In this post, we’ll bring you the 2021 ultimate FPS increase guide for Rust. This will be helping you achieve the best possible gameplay experience by helping you maximize your FPS, reduce latency and lag, and fix any stuttering you’re experiencing. This is going to be featuring config tweaks and optimizations towards all system types regardless of your system specs.
Try these fixes:
You may not need to try them all; simply work your way down the list until you find the one that works.
- Check for Windows updates
- Disable Windows 10 gaming features
- Update your graphics driver
- Disable fullscreen optimizations & high DPI scaling
- Disable overclocking and overlays
- Turn off hardware acceleration
1. Check for Windows updates
Before jumping into the nitty gritty optimizations, it’s very important to make sure that you’re running on the latest version of windows 10. It’s fast, free and easy to download and install. The latest version of Windows 10 features many exclusive new optimizations for most games.
To check which version of Windows you’re running on:
1) In the Search box, type in winver. Then click on winver command from the results. 
2) Now you can know which version of Windows is running. Windows 10 version 20H2 has come out, so if you’re running the latest version, follow the instructions below to install Windows updates.
To install Windows updates:
1) In the Search box, type in check for updates. Click on Check for updates from results. 
2) Click on the Check for updates tab and if there are any updates available, it’ll automatically start to download and install it. Simply wait for it to complete and you should be asked to restart your computer. 
2. Disable Windows 10 gaming features
Game Mode is a feature in Windows 10 that focuses system resources on games when enabled. It was supposed to make gaming a much better experience, but it seems the opposite is true. And if you have background recording enabled on your system, it may cause micro stutters and even your FPS suffers. So to get rid of it, you need to disable the background recording feature and turn off Game Mode. To do so, take these steps:
1) On your keyboard, press the Windows logo key and I to open Settings.
2) Click Gaming.
3) From the left sidebar, select Game bar and toggle off Record game clips, screenshots, and broadcast using Game bar.
4) From the left sidebar, select Captures. In the Background recording section, toggle off Record in the background while I’m playing a game.
5) From the left sidebar, toggle off Game Mode and set Use Game Mode.
After applying these changes, play your game to check if the issue persists. If that didn’t work, try the next fix.
3. Update your graphics driver
Your graphics card is one of the core components of your computer. And your graphics driver is essential for getting top performance from your GPU. When your FPS drops when playing the game, your outdated or faulty graphics driver might be the culprit. To fix it, you need to update your graphics driver. This is pretty necessary, especially if you can’t remember when was the last time you updated it.
There are mainly two ways you can update your graphics driver: manually and automatically.
Option 1: Manually update your graphics driver
To update your graphics driver manually, you can go to the official website:
Then find the driver corresponding with your Windows version and download it manually. Once you’ve downloaded the correct driver for your system, double-click on the downloaded file and follow the on-screen instructions to install it. For NVIDIA graphics card users, you can also use the Geforce Experience application to update your driver.
Option 2: Automatically update your graphics driver (recommended)
If you are not familiar with computer hardware, and if you don’t have the time to update your graphics driver manually, you can, instead, do it automatically with Driver Easy. It’s a useful tool that automatically recognizes your system and finds the correct drivers for it. You don’t need to know exactly what system your computer is running or risk downloading and installing the wrong driver.
Here’s how it works:
1) Download and install Driver Easy.
2) Run Driver Easy and click the Scan Now button. Driver Easy will then scan your computer and detect any problem drivers.
3) Click Update All to automatically download and install the correct version of all the drivers that are missing or out of date on your system.
(This requires the Pro version which comes with full support and a 30-day money-back guarantee. You’ll be prompted to upgrade when you click Update All. If you don’t want to upgrade to the Pro version, you can also update your drivers with the FREE version. All you need to do is to download them one at a time and manually install them.)
After updating your drivers, restart your computer and launch your game to check if you can get better performance.
4. Disable fullscreen optimizations & high DPI scaling
Fullscreen optimization is a Windows 10 feature designed to improve your PCs performance during gaming sessions. But there are certain games that are particularly affected by low FPS issues when players enable fullscreen optimizations.
1) Launch the Steam client. Under the LIBRARY tab, right-click your game title and select Properties.
2) Select the LOCAL FILES tab and click BROWSE LOCAL FILES…. This will bring you to the game’s installation directory. 
3) Right-click on Rust application and select Properties.
4) In the Properties window, select the Compatibility tab. Check Disable full-screen optimizations and then click Change high DPI settings.
5) Check Override high DPI scaling behaviour and click OK.
6) Click Apply > OK to confirm the changes. 
Now do the same with RustClient.
5: Disable overclocking and overlays
If you’re using MSI Afterburner or other GPU tweaking programs, you cannot play your game smoothly. The game engine doesn’t really support cards that are overclocked. And overclocking can be causing game instability and your FPS might drop. So to fix it, you should disable it.
Also, it’s very important to remove all those overlays, Steam, Discord or whatever overlays you’re using. It’s usually causing some issues like stuttering and thus affecting your performance.
You can disable overlays on Steam, Geforce Experience and Discord by following the instructions below:
Disable Steam overlay
1) Launch the Steam client and select the tab LIBRARY.
2) Right-click your game title and select Properties.
3) Under the GENERAL tab, uncheck Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game and Use Desktop Game Theatre while SteamVR is active. 
After applying the changes, exit Steam and run your game to see if this fixed the issue.
Disable Geforce Experience in-game overlay
1) Click on the Settings icon.
2) Under the GENERAL tab, scroll down and toggle off IN-GAME OVERLAY.
After you’ve applied the changes, remember to quit the app.
Disable Discord Overlay
If you have Discord running, you can disable overlay by following these steps:
1) Click on the Users Settings icon.
2) Click on Overlay and switch Enable in-game overlay to OFF.
After applying the changes, quit Discord.
6. Turn off hardware acceleration
By default, hardware acceleration is enabled in Chrome and Discord. This feature utilizes your computer’s GPU to tackle graphics-intensive tasks. But it can cause your computer’s battery to drain a lot faster. And when you have pretty low FPS in the game, hardware acceleration could be the culprit. In this case, you need to turn off hardware acceleration in Chrome and Discord.
In Chrome
1) At the top right, click on the three lines and then select Settings.
2) Scroll down to the bottom and click on Advanced.
3) Scroll down to the System section, toggle off the option Use hardware acceleration when available. Then click Relaunch.
In Discord
1) Open Discord app. Click on Settings (the gear icon beside your avatar).
2) On the left pane, navigate to Appearance. In this tab, scroll down to the ADVANCED section and toggle off the option Hardware Acceleration.
After turning off hardware acceleration, try and play your game to check if it mitigates your issue.
That’s it – the full list of fixes for increasing the FPS in Rust. Hopefully, they help you achieve the very best smooth experience while maintaining a great visual fidelity. If you have any suggestions or questions, feel free to drop us a line in the comment section below.