Achieving peak performance in League of Legends obviously involves optimizing your gameplay, but don’t think that your settings don’t play a significant role! The wrong settings can inhibit your ability to play and even perceive the game, but the right settings can allow you to thrive in your own unique way.

To ensure you are taking full advantage of the in-game settings, we have to highlight them all.

General Settings

Here are the following settings you might not have considered:

Windowed Mode / Fullscreen: Fullscreen mode generally provides better performance as it utilizes your entire screen, however if you are often Alt + Tabbing to other applications, playing windowed mode might prove better for your computer and CPU performance!
Enable Player Names: There’s not really any good reason to keep this on. By changing this to Champion Names Only, you’ll simplify what’s on the screen to avoid any of those long annoying names and remove any toxic names from the screen.
Show /All Chat: If you get distracted easily and find you succumb to the banter of /all chat, you need to turn this off. The distraction is not worth it. At least for ranked play!
Character Inking: This feature outlines Champions that make them easier to see in team fights. Try the setting out and see if it feels any easier!
Resolution: Set the resolution to your monitor's native resolution for the best visual clarity. Commonly, it's 1920x1080 (Full HD). Adjust the graphics settings based on your system's capabilities. Prioritize performance by lowering unnecessary settings while keeping character outlines and important visuals intact. Aim for a high and stable frame rate. This can be achieved by adjusting settings such as shadows, effects, and post-processing to improve performance. Remember, this will be a process of trial and error so you’ll need to commit some time to testing out settings that work best while in a game with bots, or even a custom game with friends.

The general settings are pretty simple and none of these should show drastic alterations in gameplay. You may find that once you have changed these settings, you’ll feel the difference. Let’s move onto the interface!

Interface Settings

Here are the interface settings that you should definitely consider checking out:

HUD Scale: Customize the HUD (Head-Up Display) to your liking. Streamline the display to reduce clutter and improve focus on the game. More likely than not, all of these HUD settings can be reduced to at most 60 percent of their largest. Reduce them to be as small as you can while still being able to see all the necessary information (like your chat messages).
Enable Low Spec Mode: If you have a weaker computer and experience performance issues, enabling this feature might help spare some processing from visual effects.
Show Attack Move Click: This option will display a range indicator when using the Attack Move command. When you play with a larger Champion pool, this can help you recall the range you need to play within.

These interface settings are small changes, but if you’ve always been playing with the default settings, you’re missing out!

Camera Settings

Controlling the camera in the heat of the moment will make or break your gameplay when you climb to more competitive ranks. You can’t just rely on watching what’s on your screen. You need to unlock the camera to see what else is lurking around the Rift.

Lock Camera: Many experienced players prefer using the unlocked camera for better map awareness. Experiment with both options and find what suits you best, but know that there is always more information you can gather with an unlocked camera.
Mouse Scroll Speed: Adjust the speed at which you can scroll across the map. Find a balance that allows for quick movement without feeling too fast or slow. Similar to your mouse sensitivity, it’s important to get comfortable with maneuvering the camera quickly and efficiently.

Remember, in League of Legends, information is key. You need to gather as much information as possible to make the most informed decisions and using your camera to scout the Rift is critical to that.

Game Settings

The Game settings play a large role in the mechanical side of the game. The minute details that cannot be overstated. Here are a few that you need to check out:

Quick Cast/Quick Cast with Indicator: These settings allow you to cast abilities instantly upon key press. Quick Cast with Indicator shows the range before casting, which can be helpful for precise aiming. It’s best to use a mix of these ability cast options for the various situations you might encounter. Consider natively using quick cast and using the Shift key to quick cast with the indicator.
Smart Cast: This setting allows you to automatically use abilities at the cursor’s location without additional keys allowing for much faster ability combos.
Enable Line Missile Display: Shows the path of skill shots before casting. This setting is useful for understanding the trajectory of your abilities.

Even more important than the Game settings are the Hotkeys. The Hotkeys are the customizable settings that enable the player to play to their peak potential.

Hotkey Settings

Quick Bind is a very important setting for actions like pinging, recalling, or opening the shop. This improves your responsiveness during gameplay. But, here are the other options that you should be using in your games:

Cast Options

There are four main types of key bindings worth noting:

Quick cast, which should be the standard Q, W, E, and R
Level Up cast, Control + Q, W, E, and R
Self-cast, Alt + Q, W, E, and R
Smart cast, Shift + Q, W, E, and R.

All of these are standard binding setups but should definitely be used!

Movement Options

‘Target Champions Only’ is another key binding that will work wonders when used. This button will allow you to toggle your attacks to target the selected only if they are a Champion. This makes turret diving and fighting in minion waves much easier!

‘Attack Move’ is an important hotkey to ensure you can move around the map efficiently and minimize the clicks required to perform the same task. This allows you to make one single keystroke to attack something rather than two. If your selection with this single keystroke is not on anything attackable, you will instead move to that position. This is a great way to check bushes without first walking into the bush and then attacking the target in the bush. With this, the command will walk you into the bush and attack as soon as possible.

The ‘Stop’ movement command will stop your Champion from moving and attacking. This is important when remembering that if your last input command was simply to walk somewhere like a bush, as soon as something is within the range to interact with, your Champion will do so automatically. When camping a bush with teammates, this is a terrible way to ruin your ambush because it can give away your plan before the enemy has walked close enough to guarantee the ambush works. The ‘stop’ command will prevent your Champion from making any type of attack or movement unless you intervene in some way.

Camera Control Options

The standard camera controls that you should use are locking/unlocking your camera, and recentering your camera on your Champion. Another important feature of using the camera is to re-center your camera around each of your teammates. This can be done with the ‘F’ function keys.

Alternative Hotkeys

If the mouse you use has any customizable keys that you can use in your gameplay, consider using it to quickly strike a key with the movement of your mouse. For example, when you want to indicate to your team that the enemy has warded an area, you want to be able to quickly hover where the ward was placed, use the “Area is Warded” key. By using a mouse button for this communication instead of the keyboard, it leaves you able to still cast all your abilities in the heat of the action!

It’s also a good idea to consider what’s more important for you, the immersive experience or the competitive experience. If you’re trying to optimize your settings to play at your most efficient level, then you’ll want to turn off some of the ‘candy’ experiences like background music, eye candy graphics, etc. With that in mind, let’s move onto the AV settings.

Video Settings

The most important piece to remember about Video settings is to balance visuals with performance. Here are some key settings to review:

Graphics Quality: Adjust the overall quality based on your system's capabilities. Lower settings can improve performance on less powerful systems.
Frame Rate Cap: Set the frame rate cap to match your monitor's refresh rate for smoother gameplay. If you have a high-refresh-rate monitor, consider increasing this cap.

Sound Settings

Here’s what to consider about the sounds of the game:

Sound Quality: Adjust the sound quality based on your preferences and system capabilities.
Enable Music: Decide whether you want to play in-game music. Some players find it distracting, while others enjoy the atmosphere it provides. This is completely up to you

Conclusion

All these settings are worth experimenting with to find what works best for you. Keep in mind that preferences can vary from player to player, so feel free to customize your settings based on your comfort and playstyle as they change from month to month and even from year to year! Don’t forget, you should regularly check for updates and optimizations in the game's settings menu as new features may be added over time.