Valorant - Audio Settings Guide & Recommendations

Valorant just like any competitive first person shooter relies heavily on sound and audio cues. In order to make sure that you have the advantage over your opponents you need to have all the possible information.

In this guide I will go through the audio settings and what you should set in order to have the best audio in Valorant.

Keep in mind that the in-game audio is going to differ according to whatever audio device that you are using and its settings. These are just my suggestions on what value you should keep for the settings, don’t be afraid to tweak the settings to your own liking.

Valorant Audio Settings:

In order to access the audio settings, go to the settings from the cog icon on the top right and select “Settings”. In the settings go to the last tab labeled “Audio”. There are 3 different sections in there and we will go through each of these sections below:

Sound Settings:

This tab contains most of the audio related settings and you can set the volume for each sound here. I will be giving my recommended settings and what these settings do as well:

Valorant sound settings

Setting Suggested Value
Overall Volume 100%
Sound Effects Volume 100%
Voice-Over Volume 80%
Video Volume 100%
All Music Overall Volume Off
Meny and Lobby Music Volume 75%
Agent Select Music Volume 75%
VOIP Ducks Music On
Mute Music When Game Window Out Of Focus On
Speaker Configuration Stereo
Enable HRTF On
  • Overall Volume should be set to max so you can hear all the audio and not miss out on any sound cues such as footsteps or ability sounds.

  • Sound Effects Volume should be set to max so you can hear sounds such as abilities being used.

  • Voice-over volume mainly controls the agents and the announcer audio that you  hear during the round. It can be distracting sometimes and may drown out other audio, I would recommend turning it down a little bit since it can sometimes provides crucial information such as enemies being spotted, round time etc.

  • Video volume has no particular effect on the gameplay as its mostly played outside of the game.

  • Turning off All Music Overall volume would affect the agent select music and  the menu/lobby music. You can turn down those settings individually but they wouldn’t provide any advantage in the gameplay so you can turn it off from here instead.

  • Lower Music when a player is speaking/VOIP Ducks Music reduces audio when team or party voice chat is running. This could be situational if you feel like the voice chat is drowning the in-game audio then enable it but you can keep it disabled if you are playing with randoms and your teammates occasionally talk during clutch moments while not providing any relevant information.

  • Mute Music When Game Window Out Of Focus - I prefer keeping it enabled so when i’m tabbed out I know when the round is over and can get back into the game quickly.

  • Speaker Configuration - Keep it on stereo.

  • Enable HRTF - Turn on the HRTF settings as it can help your listening a lot. It may take some time to getting used to it but you can hear a significant difference with it enabled especially when using a good pair of headphones. It is also recommended that you turn off any third-party audio software that you may have so it doesn’t conflict with HRTF. You can take a look at how HRTF works below:

Voice Chat Settings

Most of the voice chat settings are personal preferences as it depends on how loud you want the others to be and what mode of voice chat you prefer:

Setting Suggested Value
Output Device Preferred Device
Input Device Preferred Device
Incoming Volume 70-100%
Mic Volume 70-100%
Loopback Test Off
Mic Sensitivity Threshold 40-100%
Party Voice Chat On
Party Voice During Custom Game On
Party Voice Activation Mode Push to Talk/ Automatic
Team Voice Chat On
  • Output Device should be whatever device you are using to hear the audio. Whether it be your headphones or speakers etc.

  • Input Device should be the microphone that you are using.

  • Incoming Volume can be kept at 100% if you are having trouble hearing voice chat however, you can turn it down if it’s too loud. I personally keep it around 70%.

  • Mic Volume is the same and should be set according to your mic, if your mic is too loud then you can turn down the volume. You can test this using the loopback test.

  • Loopback Test would play whatever you say back to you, it can be great to test how loud/quiet your mic is however, you can keep it disabled afterwards.

  • Mic Sensitivity Threshold is the limit where your mic sound would actually be detected and transmitted. Like all the other settings, it depends on what microphone you are using and your environment, you can turn it up if you are in a noisy environment.

  • Party Voice Chat - Enables voice chat when playing with a party.

  • Party Voice During Custom Game - You can turn it on to talk with the whole party while in a custom game, this would mean you could possibly talk to the other team while in the custom game.

  • Party Voice Activation Mode - This is up to you on what mode you want to use to communicate with your party, I would prefer push-to-talk to avoid unnecessary chatter.

  • Team Voice Chat - Enables team voice chat when in a game allowing you to communicate with your teammates, team voice chat is always via push-to-talk so make sure that you have it binded.

Voice-over Audio Settings:

The voice-over section can be used to modify the dialogues that you hear in the game and you can disable them if needed.

Setting Suggested Value
Gameplay On
Agent Flavor Optional
Tactical Callouts On
Automated Tactical Callouts On
Announcer On
Maxbot Gameplay VO On
Maxbot Flavor VO On
VOIP Ducks Flavor VO On
  • Gameplay basically contains generic voice-overs that you may hear such as when getting shot or standing on fire. This can help in letting you know when you take damage.

  • Agent Flavor is usually the dialogues that you may hear between agents. This does not provide any information and is mostly banter amongst them, you can turn it off if you don’t want to hear the agents talking amongst each other in-between rounds.

  • Tactical Callouts - This will enable/disable the callouts that players may give manually such as “going to site A” etc. I would suggest keeping it on if your team is actually using it effectively and not just spamming it otherwise disable it.

  • Automated Tactical Callouts - This will gives callouts to your teammate automatically such as when you’re reloading, spot enemies on a site etc. This can be helpful in letting them know without having to use voice chat. Disabling the setting will also hide the automated callouts from the chat that you receive from your teammates.

  • Announcer - This will enable/disable all the announcer voice-overs. I would recommend keeping this enabled as it can provide valuable information such as when the spike is dropped or planted, when the last enemy is alive and more.

  • Maxbot Gameplay VO - Maxbot is the other announcer that you may hear in other game modes such as Team Deathmatch, this setting will let you know about information such as when the next stage is starting and when a team is about to win. This setting won’t matter if you play modes like unrated or competitive.

  • Maxbot Flavor VO - Adds some extra voice lines that Maxbot may play during the match that isn’t related to the round and won’t provide any relevant information. This setting won’t matter if you play modes like unrated or competitive as Maxbot is only available on selected game modes.

  • VOIP Ducks Flavor VO - Keep this setting on if you have the flavor voice-overs enabled as voice chat would reduce the volume of the flavor lines so you can listen to the information voice chat more clearly over the flavor speech.

As I have mentioned before, the audio settings are down to your own preference most of the time. You need to change the settings on how you want your audio to be, make sure to test around the values to what you feel is comfortable for you.

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Hashir "HasH" Anis

Long-time esports follower and have worked for esports organizations such as Blight Gaming and Natus Vincere (NaVi). I also help in organizing monthly Dota 2 tournaments hosted by the Dota 2 sub-reddit, partnering with multiple organizations such as ESL, Team Secret and Alliance. You can follow me on Twitter.

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