High "system.exe" process usage when playing a particular game.

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stoneyoda 18 Sep @ 7:04am

For some reason when i play rust, the "system.exe" process takes a good 20-30% usage and leaves rust using 60-70%. why is it doing this? no other game does.

i'v tired some basic trouble shooting, like going to the lowest settings in game, updating any drivers that were out of date, sfc /scannow, memtest and i also have another copy of windows 10 on another drive that i also tried with RUST and it does the same thing.

currently reinstalling the game, but i don't really understand why this is happening.
it's been a good 8 months since i last played that game so i understand there's been updates to the game, though i don't think this is a normal thing.

and i also found this reddit post tho it wasn't very helpful
https://www.reddit.com/r/playrust/comments/1n9n8l5/high_systemntoskernelexe_cpu_usage_only_when/

i5 8600k
RTX 4060
16gb ddr4 3200mhz

Last edited by stoneyoda; 18 Sep @ 7:49am

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Showing 1-15 of 23 comments

_I_ 18 Sep @ 7:19am

check task manager open its file location or check its properties to see where it is located
endprocess and delete the file
https://www.file.net/process/system.exe.html

and grab mbam, and scan
https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download

Last edited by _I_; 18 Sep @ 7:21am

stoneyoda 18 Sep @ 8:10am

Originally posted by _I_:
check task manager open its file location or check its properties to see where it is located
endprocess and delete the file
https://www.file.net/process/system.exe.html

and grab mbam, and scan
https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download

well the exe is called ntoskrnl.exe
but that is what i'm referring to when i say "system.exe" in task manager. i don't think deleting this file is a good idea .

Talion 18 Sep @ 8:15am

does it cause issues or is it just high?

AbedsBrother 18 Sep @ 8:16am

That's a Windows system kernel management exe. Heavy usage could be triggered by anti-cheat, have no idea what Rust uses.

stoneyoda 18 Sep @ 8:17am

Originally posted by Talion:
does it cause issues or is it just high?

yeah the game stutters quite abit because of this.

stoneyoda 18 Sep @ 8:18am

Originally posted by AbedsBrother:
That's a Windows system kernel management exe. Heavy usage could be triggered by anti-cheat, have no idea what Rust uses.

it uses EAC however other games like the finals use that anticheat and do not cause this issue.

om namo 18 Sep @ 9:44am

svchost is the more common virus. So i'd be worried if there was duplicate of "system.exe"

stoneyoda 18 Sep @ 9:47am

Originally posted by om namo:
svchost is the more common virus. So i'd be worried if there was duplicate of "system.exe"

there isn't a duplicate of system.exe, it's the regular one that is in the sys32 folder called "ntoskrnl.exe". it's a normal process to have running, however it usually doesn't take up any more then 1-5%. RUST is the only game it's happening in which is weird.

stoneyoda 18 Sep @ 9:54am

well reinstalling didn't fix it, but i installed Windows internals and this is the part of the process that is causing the issue https://imgur.com/a/uw2Orvn

Talion 18 Sep @ 10:11am

Here’s what I’d try, no promises it’ll fix it. Since it’s just Rust acting up, I’m guessing it’s a Rust-specific issue. The game is notorious for eating RAM and having performance problems. You can double-check by booting into Safe Mode and looking at Task Manager. If there are no weird spikes there, then it’s not a system problem - it’s just Rust being Rust haha

From there;

Verify files.
Turn on: Shader Pre-caching and sit in the menu for a good few minutes.
Lower your graphics, shaders, cap fps in the console; [fps.limit x]

If you have some monitoring tools, like afterburner or overlays, turn em off. They can be a bit messy with the kernel/EAC.

Do these things and see if that helps/does nothing. Then we can reassess.

#10

Talion 18 Sep @ 10:12am

I will fight for your right to a Rust naked stone 1 v 1!

#11

stoneyoda 18 Sep @ 10:14am

Originally posted by Talion:
Here’s what I’d try, no promises it’ll fix it. Since it’s just Rust acting up, I’m guessing it’s a Rust-specific issue. The game is notorious for eating RAM and having performance problems. You can double-check by booting into Safe Mode and looking at Task Manager. If there are no weird spikes there, then it’s not a system problem - it’s just Rust being Rust haha

From there;

Verify files.
Turn on: Shader Pre-caching and sit in the menu for a good few minutes.
Lower your graphics, shaders, cap fps in the console; [fps.limit x]

If you have some monitoring tools, like afterburner or overlays, turn em off. They can be a bit messy with the kernel/EAC.

Do these things and see if that helps/does nothing. Then we can reassess.

i just reinstalled the game, i'v also tried the game at lowest graphics as well, still the same issue. tried disabling msi after burner,capping the FPS does decrease the CPU usage of rust, system.exe is still the same usage though.

#12

Talion 18 Sep @ 10:24am

Okay, try running fortnite, dbd, Div 2 or any other EAC game. These all run EAC, if the same thing happens we know its the EAC Kernel that is the issue rather than Rust.

Overlays like Discord, Geforce or smth else also may well be annoying EAC. VPNs too.

The other thing might be your core's settings are a skee-whiff. Double check em. E.g. High performance.

I think there might be a way to run Rust without EAC but I'm not too sure, if you can: do it. Just narrows down the areas of focus for you.

#13