Running Out Of Memory

Rust is a very intensive game, it's VRAM and Memory (RAM) usage make playing it on Linux difficult out of the box on systems with less than >32GBs of memory (such as the Steam Deck, or older systems).

Memory

If you have 32GBs or more of memory, great! You can play Rust without modifying anything.

Otherwise you should run the following commands in order in your terminal of choice to prevent Rust from being OOM killed:

sudo swapoff -a
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=swapfile bs=16G count=8
(Replace 16G with how far you are from 32GB)
sudo mkswap /swapfile
sudo swapon /swapfile
sudo <editor> /etc/fstab
(Replace <editor> with your cli text editor of choice, like nano or vim)
Add /swapfile none swap sw 0 0 to the bottom of your fstab file

You should be done!

Steam Deck

You need to increase your swap to at least 16GB using Steam Deck Utilities if you plan to play Rust on a Steam Deck, see the link below: https://github.com/CryoByte33/steam-deck-utilities

VRAM / GPU

While it shouldn't halt your entire system like running out of memory does, there are a few things to note depending on how much VRAM your GPU contains

NVIDIA Cards only: NVIDIA does not implement shared memory correctly on Linux; Do not use Wayland while playing Rust if you don't have enough VRAM to spare for your system as otherwise your DE will start deteriorating and your Rust will have severe graphical issues, X11 doesn't solve the underlying issue but does leave you with a usable system and a playable Rust. You may ignore this if you have an AMD Card.

>4GB
- You are very unlikely to run Rust smoothly on even Eighth Resolution Mipmaps, expect severe stutters and extremely low fps. You should upgrade your GPU as soon as possible.
- Playing Rust on NVIDIA Cards on Wayland is not possible with this little VRAM.
4GB / Steam Deck
- You can barely run Eighth Resolution Mipmaps, expect stutters and lower fps, Do not set your Mipmap resolution any higher.
- Playing Rust on NVIDIA Cards on Wayland is not possible with this little VRAM.
6GB
- You can run Eighth Resolution Mipmaps smoothly, however may suffer stutters on Quarter Resolution Mipmaps when close to the Jungle Biome, it's not recommended to push above Quarter Resolution.
- Playing Rust on NVIDIA Cards on Wayland is not possible with this little VRAM.
8GB
- You can run up to Quarter Resolution Mipmaps smoothly, however may suffer stutters on Half Resolution Mipmaps all around.
- Playing Rust on NVIDIA Cards on Wayland is possible on Eighth Resolution.
12GB
- You can run up to Half Resolution Mipmaps, it is not suggested to go to Full Resolution Mipmaps.
- Playing Rust on NVIDIA Cards on Wayland is possible up to Quarter Resolution, however you could attempt to push Half Resolution
16GB
- You can run up to Half Resolution, with Full Resolution also working although with possible stutters.
- Playing Rust on NVIDIA Cards on Wayland is possible up to Half Resolution.
<24GB
- You can go up to Full Resolution Mipmaps.
- Playing Rust on NVIDIA Cards on Wayland is possible up to Full Resolution.