The Ultimate Performance Guide For Rust

Hello everyone and thanks for checking out my guide!

2023 Update:

This guide is abandoned, but I've deleted everything that doesn't reasonably apply. I don't play Rust anymore, I don't care to play Rust anymore, and I likely won't get into the game again. I made this guide my Sophomore year of Highschool, I'm far too busy with real life now.

Graphics Settings recommendations are thus NOT be provided. You can generally expect that in the event of a CPU bottleneck (your computers processor is limiting your performance) that most settings will not affect performance, with the exception of anything that loads more stuff at once, such as Render Distance; in the event of a GPU bottleneck (your graphics device is limiting your performance,) the lower your settings, the better.

The most important setting for anyone is to make sure the game is running in Exclusive Fullscreen, which will provide the shortest input lag, and highest FPS.

Applying Our Launch Options:

My launch options fix some settings that are not correctly configured from the get-go. To apply them:

Open Steam
Go to Library
Right-Click Rust
Go To Properties
Click Set Launch Options
Copy And Paste The Following And Then Hit OK:

-gc.buffer 4096 -hitnotify.notification_level 2 -gc.incremental_milliseconds 1 -physics.steps 60

Windows 10 Settings (skip further down if you are not on Windows 10)

Windows 10 Introduced a terrible feature called 'Game Bar' designed to record applications inside of an overlay.

Unfortunately, it is very buggy and causes performance issues in games. So we will be disabling it.

To do this, Hold Windows Key and hit I.
Go to 'Gaming'
Make sure 'Record game clips, screenshots, and broadcast using Game bar' is not checked.
Go to 'Game Mode' and turn it on if it isn't already on.

Disk Optimization

Rust is an extremely disk-hungry game, which means a slow drive will cause far longer load times, and possibly stuttering as well.

Using Windows 'Disk Optimization' will perform the Defragmentation function for Hard Drives, and TRIM for SSD's. Making sure you're doing both these will help Disk performance, and could even increase their lifespan. To do this:

Open Files
Right-click a Hard Drive or SSD (Doesn't matter which one)
Go to Properties
Click on Tools
Click Optimize
Highlight all your drives and then click Optimize All

After doing this, under Scheduled Optimization, click turn on.
And then check Run on a schedule (recommended) and set the Frequency to Daily. And then check Increase Task priority if three consecutive scheduled runs are missed.

Note: there is a very old myth that this wears an SSD. Yes, defragmenting an SSD causes unnecessary writes, but any version of Windows 7 or newer will instead run the 'TRIM' function, which grants similar performance and longevity benefits to defragmenting a Hard Drive. This obviously does not apply if you're using some form of 3rd party software that may not do this.

This is an insanely old myth, don't be one of the idiots still spreading this in 2023

Experimental Settings:

The following is a list of experimental things you can do to possibly improve your FPS, but are a tiny bit more, well... experimental.

• Disabling Hyper-Threading:

Some game engines (most notably Unity) have problems taking advantage of multithreaded cpu's. Not only that but in some instances, such as this game, it can actually make your FPS worse. I am putting this in the experimental section because multithreaded applications like video editing software will run significantly worse with this off. You can do this through the BIOS. How you do this will be different depending on your motherboard, and if you want to perform this step, look up how to do it on your specific motherboard.

• Overclocking

Overclocking to summarize it, is telling a component to run at speeds higher than its speed out of the factory. This is safe to do but will void your warranty on pretty much any component (as incorrectly overclocking could cause damage or overheating)

If you want to do this, you'll want a relatively beefy cooling system for your computer. And for some components, you may need to go into your BIOS.

How to Overclock Ryzen CPU's
How to overclock Intel CPU's[www.howtogeek.com]
Great overclocking guide for any GPU!
How to overclock RAM

A word on DLSS.

I don't have an RTX card, so I cannot test DLSS, but I will say this:

• When GPU-Bottlenecked, turning DLSS on will give a massive boost to performance at a cost to visuals.

• The gap in visual quality and visibility becomes more significant the lower the resolution is. At 1080p, you should expect noticeable ghosting similar to what TAA does.

• If you're CPU-Bottlenecked, there is no reason to use DLSS.

Upgrade Path:

If you want to upgrade your PC to play games like Rust better, I'd keep the following in mind:

• I highly recommend having at least 16GB of RAM to play this game, not doing so will likely mean significant and frequent stuttering. I would suggest getting even more if you're trying to run a significant number of background applications alongside Rust.
  
  
• Single-Core performance is extremely important in Rust. Anything that's 4-core, 8-thread or above, from 2016 or newer, should be able to run this game at a high framerate.
  
  
• Install the game on an SSD if you have one. If not, consider buying one as they have been coming down in price significantly for a while now.
  
  
• Anything about at the level of an RX 470, or GTX 960, should be able to easily hit 60fps at lowish settings at 1080p. CPU bottlenecks in this game are far more common in my experience, but if you're GPU bottlenecked, any upgrade that's compatible with your system will result in a higher framerate, or the ability to run better settings with the same one.

Playing Rust with a PC below Minimum-Spec requirements

The following is general advice for those who want better performance specifically on lower-end PC's:

• Try LowSpecGamer's optimization guides for Windows 10 or Windows 7
  
  
• Try programs designed to reduce Memory Usage, such as Razer Cortex[pcpartpicker.com] or Intelligent-Standby-List-Cleaner[www.wagnardsoft.com]
  
  
• Play on Barren servers, which have no grass and smaller maps, which can reduce memory usage and boost fps significantly!
  
  
• If you're on integrated graphics or a potato GPU, try replacing the launch options in the guide with the following:
  
  -gc.buffer 4096 -itemskins 0 -hitnotify.notification_level 2 -gc.incremental_milliseconds 1 -graphics.lodbias 0.25
  
  This changes the LOD textures to absolute garbage, which can help on very low-end GPU's, with a huge cost to visual quality.
  

Thank you for Following my guide!

If this guide helped you, giving it 5 stars would be appreciated.

[ST.kittykat]

my gc buffer runs up to 3986 not 4096? any fix or is that just on my end?

[voyage]

if you run a bunch of programs in the background then get 32gb of ram

[Odysseus]

Awesome

[BiccyThiccy]

Haha, I feel you man.

[Jackeronie]

when you have a 2070 super, SSD, Ryzen 7 2700, 16Gb DDR4 RAM, ethernet cable, and good internet, but still get stuttering, beautiful optimization

[BiccyThiccy]

@Ryfi I've deleted them because they are out of date. An update is planned, but I have no release date, and it probably won't be for a while because of school.

[big.jimbo1999]

the configs dont seem to exist?

[BiccyThiccy]

I'm working on one. I agree it's out of date right now.

[Sinister]

This needs an update ;)

[BiccyThiccy]

Thanks. Im glad it is helping you.