Hello everyone, a question for large projects, please tell me how to properly optimize the server and equipment for 1000 one-time online on the server.

On our equipment: Core i9 13900K, 128 GB of DDR4 RAM, 2x500GB NVMe SSD

There are two servers, VAPE on them at different times, it turns out that when there are 500 online on one server, there are no more than 40-50 people on the second.

The problem is that when there are more than 450 people online, lags and freezes appear on the server that are characteristic of weak equipment - in the form of loss of animation of player movement and other similar problems, while ping is stable for everyone.

We have to limit slots to 500, the rest of the players have to queue, our task is to bring online up to 1000.

P.s
- We practically do not use plugins, we even use the standard admin panel.
- the equipment does not overheat.
- a network channel with a reserve for 2-3 more such servers.
- according to the recommendations of various projects, we turned off energy-efficient processor cores and left only eight productive cores for our processor.

I am willing to pay for competent advice in setting up and optimizing the server.

You might be able to find some help by joining a Rust discord such as "Rust Admin Community", or "Rust Admin Academy" to ask around for a developer to help you.

This seems like a situation that Facepunch might have some experience with, you should submit a support ticket to ask for advice.