6 Ways to Fix Regular In-Game Rust Crashing on a Windows PC

Rust is one of those games that has a habit of crashing on Windows PCs. Players often report that Rust keeps crashing on their PCs while playing it. A player’s Reddit post reported Rust crashing like this: “Rust constantly crashes out of nowhere. It crashes out of nowhere all the time. Not even not responding or anything it just closes.” It’s hard to play Rust when it crashes all the time. These are some ways you can fix regular in-game Rust crashing on a Windows PC.

Opt-Out of Steam Beta Participation

Players confirm opting out of Steam beta participation has fixed Rust crashing on their PCs. Sometimes new Steam beta versions can have bugs that cause game crashing issues. If you’re in Steam beta participation, try opting out of it like this.

1. Start the Steam program.
2. Click Steam > Settings > Interface within Valve’s gaming client.
   
   

   The Settings option

3. Select the No beta chosen option on the Client Beta Participation menu.
   
   

   The Client Beta Participation setting

Repair Easy Anti-Cheat

Rust is one of those games for which Easy Anti-Cheat is required. Easy Anti-Cheat issues are a potential cause of Rust crashing. You can address that by repairing the Easy Anti-Cheat software like this.

1. Right-click Start to select the File Explorer shortcut.
2. Go to the Program Files (x86) > EasyAntiCheat folder.
3. Double-click the EasyAntiCheat.exe file.
4. Select Rust on the drop-down menu in the Easy Anti-Cheat Setup folder.
   
   

   The Repair Service option

5. Click on the Repair Service option.

Disable Intel Turbo Boost

Some players confirm on forums that disabling Intel Turbo Boost can fix Rust crashing. Turbo Boost is a feature that automatically increases processor speed (operating frequency). However, Windows doesn’t include an option for disabling Turbo Boost. You can disable a Turbo Boost setting via the BIOS as instructed on this Dell support page.

Increase Virtual Memory Allocation

Virtual memory is simulated RAM reallocated from the hard drive. Increasing virtual memory will expand the space reserved for it. Doing this can help to fix Rust crashing as a result of limited RAM, especially on lower-spec PCs that only meet the game’s minimum memory specification. This is how you can increase virtual memory allocation on a Windows PC.

1. Activate the file search utility by clicking the Type here to search box or its magnifying glass icon on the taskbar.
2. Enter adjust the appearance and performance keyword into the search box.
3. Click Adjust the appearance and performance to activate a Performance Options window.
4. Press Change on the Virtual Memory window.
5. Unselect the checkbox for Automatically manage paging file size for all drives.
   
   

   The Virtual Memory window

6. Click the Custom size radio button.
7. Input matching values in the Initial size and Maximum size boxes two gigabytes (2,000 megabytes) higher than what your PC currently utilizes. The currently allocated figure shows you what that mounts to.
8. Click Set to apply the options.
9. Exit the Virtual Memory window by clicking OK.

Microsoft recommends that virtual memory never be higher than three times that of the RAM your PC has. For example, this would amount to 16,384 for a PC with 16 GB. You can experiment by entering higher initial and maximum size values but never set them more than three times higher than your PC’s overall amount of RAM.

Update Graphics Drivers

Updating graphics card drivers is a troubleshooting method confirmed to work by some players who’ve fixed Rust crashing. This is more likely to work if your PC has a graphical driver more than six months old and needs a new one. These are the steps for manually updating a driver for NVIDIA and AMD GPU.

1. First, open the Windows 11/10 search tool, input a dxdiag keyword, and select the matching dxdiag result. Click Display inside the DirectX Diagnostic Tool to view info for your PC’s graphics card.
2. Next, go to the NVIDIA or AMD page for downloading graphics drivers in your browser.
3. Select the graphics card for your PC, shown within the Display tab, and click Find or Submit.
   
   

   The NVIDIA driver download page

4. Click Download for your GPU’s latest driver. You’ll need to click View > Download on the NVIDIA site.
   
   

   The View button

5. Open File Explorer and the folder in which your browser downloaded the graphics driver package.
6. Double-click the graphics driver package to open its window and go through the setup steps to install.
7. Restart Windows to finish.

Reinstall Rust

Corrupted files can often cause games to crash, and Rush is no exception. Reinstalling Rush will completely refresh its files. This is how you uninstall and reinstall Rust with Steam. 

1. Double-click your Steam shortcut to open that software.
2. Click Library to see your games.
3. Right-click Rust and select the Manage and Uninstall context menus for it.
4. Click Uninstall to eradicate the game.
   
   

   The Uninstall option

5. To reinstall, select Rust in the Library tab and press Install.

Other Possible Ways to Fix Rust Crashing

The troubleshooting methods are some of the better ways to fix Rust crashing, but they don’t address all potential causes. If the game still crashes a lot, try applying these extra potential fixes:

• Run a verification scan for Rust as outlined on this Steam page.
• Set Rust to run with elevated administrator rights.
• Lower the in-game graphical settings in Rust.
• Close background programs and apps via Task Manager to free up system resources for the game before playing it.
• Set Rust to run with higher priority by right-clicking the game’s process on the Details tab in Task Manager and selecting Set priority and High.
• Select a High-performance power option within the Control Panel.

Alas, there isn’t a golden solution that will always fix Rust crashing on Windows PCs. However, the troubleshooting methods in this guide have fixed persistent in-game Rust crashing for some players. So, some of those potential remedies might at least reduce the regularity of that game’s crashing on your PC.