FPS drops - stuttering and freezing which makes this game unenjoyable

[LDD]

Hello

I have dealt with the issue of FPS drops for a long time and have just put it down to "Its Rust, deal with it". However I am fed up with this approach and would like to try and figure out why I am unable to play this game without this debilitating performance issue.

To simply put it, the game seems to be sluggish to me. Whilst roaming my game will stutter every couple of seconds (fps drops only a little yet I notice a mini freeze) and sometimes my fps can drop all the way to 10 with a longer lasting freeze. PvP is a nightmare and winning a fight is based on the chance (other than being outplayed) of experiencing a big FPS drop or not which is extremely annoying (big raids/AK fights are a no go). I have tried many "solutions" already that have been suggested on sites such as Reddit and YouTube to no avail, such as adding launch options, changing Nvidia control panel settings, messing with the Page file and downloading suspect Driver Updaters in order to get the latest ones.

Finally, I am not tech savvy and so I do not know if this problem is hardware, software or game related and so I would appreciate any help, simple or complex, as long as it is productive. ( My hunch is that it is my CPU that is the weakest link but I have had people say that it should be fine so I am unsure on that)

Computer Specs:

CPU - i5 4670k 3.40ghz - OCed to 4.00ghz

GPU - GTX 1060 6GB VRAM

RAM - 16GB DDR3 @ 1600mhz

Storage - Samsung EVO 850 500GB SSD

Thank you
P.S - I offer all the coin I have, I am only a pauper.

[TechSupport]

With those kinda specs there should absolutely be such a significant drop in FPS. Even with a heavy background task, you should not be dropping to as low as 10 FPS.

Of course, it can be frustrating trying to pin down exactly what's going on without extensive logs. But, we can try a bit of troubleshooting and hopefully pin this down.

Thought unlikely, I'd like you to double check and ensure that there are no background apps hogging the CPU/Memory via task manager. With an FPS of 10, Rust should be taking primarily all of your computer's resources. Check if there is anything else that may conflict with rust.

Next, while it may be a nuisance considering how decent your rig is, lower your graphics down considerably to see if the performance issue still persists. For example, if you drops your screen resolution to 768 x 864 (Widescreen) (or whatever resolution you would like that's low) along with low settings, and you still experience FPS drops the issue may not be a performance issue.

Another thing I would suggest is when you boot into any server, go ahead and hit F1 to enter the console and enter:
perf 9
This will display various performance stats such as FPS, but also queuing information such as network pull requests. Take a look around and report anything that may be out of place.

[LDD]

Hello again, thank you for the reply

CPU and Memory does not seem to be hogged by anything else as far as I can see. Rust utilises 70% of the CPU and about 5 - 7GB of RAM (I have just been Alt-Tabbing to see the processes page of Task Manager, I dont know if this is the right way of going about things).

I changed my screen resolution in Nvidia Control Panel and the games resolution to 600 x 800 (the lowest both go) and had already got potato settings on, though at times it did seem to run better to an extent, I was still experiencing the problem.

Using the Perf 9 stats I noticed that FPS drops seemed to coincide with spikes in tasks (reaching 1000/2000 at times) or skins.