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ARK: Survival Evolved

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Revision as of 10:32, 20 December 2017 by Blackbird (talk | contribs)
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Although this product has been released, it remains under active development - information may change frequently and could be outdated or irrelevant.
ARK: Survival Evolved
ARK: Survival Evolved cover
Developers
Studio Wildcard
ARK: Aberration Instinct Games[1]
ARK: Aberration Efecto Studios[1]
ARK: Aberration Virtual Basement[1]
ARK: Aberration Abstraction Games[1]
Engines
Unreal Engine 4
Release dates
Windows August 29, 2017[2]
macOS (OS X) August 29, 2017[2]
Linux August 29, 2017[2]
ARK: Survival Evolved on Wikipedia

Warnings

The macOS (OS X) version of this game does not work on macOS Catalina (version 10.15) or later due to the removal of support for 32-bit-only apps.
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Key points

Constant updates and bug fixes.

General information

PC Report: ARK: Survival Evolved
Steam Community Discussions
Official wiki

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
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Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
Amazon.com
Icon overlay.png
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
Humble Store
Icon overlay.png
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
Incorrect store name. See here for available options.
Error: DRM 'WinStore' not recognised
Xbox Play Anywhere
Windows

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
The Center - ARK Expansion Map Free.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
Primitive+ ARK Total Conversion Free.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
ARK: Scorched Earth - Expansion Pack
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
Ragnarok - ARK Expansion Map Free.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

It's unknown whether this game follows the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux. Please fill in this information.

Save game data location

In single-player mode, Ark will perform an automatic save if it detects an attempt to shut down the application (such as by Alt+F4, or via the task manager or Windows taskbar), in order to prevent players from "dashboarding out" in an attempt to avoid a sudden unfavorable situation in-game.

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
Steam Cloud
Xbox Cloud

Video settings

General settings.
General settings.

Template:Video settings

Field of view (FOV)

Set FOV multiplier[3][4]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>/Engine/Config/
  2. Open BaseEngine.ini.
  3. Change AspectRatioAxisConstraint=AspectRatio_MaintainXFOV to AspectRatioAxisConstraint=AspectRatio_MaintainYFOV
  4. Test the change in-game.
  5. For higher values, edit <path-to-game>\ShooterGame\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\GameUserSettings.ini
  6. Adjust the FOVMultiplier= value.

Notes

This value multiplies the effects of the in-game FOV setting. Experiment with the two to get the FOV you want.

Input settings

Template:Input settings

Audio settings

Template:Audio settings

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Notes
Local play
Xbox One version only.[5]
LAN play
Co-op, Versus
You need a better hardware to host a non-dedicated session
Online play
Co-op, Versus

Connection types

VR support

Issues fixed

Tweaks to raise the frame rate

The following tweaks can help improve the game's infamously poor performance even on high-end systems.
Frame rate tweaks[8]
  1. Adding the following command line arguments to the game's launch options.
    • -high -useallavailablecores - These commands maximize Ark's CPU usage. They can increase FPS by as much as 30% with no loss of visual quality.
    • -sm4 -dx10 - These commands force the use of Shader Model 4.0 and DirectX 10 instead of Shader Model 5.0 and DirectX 11. It has a dramatic effect on performance, i.e. raising FPS from ~40 to ~100, but also lowers the game's visual quality by a noticeable degree.
    • -lowmemory - This setting forces Ark to run in low memory mode, using only 4gb of RAM. This can improve performance in systems with less than 16gb of RAM.
  2. In the in-game menu, the setting that seems to have the greatest effect on performance is shadows. Reducing shadows from Epic to Low can increase frame rate by more than 50%.
The -useallavailablecores command is unnecessary in Windows 10 and may in fact cause extremely poor performance due to the different way in which it handles CPU core management compared to Windows 7.

Issues unresolved

Stuck in Server Browser After Selecting "My Survivors" Filter

Change the server filter type in the config files[9]
  1. Go to <Steam-folder>\ARK\ShooterGame\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor and open GameUserSettings.cfg
  2. Look for the line LastServerSearchType and change the value to 1
  3. Launch the game and the filter should be set on Unofficial servers

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 10, 11 Direct3D 12 coming when UE4 support is stable.[10]
Shader Model support 4, 5 Shader Model 4 support requires launching the game with the -sm4 command line argument.
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux

Console commands

Console commands are available.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 7 SP1
Processor (CPU) 2 GHz Dual-core
System memory (RAM) 4 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 40 GB
Video card (GPU) 1 GB of VRAM
DirectX 10 compatible
macOS (OS X)
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 10.9
Processor (CPU) 2 GHz
System memory (RAM) 4 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 20 GB
Video card (GPU) 1 GB of VRAM
OpenGL 3 compatible
Linux
Minimum
Operating system (OS) Ubuntu
Processor (CPU) 2 GHz 64-bit
System memory (RAM) 4 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 20 GB
Video card (GPU) 1 GB of VRAM
OpenGL 3 compatible

References