How to Optimize Rust for Performance (2026) Optimization Guides

Quick Answers

Common questions answered at a glance

How much more FPS will I get?

A 30–80% increase in Frames Per Second is a realistic goal through in-game settings, launch options, and tweaking Windows. The largest improvements occur through: Decreasing LOD Bias near bases (up to 50% FPS Improvement), Lowering Water Quality Settings (10–18% combined), and the fix for Unity’s garbage collection stutter spikes.

Why does Rust run so poorly?

Rust runs on the Unity Engine. While Unity can handle smaller scale open-world games, it cannot handle the same kind of open world scale as Rust. The game is heavily processor bound at 1080p (benchmarks from PC Optimized Settings show a 21–50% GPU-busy deviation, meaning your Video Card is sitting idle because your Processor is bogged down). Rust is extremely memory intensive — 16GB+ of video RAM at 4K high settings and 14GB+ at 1440p. Additionally, the garbage collector in Unity will periodically pause your game to clean up memory. There is nothing that you can do with your hardware to stop this from occurring except for enabling the correct launch options.

Am I going to get banned?

The Rust Performance Problem

Rust has been poorly optimized for over a decade and to be honest, it hasn’t gotten much better. The Unity Engine was never designed for a game with this many player created structures, entities, and draw calls. As each wipe cycle begins, the number of bases, entities, and draw calls increases and the game performance decreases.In addition to poor optimization, Unity has a garbage collector that will periodically pause your game to clean up memory. This garbage collector is responsible for the frame drops and micro-stuttering that every Rust player has experienced. The good news is that there is a launch option that will mostly solve this problem.

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Step 1: The Garbage Collection Fix — Do This First

The single greatest source of stuttering in Rust is the garbage collector in the Unity Engine. When enabled by default, Unity will pause your game to clean up unused memory in large chunks, resulting in visible frame drops every few seconds. To enable incremental garbage collection with a larger buffer, you simply need to modify the launch options in Steam.Modify the Launch Options in Steam: Right click on Rust in your Steam library → Select “Properties” → Click on “Set launch options...” → Type -gc.buffer 2048 into the Launch Options window.What -gc.buffer 2048 does: This sets how much memory (in megabytes) Rust allocates before Unity’s garbage collector is triggered to clean up unused memory. The default setting is too small to give the game enough headroom before it needs to clean up, resulting in frequent garbage collection pauses and stuttering. With the setting increased to 2048 (2GB) or even higher (4096MB) on a 32GB RAM system, the game has more headroom before it needs to clean up and stutters less.Manual Garbage Collection: If you want to manually force Unity to collect garbage at a safer time (such as while walking between monuments), you can bind a manual garbage collection command to a keyboard button. Open the console by pressing the F1 key. Type the following command into the console: bind f6 gc.collect. When you press the F6 key, the console will automatically execute the command and trigger a garbage collection.

Step 2: Graphics Settings — Ranked by FPS Improvement

There are numerous graphics settings in Rust, but most of them do little to improve FPS performance. However, there are some specific settings that will provide a significant increase in performance. Below is a list of settings, ranked in terms of their performance impact on FPS, based on benchmarks from PC Optimized Settings and community testing on Reddit.LOD Bias — Lower near bases. Setting this to lower will result in objects switching to lower detail versions sooner, and will result in a 50% FPS improvement when moving around bases.Water Quality — 0 or 1. Setting the water quality to 0 or 1 will result in a 10–18% improvement in FPS.Water Reflections — 0 or 1. Setting the water reflections to 0 or 1 will result in a 10–18% improvement in FPS.Shader Level — 350 to 450. Setting the shader level to anywhere in the range of 350 to 450 will result in a smooth and visually pleasing experience. Setting the shader level below 300 will look flat and uninteresting.Draw Distance — 2000. Setting the draw distance to 2000 meters will result in a 5–10% improvement in FPS.Shadows — 1 or 2. Setting shadows to 1 or 2 will result in a 5–7% improvement in FPS.Ambient Occlusion — Off. Disabling Ambient Occlusion will result in a 6% improvement in FPS.Max Gibs — 0. Setting Max Gibs to 0 will eliminate FPS drops caused by debris from destroyed objects. To turn this setting off, enter the following command into the console: effects.maxgibs 0Mesh Quality — 75% or 50%. Setting mesh quality to 75% or 50% will reduce mesh detail across the entire map. 75% is almost imperceptible, while 50% may make a slight difference.Textures and Texture Filtering — Keep at max. They do not affect FPS, but rather affect the VRAM usage. Only lower these settings if you’re using an 8GB video card.Tree Quality and Tree Meshes — Lower for PvP. Lowering tree quality will reduce tree model complexity and improve visibility in wooded areas. This is beneficial for PvP combat and exploration alike.

Step 3: DLSS and Upscaling

Rust currently supports DLSS natively (version 3.7). The current implementation is relatively good and can be upgraded to DLSS 4 by replacing the DLL file using the NVIDIA App’s override feature. NVIDIA Reflex is also supported.DLSS Quality or Balanced is recommended. Quality mode is capable of producing visuals close to native resolutions at 1440p, while Balanced mode provides a solid balance between performance and image quality.Rust does NOT natively support FSR. Therefore, all AMD users will need to utilize Lossless Scaling (a paid Steam application) or OptiScaler as a substitute.NVIDIA Reflex — On + Boost. Rust supports Reflex natively. Turning this feature on will greatly reduce input lag and is especially important for PvP, as reaction time is the primary determining factor for winning or losing a fight.

Step 4: Launch Options and Console Commands

Rust contains numerous launch options and console commands that can greatly benefit gameplay performance. To access these options, right-click on Rust in Steam and select “Properties”. Then, click on the “Set launch options...” link.Recommended launch options: -gc.buffer 2048 -high -force-d3d11-no-singlethread -window-mode exclusive-gc.buffer 2048 — Sets the size of the buffer used by Unity’s garbage collector. This helps to reduce stuttering and frame drops.-high — Tells Rust to run at a high priority. This means that the game will receive as much processing power as possible.-force-d3d11-no-singlethread — Forces Rust to utilize multi-threaded DirectX 11 rendering. This can lead to improved performance on processors with multiple cores.-window-mode exclusive — Forces Rust to run in exclusive full-screen mode, which will minimize input lag compared to windowed mode.Useful console commands (press F1 in-game):effects.maxgibs 0 — Removes the debris generated from destroying objects. This can help to prevent FPS drops during raiding.gc.collect — Manually collects garbage. You can bind this to a keyboard button to manually force Unity to collect garbage at a safe time.pool.clear_memory — Clears Unity’s memory pool. You can use this command to clear out memory after a long period of time spent on a server, or during periods of extreme performance degradation.

Step 5: Windows Settings

Rust is heavily processor-bound at 1080p. Therefore, any other processes running in the background will compete with the game for processing power.Disable Memory Integrity (VBS). 5–10% FPS. Settings → Privacy & Security → Windows Security → Device Security → Core Isolation → Off. Restart required.Disable Xbox Game Bar. 200–400MB RAM and 18–23ms input latency. Settings → Gaming → Game Bar → Off.Enable Game Mode. Settings → Gaming → Game Mode → On.Ultimate Performance Power Plan. Command Prompt as Admin: powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61. Desktop PCs only.Clean Startup Programs. Task Manager → Startup Tab → Uncheck Non-Essential Programs. Can free up 1–4GB of RAM.Enable HAGS. Settings → System → Display → Graphics → Change Default Graphics Settings → On. Restart required.Enable XMP/DOCP in BIOS. RAM speed directly affects Processor performance. Enabling the profile should give you 15–20% better performance. DDR4 3600MHz CL16 or DDR5 6000MHz+ is the sweet spot.

Step 6: NVIDIA and AMD Control Panel Settings

For NVIDIA: Right click on your desktop → NVIDIA Control Panel → Manage 3D Settings → Program Settings → Add RustClient.exe.Power Management Mode — Prefer Maximum Performance.Low Latency Mode — On. If you are using the in-game Reflex, then “On” is recommended. Otherwise, choose “Ultra”.Shader Cache Size — 10 GB.Texture Filtering Quality — High Performance.Vertical Sync — Off.For AMD: Anti-Lag → Enabled, Surface Format Optimization → Enabled, Tessellation → Off, Texture Filtering Quality → Performance, Wait for V-Sync → Off. Note: Rust does not natively support FSR. AMD users will need Lossless Scaling or OptiScaler.

Step 7: Server Performance — It’s Not Always Your PC

Another major factor affecting your FPS is the server you are playing on. This is different from other games. The server’s entity count directly affects your client-side FPS — player-created structures, items on the ground, and deployed objects all contribute to the load.Play on well-maintained servers. Playing on servers with active admins who manage entity counts will generally provide better performance than playing on neglected official servers.Weekly wipe servers. Weekly wipe servers will reset performance problems more frequently than non-wipe servers.Testing your FPS. If you notice your FPS is dropping suddenly, it could be due to the server’s entity count. Try testing your FPS on a freshly wiped server or a low-pop server. If your FPS is significantly higher on the other server, the issue is likely the server’s entity count and not your hardware.

Step 8: Hardware-Specific Recommendations

Budget PC: Everything Low, LOD Bias low, Draw Distance 1500, Water Quality 0, Shader Level 300–350, effects.maxgibs 0 in console. Target 50–70 FPS at 1080p.Mid-Range (RTX 3060 / RX 6600): Medium settings, Draw Distance 2000, DLSS Balanced (NVIDIA), effects.maxgibs 0 in console. Target 80–120 FPS at 1080p.High-End (RTX 4070+ / RX 7800 XT+): High settings, Draw Distance 2500, DLSS Quality (NVIDIA), effects.maxgibs 0 in console. Target 100–144+ FPS at 1440p. Even high-end systems may dip slightly in FPS when approaching a large base.

Step 9: VRAM, RAM, and Storage

VRAM matters in Rust. 8GB is the absolute minimum required for comfortable play. 12GB+ is recommended for optimal performance. At 1440p High settings, Rust consumes approximately 14–16GB+ of VRAM. If you are using an 8GB card, lower the texture quality and avoid playing at 4K.16GB system RAM is the minimum. 32GB is recommended. Rust’s memory usage climbs over a session, similar to Tarkov. More RAM gives more headroom. Dual-channel (two sticks) is mandatory — single stick halves your memory bandwidth.SSD is required. Server loading times on a hard drive are measured in minutes. On an SSD they’re seconds. NVMe is ideal for reducing map loading stutters.Laptop: Always plugged in. High Performance power plan. Rust will push laptop thermals hard. Prop up the rear for airflow.

Common Rust Issues and Fixes

Regular stutter spikes every few seconds. That’s Unity garbage collection. Add -gc.buffer 2048 (or 4096) to your launch options. This is the fix for Rust’s most common performance complaint.FPS tanks near large bases. Lower LOD Bias. This is the single most impactful setting for base-proximity performance. Also lower Draw Distance and Mesh Quality when roaming built-up areas.FPS was fine at wipe start but gets worse over time. The server’s entity count is climbing. This happens on every server over a wipe cycle. There’s no client-side fix — switch to a freshly wiped server or wait for the next wipe.Long loading times when joining servers. Install Rust on an SSD. If you’re already on an SSD, the server might just be asset-heavy. Large modded servers with custom maps take longer to load.DLSS not available (AMD user). Rust doesn’t support FSR natively. Your best options are Lossless Scaling (paid Steam app that adds frame generation and upscaling to any game) or lowering your render resolution and using the game’s built-in scaling.

The Short Version

5 minutes? Do these:1. Add -gc.buffer 2048 to Steam launch options (the stutter fix)2. Water Quality 0, LOD Bias low near bases, Draw Distance 2000, Shadows 13. DLSS Balanced (NVIDIA), effects.maxgibs 0 in console4. Disable Memory Integrity and Xbox Game Bar in Windows5. Enable XMP/DOCP in BIOS6. Play on well-maintained servers with reasonable entity countsThat covers the biggest gains. Everything else in this guide fine-tunes from there.Now go build that base. And maybe raid your neighbor’s while you’re at it.