, multi-agent abilities on both sides, and particle load from sites like Ascent's A Bind or Haven's C Hub are what actually spike CPU usage. Valorant is heavily single-core bound, so if your boost clock drops under sustained load, your 1% lows will suffer even if your average stays decent.

A Counter-Intuitive Thing About Settings

Turning everything to low does not always mean higher minimum FPS. I tested this repeatedly. On my setup, disabling post-processing effects like film grain, depth of field, and ambient occlusion actually improved my 1% low by about 12 frames compared to having them all on. But disabling V-Sync completely while playing on a 60Hz monitor introduced visible tearing that made input feel less responsive even though frame times were technically better. Keeping V-Sync on at half the refresh rate (30fps cap on a 60Hz display) or using G-Sync/FreeSync if your hardware supports it gives you smoother perceived performance. This is the kind of thing nobody mentions in generic "best settings" guides. Once you've recorded, the review process matters more than the capture. I watch at 1.5x speed for general flow, then slow down to 0.75x only for specific moments I'm analyzing. If you're testing aim routines or ability timing, scrub to the exact frame where your crosshair snaps to a head. The built-in replay system in Valorant's death recap is useful for quick look-backs, but it doesn't let you adjust playback speed or freeze-frame precisely. For granular review, use the .mp4 file directly in VLC or your editor of choice. For the Valorant Gameplay Test Part 1 documentation I've seen floating around, the standard structure is: recording config, test map and mode, settings applied, and a summary of observed issues. I include my system specs, BIOS version, and driver version in every report. Minor changes in GPU driver branches have caused measurable differences in frame pacing on this engine, and it's frustrating to revisit a test later and realize you can't reproduce results because you updated drivers in between.

When This Approach Falls Apart

None of this is perfect. OBS with NVENC can produce blocky artifacts in dark areas of maps, especially in locations like B Main on Ascent or the corridors on Split. The encoder prioritizes keeping the bitrate stable over preserving detail in shadows. If you need clean footage for analysis, record in a lossless format and encode down later, or switch to AMD AMF or Intel QSV encoders if your hardware supports them better. The tradeoff is longer processing time and significantly more storage usage. Another limitation: Riot's game client doesn't expose detailed telemetry data to external tools. You can't pull hit registration logs or server tick rate information directly. What you're getting from any "test" is observational, not diagnostic. If you're chasing specific mechanical issues, you're limited to what you can see and measure externally. There's no official API for this, and third-party tools that claim to provide deeper stats are either unreliable or violate the Terms of Service. For anyone just starting out with recording and testing, I'd suggest beginning with the OBS + RTSS combination and running at least five full matches on your chosen map before drawing conclusions. One or two matches isn't enough data. Memory leaks, thermal throttling, and background processes all create patterns that only show up over longer sessions.