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This is the first installment in the “Perfect LoL Settings” series, and in this post I’m going to talk about the interface in League of Legends. The series focuses on the LoL client settings and my goal is to help people get the setup that fits their preferences. Interface is an often overlooked topic, but small changes can have a great impact on your performance so it is important to spend some time improving it.

1. Interface and More Options (you are here)
2. Keybindings
3. Recommended Items

3 important customization options

The UI (User Interface) in LoL has a rather limited amount of options, but there are a few settings that you can change and customize depending on your preferences. The two pictures below demonstrate the default view versus my personal settings.

Default interface

New interface

As you can see, the main change is that my UI is a lot smaller which gives me a better overview in hectic situations. In this example I’ve only made 3 major changes from the default settings and I believe they are the 3 most important interface options. The changes are marked below with explanation afterwards.

New interface changes

1. Hide Center HUD Wall – This option removes the center background bar and I do not see why you wouldn’t check this option. The bar does not have any informational value and it takes up a lot of space.

How to: Press ESC -> More Options -> Hide Center HUD Wall

2. HUD Scale – This option allows you to change the size of the UI. The default is rather big, and you can change it to fit your preferences. The bad thing about decreasing the size is that the team-icons to the left will be rather small. Unfortunately there’s only one slider for the whole UI so that is just something we’ll have to live with.

How to: Press ESC -> Interface -> HUD Scale

3. Show Timestamps – This will add timestamps to the chat, and I can only recommend that you turn it on. It is extremely useful as most calls in team chat aren’t worth anything after a minute or so. Knowing that the “MIA”-call from midlane was called 2 minutes ago will help you a lot.

How to: Press ESC -> More Options -> Show Timestamps 

Other important options

The settings above are the most important ones when you are looking to customize your UI, but there are a few more settings that you should be aware of. Some of these settings work “behind the curtain”, but they still have an impact on the game.

Interface

The interface panel does not bring that many options:

Interface screen

As you can see I’ve decreased my UI size (HUD Scale), but that is all. Some might want to check the “Mana Heal” which shows when you receive mana (eg from Soraka’s Infuse), but leave the “Mana Damage” unchecked. If you turn it on you’ll see the mana you lose whenever you cast a spell and it is just unnecessary information. You want to keep things as simple and clean as possible.

More Options

The “More Options” tab is a bit more interesting as there are a few settings you should make sure to check/uncheck.

More Options screen

Cooldown Display is the first important setting. Make sure to NOT use simplified here as this will give you a very inaccurate timer. Take Min:Sec or Sec depending on your preferences.

Use Movement Prediction is the next one, and people seem to have very different opinions here. Some say turning it on is like a legal hack, while others argue that using it will make your movements less accurate. If you aren’t interested in the mechanics behind movement prediction then here’s the short version: leave it unchecked. 

If you are interested in more then take a look at what League of Legend’s own software engineer says about the feature. The quote is from 2010, but the idea behind movement prediction is still the same:

Essentially it hides lag… or tries to make your client more accurate to what is occurring on the server at that moment. It is experimental and may not work well for all connection speeds. We may force it to on once we have all the issues figured out.

hohums, Software Engineer

At first it sounds like movement prediction is a must-have as playing without lag would be awesome. However, pay attention to what it actually does: it hides lag – it does not remove it. Your client calculates movement prediction and therefore the game might look smoother with it turned on. Sadly, this is only how it looks on your own computer as the actual movements are controlled and calculated by the sever. Therefore you might get less reliable movements with the settings turned on. If you are looking for a more in-depth explanation then take a look at this comment in a recent discussion on reddit.

Smartcast Range Indicators should be turned off. Turning it on will make your smart casts slower as the cast is then performed “on key release” instead of “on key press”. Smartcast Range Indicators works like this: You press a button to cast a spell and you will see the range indicator. Once you lift your finger the spell will go off. As you can see it takes longer time as the cast is performed once you release the button, while without this setting it will be cast once you press it. This setting is of course only relevant if you use smartcast. (Which you should)

Hide Center HUD Wall and Show Timestamps have already been mentioned and should both be turned on as there’s no reason why not to.

This was, in my opinion, the most important options for the League of Legends interface. There are a few more settings and if you are looking to improve and change your interface further, just work around the settings yourself. Interface is all about your own preferences, and therefore you’ll get the best result by playing with the features yourself.

Remember to subscribe if you enjoyed the guide – Thanks and good luck with your new LoL settings!

1. Interface and More Options (you are here)
2. Keybindings
3. Recommended Items

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