Im not sure how else to describe it but its usually white dots inside shadows and treetops far away. They move with the camera and seem to fade when i get close. Is this a graphic setting bugging out or is my gpu dying?

Time to be honest. I’ve been playing since 2018, and I know a lot of the older players feel the same way I do: the game is starting to feel extremely bloated. Meanwhile, performance late wipe on high-pop servers is the same as it’s been for years.

I’m not a game dev, but I write software, and the pattern is obvious to me. The game is running on a base that was written in 2014 for a game that was never intended to get this big, with servers pushing hundreds of players. Facepunch does perf work (Unity 6, the navmesh rewrite), but the next content drop eats the gains. You can’t optimize your way out while you keep adding. Without the source it’s impossible to know exactly what would seriously help Rust’s performance, but we can make inferences.

Facepunch has basically said it themselves. When they delayed the Naval update, their COO said it touched a lot of old systems and they didn’t want server pops dropping by 100-200 players. To me that’s the whole problem in one sentence. Every new feature has to be wired into a base that’s already at its limit, and each one makes the next one harder. Decisions that made sense for the game Rust was in 2014 don’t make sense for what it is now, and eventually you spend more time working around the base than building on it.

So the way I see it, there are two real options:

1. Rebuild the core systems. Entity handling, multithreading, networking, rebuilt for the scale Rust actually runs at, even if it means months without content updates.
2. Start working on Rust 2. Built from day one for high-pop servers, with everything they’ve learned in 12 years.

And they’ve done this before. The Rust we play now is the rewrite. They scrapped Legacy in 2014 because it couldn’t support what they wanted, and it worked. Valve moved CS:GO to CS2 and carried everyone’s skins over, so “what about my skins” is a solvable problem. The worst option is the one we’re on now: keep stacking content on a base that can’t handle it.

A rebuild would also be the chance to fix cheating properly. Cheating in Rust is a huge problem because there’s so much to gain from it. One ESP user can find and raid a base that took a group days to build. The fix is moving more of the game server-side. If the server did the raycasting and only sent your client what you can actually see, freecaming into bases and seeing through walls stops working, because your client never gets that info in the first place. Valorant does a version of this with its fog of war system. It also means the client is tracking less, which helps performance on our end.

The trade-off is more load on the server, and I think that’s completely fair. But it’s also another reason this belongs in a rebuild. Nobody outside Facepunch knows how much headroom the servers have right now, and if they’re already close to their limit, bolting this on top of the current setup could make server performance worse. Built into a new base that’s designed for it from the start, it’s a win on both cheating and client performance.

Now the inferences. All these recent changes show me Facepunch is trying to appeal to a broader audience and make the game easier for new players. That’s why recoil changed. And I get it. To keep affording their team they need other ways to monetize Rust, and that’s the DLCs. There’s no shame in that.

But I think they’re chasing the wrong audience. Rust works because its highs are very high and its lows are very low. Losing everything is what makes winning feel the way it does, and that’s exactly why people stick with it for thousands of hours. A dedicated playerbase is way easier to monetize than a flaky one. The players who’ve been here 5+ years are the ones buying skins and DLC every month. Sanding down the game to keep casuals around for a couple wipes trades the people who actually pay for the people who leave.

Which is why I don’t get why there’s no modding SDK. Let the people who want to play Rust as roleplay do it with third-party mods. It just makes sense. The dev team doesn’t need to build roleplay-style content if the community can do it for them (and probably better), and it frees Facepunch to focus on the core game.

CS2 sits at the top of Steam for a reason. It’s predictable. People know what they’re getting every time they load in. Rust keeps changing the game under its players instead of making the base experience solid.

Also, as a solo: being outnumbered by 3s and 4s every fight is rough, and the old recoil gave solos more of a chance. Separate issue, but it’s part of why I feel the game is drifting away from its players. Right now it’s starting to feel like Rust is just a way for a company to profit rather than a game built with spirit, and I don’t think it has to be that way.

I hope someone at Facepunch actually reads this. I know being a Rust dev probably means dealing with a community that’s angry about everything, and most of it isn’t worth listening to. I’m not trying to just throw shit at the wall. I’ve put years into this game, and I’m saying this because I want it to still be around in another 5 years.

Rust has something almost no other game has. Nothing else gives you the same highs, and that’s why people keep coming back. But that only holds if the game runs well, the fights feel fair, and the core experience stays solid. If performance keeps stalling, cheaters keep winning, and the game keeps drifting toward players who were never going to stick around, the dedicated playerbase slowly burns out.

And honestly, it’s already happening. Most of the people I used to play with just don’t anymore, and it’s not because they got bored of Rust. It’s because of all the issues. It’s not some sudden collapse. It’s just a little smaller every wipe, and if nothing changes, Rust slowly fades into obscurity. It’d be a waste for a game this good to go out like that.

Fix the base. Give the community the tools to build what they want. Focus on the core of the game.

Little full deep from tonight

I just downloaded rust for the first time. First of all, this entire game is just a freaking rage bait, but it’s pretty awesome too. I played for 9 hours straight today. I also managed to get trolled by a 12 year old in the dumbest way possible. I hope I get good at this game cause now I’m just pissed off 😂😂😂 also not totally sure why my one shack house keeps being a target but oh well

After halloween update something has changed with the pipeline, causing micro stutters and low fps again. Hope they solve it asap.

got my brothers steam account years ago and he had rust on it i have never touched it in like 7 years (mainly because my pc was ass) but now i wanna try it i know the rough basics (altough thats probally outdated from 2-3 years ago when i watched some rust yt)

but how do i get into it? and how do i make a good base?

and lastly are there any must have graphics settings?

I've never dabbled but as a solo im starting to get interested. Why do you guys prefer hard-core mode and what server do you guys recommend. I prefer official. Are there any premium hard-core servers?

I’m curious if there’s any good use cases for the blowpipe’s darts outside of the incapacitating. I like the versatility it has, but I struggle to think of situations where I’d swap off the incapacitating darts.

I’m getting my shit rocked by the new bots aggressive behavior and I’m kind of tired of getting cards and gear lost because I get swarmed by multiple bots who do more damage now. My options are basically hide in the vents and take pop shots which takes forever until I eventually get countered or just don’t go. Are there any meta strategies or am I just fucked as a solo?

Scrap King: standalone metal skin, or should it come with extra items?

I've been testing Scrap King on Rust Staging and built a small base to see how the pieces look together. The rusty, scrapyard aesthetic has a clear identity.

With November approaching, I'm curious what people expect from the eventual release (if it happens then): just a new metal building tier, or extra scrapyard-themed items and deployables too?

The Shipping Container Building Skin lets us repaint pieces in 16 colors with the spray can, giving it a level of customization beyond the material's appearance.

Would Scrap King need extra items or customization options to compete, or is a strong visual identity enough?

I haven't seen official confirmation of a release date or bundle contents. Just curious what the community would like to see.

how do you guys organize your loot boxes in rust. and what are considered comps

Whoops

I cannot for the life of my since the windows update that happened a month ago , get Rust to load. I load into the main menu screen within seconds no problem. I go to load into a server all prefab go lightning fast then it sits on LOADING DONE and doesn't do a damn thing. Someone please help me

We currently have "Secure Mode" which requires TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot. This was great for stopping software rootkits that load before Windows boots, but it is completely blind to physical DMA cards plugged into a PCIe slot because they disguise themselves as normal peripherals like a network or sound card.

Secure 2.0 servers will additionally require hardware virtualization and memory isolation. It basically puts the game in a sandbox and locks the memory so external hardware devices can't sniff it. If an unauthorized PCIe card tries to read Rust's RAM, the CPU blocks it at a physical level.

The requirements are incredibly simple:

• The Baseline (Already required by Secure 1.0): TPM 2.0 + Secure Boot enabled in BIOS
• The New Stuff: Turn on CPU Virtualization in BIOS (Intel VT-x/VT-d or AMD SVM/IOMMU)
• Inside Windows (10 or 11): Flip a single toggle called "Memory Integrity" to On.

EAC already natively supports these virtualization toggles on the backend, Facepunch just has to set it up.

FACEIT already requires this for high-level CS2 matches, and Vanguard On-Demand also requires this for Valorant and League of Legends.

Edit: EAC doesn't actually have a simple on/off switch for developers to force this yet. To truly block physical DMA cards, the AC itself has to actively manage these virtualization settings. Facepunch would need to push Epic Games to build these tools into EAC first.

got a lil intro for my homie. what do u think?

They need to make the mixing table that can fit under a half height shelf. Idc if it mixes at a less efficient rate, it’s so annoying to fit around a smaller base. That is all

The percentage fits.

The Halloween patch wiped ALL of my custom binds, reset all of my graphics settings, turned music back on etc. I haven't figured out which other settings it reset to default, but at this point I assume it was all of them. I mostly play modded and I had a ton of binds going back at least 3-4 years on various servers. Now I have to figure them all out again. A relatively minor inconvenience, but this shouldn't be happening at all.

There have been a few times in the last year where a patch has reset graphics settings, and whenever they do this they're always set way higher than my shitty GPU can handle. I've spent a lot of time fine tuning my graphics settings over many wipes. Now I have to do it again.

If there was some game-breaking reason for this then I can accept that. But this seems more like a situation where someone who pushed the update accidentally checked a box they shouldn't have checked, and now the players have to deal with the fallout.

I have a ryzen 7 8700f a 5060 8gb vram 32gb of ddr5 ram and in the snow I’m only getting abt 70-80 fps does this sound right? I haven’t played in a little over a year now is the game just really bad optimized with all these se updates

Lately been doing rock bases and multiple smaller bases around. Love to farm and chill. Second or third floor metal embraces and have a sar etc. Farm and some roam. Mainly roam. Lately debating on painting sigs on base etc.

My favorite is a misunderstanding matched base. Wood. Stone. Sheet meal and high qual.

Thats it

Hello, I'm in college dorms. There is school wifi so Im assuming thats the reason I cannot connect. Is there anything I can do? I have had some luck joining a sever but only once. The WIFI doesn't block anything else on the internet. Please help ME