Valorant is a fairly engaging first-person shooter to sink your time into. Ranked and casual matches continuously invite players to improve and earn rewards daily. The best thing about the game? It’s very convenient to run on even low-end specs!
If a Chromebook is all you’ve got during your time away from home, then you can have the game installed on the side, ready to play when you’re taking a break from work. In this guide, we will be showing you how to play Valorant on a Chromebook.
How to Play Valorant on a Chromebook?
If you’re wondering, Valorant CAN be installed on your Chromebook. The game can be downloaded from its website directly, but there are a few prerequisites that you will need to complete before you’re ready to install Valorant.
How to Enable Linux Development Environment
To install Windows applications, users will need to use Linux’s development console. In some cases, this may be disabled. This prevents the installation of Windows applications. As such, there’s a quick workaround to this problem. First, to confirm if the restriction are in place, follow the steps below:
- Start up “Quick Settings” on your Chromebook device from the tray on the bottom-right.
- Click the Cogwheel.
- Search with “Linux.”
- If you don’t see “Linux development environment.”, then you are restricted from accessing it.
- To overcome this, you will have to reset the Chromebook.
Note: Resetting the Chromebook will remove all software but also remove any locks put in place.
- Once you have done so, go into “Quick Settings” again by using the tray at the bottom-right.
- Click the Cogwheel.
- Search “Linux” in the bar.
- Click on the “Turn on” button to install Linux’s development environment.
- Click “Install” when prompted to do so.
- Put in your Username and how much disk space you need.
- Wait for the installation to complete.
Installing Wine on Chromebook
In the next step, you are going to need WINE installed on your Linux. WINE is essentially a compatibility layer that is put into your device to allow it to run Windows applications.
- Open the Linux developer terminal.
- Run the following commands one-by-one by copy-pasting them, excluding “Type” (Highlighted in bold).
- Type sudo dpkg –add-architecture i386
- Continue to add commands below after the first one until installation is finished.
- Type wget -nc https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key
- sudo apt-key add winehq.key
- Type echo “deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/debian/ bullseye main” | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/wine_chrome_os_made_simple.list
- Type sudo apt update
- Type sudo apt install –install-recommends winehq-stable winbind
- Type winecfg
- After typing in winecfg, click on Install when prompted to confirm the installation.
- Type sudo apt install nemo
After successfully installing WINE, you can now install Windows applications onto your Chromebook’s Linux OS.
Installing Valorant on Chromebook
You can install Valorant by following the steps below:
- You should have Wine and Linux installed on your Chromebook for this to work.
- Go to Valorant’s website to download the game.
- Register yourself an account if you don’t already have one.
- Make sure to download the “Install valorant.exe” file.
- Copy the downloaded file to the Linux folder.
- Head to the terminal and type the command below.
- Type wine ‘Install Valorant.exe’
- Once installed, restart your Chromebook.
- Wait for your Chromebook to start up, and then run the game.
After following all of the steps above correctly, you can launch Valorant on your system. Before you jump into any game, refer to the instructions below to optimize your gameplay for the best possible performance.
How to Optimize Valorant for the Chromebook
With the previously mentioned steps, you should be able to install Valorant on your Chromebook, and once you’ve done that, you’re all set to pick from one of the 18 agents in the game.
Surprisingly, you don’t need a lot of RAM to play the game. However, performance might not be up to par, considering the limitations of a Chromebook. Make sure to head into your settings and bring down everything to the lowest. This will help you gain extra FPS and play while having fun.
Here are what your settings should look like:
The above settings should give you extra Frames Per Second. You can add a few more frames by disabling Clarity, Boom, Distortion, and First-Person Shadows. If you have a Chromebook with relatively lower specs, make sure to play the game on a lower resolution (720p).
How Does Valorant Perform on a Chromebook?
The answer to the above question depends on the type of Chromebook you have. To put this into perspective, a low-end PC with a Core i3 (2.0 GHz) and 4 GB RAM can run the game generally around 30 to 40 FPS at 720p with a bit of stuttering in between.
Chromebooks have updated hardware and software, so we recommend you have the following specs to ensure your game runs smoothly.
- RAM: 8 GB RAM
- CPU: Intel Core i3-1115G4 (3.0 GHz)
- Storage: 25 GB of space in your SSD
- Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics
With the above recommended specs, the game should run at a consistent 70-90 FPS without any stuttering on MEDIUM settings with 1080p. If you have somewhere around 4 GB of RAM, you will definitely face random stutters, which can throw off your game.
Wrapping up
Now that you’ve reached the end of this guide, you can jump right into the action from anywhere, using your Chromebook. Ensure you’re keeping the device elevated to prevent it from getting too hot. Even at the lowest settings, proper ventilation should be maintained.
You can also queue up for casuals initially to see how the game fairs. If all works out, maybe do a few ranked matches to see if the setup can be used to compete.
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