League of Legends’ Swarm game mode has drawn the attention of casual gamers and hardcore enthusiasts alike. Even the most dedicated ranked grinders have been lured away from their usual competitive routines to try Riot Games’ latest innovation, with some experiencing lag in Swarm.
This surge in popularity has come with challenges. As more League players flock to Swarm, instances of lag have become increasingly common. From minor stutters to game-breaking delays, these performance problems make Swarm unplayable for a sizable portion of the player base.
While the lag is largely due to the strain on Riot’s servers, players can try a few fixes for lag in Swarm to improve their experience.
How do you fix lag in League of Legends Swarm?
One of the most effective solutions to fix lag in Swarm is limiting the frame rate in the game settings. This fix was reported to resolve lag problems for many players in Swarm.
- Start a League match and bring up Options.
- Navigate to the Video tab.
- Click on the Frame Rate Cap below the quality options.
- Set it to 60 or 144 FPS.
The reason this solution works is hidden within Swarm’s gameplay mechanics. Many players noticed that lag began to occur as they progressed to higher difficulty tiers, where the number of projectiles and on-screen effects dramatically increased. With an uncapped frame rate, systems may push themselves to exhaustion, trying to render every detail, resulting in performance issues. By limiting the frame rate, you allow your system to focus on maintaining consistent performance rather than striving for maximum graphical output.
If frame rate limitation doesn’t resolve the issue, players might be experiencing lag due to server-side problems. In such cases, a temporary workaround is to log into alternative accounts in nearby regions to bypass server congestion in your home region. Similarly, you should experience less lag during off-peak hours in your primary region. In the meantime, you could also restart your modem/router and run a general troubleshooting process for your home network.
Riot could potentially address these lag problems through optimization patches and fine-tuning Swarm to run more smoothly across various systems and network conditions. Considering Swarm’s current limited-time nature, Riot may not prioritize extensive updates or optimizations in the immediate future. This means players might need to rely on the solutions above to try to fix their lag problems for the duration of Swarm’s availability.
