Rust on Mac - I have FINALLY found a solution for the sudden FPS drops bug!

[Brexped]

For those of you Mac users struggling with this issue for a VERY LONG time, my persistence has finally paid off and I have found a solution/workaround for those ridiculous FPS drops after just a few minutes playing Rust.

Though others have mentioned a longstanding Unity engine bug as the main reason (and even proposed some scripts/config changes to mitigate it), I could not find a way to play the game without such crazy FPS drops (basically from 120 fps down to 1-5 regardless of scene, GFX settings or map population).

To be clear before Windows infants start posting crap about "it runs badly because it's a Mac": the issue happened from Potato to Ultra modes, and from tiny resolutions up to full screen sizes.

So I started investigating through Activity Monitor to see how Rust dealt with CPU/GPU loads, and ended up discovering a resolution for the problem:

- CPU should NOT be an issue, as my Mac Pro has an 8-core Intel Xeon (16 with multithreading);
- RAM was never an issue, as my Mac Pro has 176 GB of it;
- GPU was never an issue either, as I have a dedicated Radeon Pro W6600X with 8 GB;
- Then I read somewhere that Rust (or the Unity engine) might have issues with multiple CPUs and/or multithreading, or that it was not optimized for them;
- a number of Mac users have also reported that they play Rust fine (most probably those on Apple Silicon);
- yet on Activity Monitor, I noticed that Rust was constantly oscillating between 300%/400% and 100%/150% CPU usage - whenever the FORMER happened, my FPS were fine and at normal levels for my Mac (from 20 to 120 depending on how busy the scene was); and when the LATTER happened (i.e. single CPU with multi-thread), I saw the ridiculous 1-5 FPS.

Long story short, the SOLUTION is as follows:

- Download and install XCode for Mac;
- inside XCode, there is an app called "Instruments" - through "Show Package Contents" you will find it;
- open that app and go to its SETTINGS - do NOT bother about the main app window;
- go the "CPUs" settings and DISABLE "Hardware Multi-Threading" - there is NO need to restart the machine, but these settings ARE reset whenever rebooting or sleeping.

Enjoy Rust WITHOUT those FPS drops.

You're welcome!

[juuden agent]

I'm not going to be the "windows infant" as you describe, but I aswell have a mac. Not as powerful obviously as yours, a bit older macbook pro for uni stuff. But I would never be able to game on mac, powerful or not. Why not buy a mediocre gaming pc for gaming if you enjoy it? Just out of curiosity

[Brexped]

The reason is simple: I have always gamed on Macs (CS, TF2, L4D2, HoI, Victoria 3, FrostPunk, Metro, etc.) and would never consider having a second PC just for games - too much of a hassle. At most, I Boot Camp from time to time if the game is not available on Mac OS.

In any case, the goal of the first message is to help others, as I could never understand why I was getting 1-5 fps instead of 30-120 fps on my Mac.

[juuden agent]

Originally posted by Brex:

The reason is simple: I have always gamed on Macs (CS, TF2, L4D2, HoI, Victoria 3, FrostPunk, Metro, etc.) and would never consider having a second PC just for games - too much of a hassle. At most, I Boot Camp from time to time if the game is not available on Mac OS.

In any case, the goal of the first message is to help others, as I could never understand why I was getting 1-5 fps instead of 30-120 fps on my Mac.

Cool, and I appreciate the effort to solve this issue. Hope all the mac gamers find this

[plops]

you gotta get off mac dude who tf plays game on that ♥♥♥♥

[ОндатрОтчаянный]

I've tried this solution, my Mac is 2019 iMac with Intel i5 CPU and in Instruments/Settings/CPUs the Hardware Multi-Threading is unchecked by default and I cannot check/uncheck it, there is no option to change it.

[BigDawgWorldWide]

Hey, I am on a MBP M3 Max and am having this exact issue. I have navigated to the settings page on instruments but there is no "CPU" option. Any clue what I could be doing wrong?

[Michelin Ramen]

I'm on M1PRO 14core 16GB RAM - playing on external screen full native uhd res on Sonoma yields me mostly stable 70FPS (i locked it, my mon supports only 60), but there are moments when my m1 is more stable than friends windows pc btw, like he has more lags and render issues than apple silicons.
But there is time to time some lags, i would like to think that more RAM could've fix this issue, as graphicswise everything is good to me and feels pretty competitive, but i would like to see some custom unity launch options that would make Rust work better on Apple Silicon too.

[Nova 9]

Sorry but this did not work for me

[Nova 9]

Goto the Steam community page

https://steamcommunity.com/app/252490/discussions/6/1863867856226240951/?l=japanese&ctp=12

Find the post from La Bete

Follow the instructions

use the following script
> cd $TMPDIR/../C/
> rm -rf com.Facepunch-Studios-LTD.Rust/

Make sure you create a new desktop shortcut from the Steam app.

Restart your Mac

it works for me

[yeahbunnywrote]

Instead of the CPU tab ive got Symbols

[totalogboss]

Originally posted by Nova 9:

Goto the Steam community page

https://steamcommunity.com/app/252490/discussions/6/1863867856226240951/?l=japanese&ctp=12

Find the post from La Bete

Follow the instructions

use the following script
> cd $TMPDIR/../C/
> rm -rf com.Facepunch-Studios-LTD.Rust/

Make sure you create a new desktop shortcut from the Steam app.

Restart your Mac

it works for me

Tried that it says permission denied

[𐂃𐂃𐂃]

Originally posted by totalogboss:

Tried that it says permission denied

Not familiar with Mac but setting permissions should be similar to linux:

sudo rm -rf com.Facepunch-Studios-LTD.Rust/

Also make sure you got the correct temp path:

echo $TMPDIR

If using Mac I would probably just get NVIDIA GeForce NOW subscription and call it a day ;)

[totalogboss]

don't know how to get there I click instruments and don't see any of the words you are saying should be there. is my instruments different or something its so damn confusing

[totalogboss]

its ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that they can sell rust for 40$ and it doesn't even work properly on my m3 max Mac. I have been trying for weeks to fix it and nothing is working.

[totalogboss]

doesn't work just tried