Single Player vs LAN/Local Server

[Skons]

As the title suggests - I am looking for help/opinions here.

I have been playing Single Player since I got Ark, not a big fan of the whole online multiplayer thing.
I have read a few posts, and done some searching on this topic. Some suggest its better to have your own private/local server for single player, than using the built-in single player.

Any of you with experience in this, I'd greatly appreciate it.

On the side - I don't need technical help here, I really want your experience: is there more bugs/less bugs, is performance better/worse, is there gameplay mechanics/features that are enabled/disabled or limited if I use built-in single player opposed to hosting my own local server - catch my drift?

[rommel64]

Well the caves work properly if you do it that way.

[GobboKirk]

Makes it easier if you want friends to join as well if you host a dedicated one.

[🦊 Hermit]

I run my single player games on a dedicated server. As Rom said above, it avoids the single player glitch of caves being empty of dinos, and also a few other bugs that affect single player such as the overspawn of rare dinos like titans/quetz. Also it allows you to keep all your config changes in one place (the ini files), rather than adjusting some in-game and having to change others using the ini files because their options do not appear in the game menus.

The down sides...I haven't found that many tbh. It might take a slightly more powerful computer to run than non-dedicated, since the game is taking into account the whole map at once not just a part of it around the player, although since most of that map will be in stasis until the player travels there it isn't that much of an increase. Another downside is that the dedicated server takes a long time to initialise, so you have to wait a while from starting it up before you can join, but again this isn't that big of a deal as you can take a bathroom break or make yourself a drink before you start playing.

There is the 'ease of use' downside - that it's much easier to just log into the game and set everything up in the in-game menus rather than having to do everything separately to the client through the ini files. But the benefits vastly outweigh that detrement imo, and until the game is fixed up and the devs actually give single player some love, it'll probably remain that way.

[Skons]

Originally posted by Hermit:

I run my single player games on a dedicated server. As Rom said above, it avoids the single player glitch of caves being empty of dinos, and also a few other bugs that affect single player such as the overspawn of rare dinos like titans/quetz. Also it allows you to keep all your config changes in one place (the ini files), rather than adjusting some in-game and having to change others using the ini files because their options do not appear in the game menus.

The down sides...I haven't found that many tbh. It might take a slightly more powerful computer to run than non-dedicated, since the game is taking into account the whole map at once not just a part of it around the player, although since most of that map will be in stasis until the player travels there it isn't that much of an increase. Another downside is that the dedicated server takes a long time to initialise, so you have to wait a while from starting it up before you can join, but again this isn't that big of a deal as you can take a bathroom break or make yourself a drink before you start playing.

There is the 'ease of use' downside - that it's much easier to just log into the game and set everything up in the in-game menus rather than having to do everything separately to the client through the ini files. But the benefits vastly outweigh that detrement imo, and until the game is fixed up and the devs actually give single player some love, it'll probably remain that way.

Some other articles also mention the fix of overspawning, at this stage I just kill off all wild dinos when things get too out of hand. I once had 6 Rexes doing their thing on my beach, which caused slight panic.

I have a fairly powerful "redundant" computer sitting at home apart from my gaming rig. I am considering converting it to a dedicated server. I thought I'd get some opinions first before going through a lot of admin in getting one set up and then it was more of a step backwards than anything else.

There is some excellent tools out there that assists with the setup of servers, or at least it looks that way.

Thanks a lot for your input, I appreciate it.

[GobboKirk]

Originally posted by Skons:

Originally posted by Hermit:

I run my single player games on a dedicated server. As Rom said above, it avoids the single player glitch of caves being empty of dinos, and also a few other bugs that affect single player such as the overspawn of rare dinos like titans/quetz. Also it allows you to keep all your config changes in one place (the ini files), rather than adjusting some in-game and having to change others using the ini files because their options do not appear in the game menus.

The down sides...I haven't found that many tbh. It might take a slightly more powerful computer to run than non-dedicated, since the game is taking into account the whole map at once not just a part of it around the player, although since most of that map will be in stasis until the player travels there it isn't that much of an increase. Another downside is that the dedicated server takes a long time to initialise, so you have to wait a while from starting it up before you can join, but again this isn't that big of a deal as you can take a bathroom break or make yourself a drink before you start playing.

There is the 'ease of use' downside - that it's much easier to just log into the game and set everything up in the in-game menus rather than having to do everything separately to the client through the ini files. But the benefits vastly outweigh that detrement imo, and until the game is fixed up and the devs actually give single player some love, it'll probably remain that way.

Some other articles also mention the fix of overspawning, at this stage I just kill off all wild dinos when things get too out of hand. I once had 6 Rexes doing their thing on my beach, which caused slight panic.

I have a fairly powerful "redundant" computer sitting at home apart from my gaming rig. I am considering converting it to a dedicated server. I thought I'd get some opinions first before going through a lot of admin in getting one set up and then it was more of a step backwards than anything else.

There is some excellent tools out there that assists with the setup of servers, or at least it looks that way.

Thanks a lot for your input, I appreciate it.

Sounds like a good plan for sure.

[Skons]

Originally posted by GobboKirk:

Sounds like a good plan for sure.

The more I read up about it, the more I agree

[GobboKirk]

Originally posted by Skons:

Originally posted by GobboKirk:

Sounds like a good plan for sure.

The more I read up about it, the more I agree

I've tested hosting both non dedicated and dedicating while playing at home.
Worked fine for everyone that joined. Ofc was just me and a few friends but ran really smooth.
So when you got a dedicated computer for it you should have smooth sailing.

[Skons]

Originally posted by GobboKirk:

I've tested hosting both non dedicated and dedicating while playing at home.
Worked fine for everyone that joined. Ofc was just me and a few friends but ran really smooth.
So when you got a dedicated computer for it you should have smooth sailing.

It will mainly just be me. Actually, it will just be me! I really enjoy putting time and effort into my solo experience.

Sorry if this is a silly question - but these events, do they happen on a private/local server?

I have moved to The Center when it came out, so I have been missing out on quite a few things from what I read.

[GobboKirk]

They will happen as long you update the server when the patches come.

[Skons]

Originally posted by GobboKirk:

They will happen as long you update the server when the patches come.

Thank you :)

[Gorebane44]

Originally posted by Hermit:

I run my single player games on a dedicated server. As Rom said above, it avoids the single player glitch of caves being empty of dinos, and also a few other bugs that affect single player such as the overspawn of rare dinos like titans/quetz. Also it allows you to keep all your config changes in one place (the ini files), rather than adjusting some in-game and having to change others using the ini files because their options do not appear in the game menus.

The down sides...I haven't found that many tbh. It might take a slightly more powerful computer to run than non-dedicated, since the game is taking into account the whole map at once not just a part of it around the player, although since most of that map will be in stasis until the player travels there it isn't that much of an increase. Another downside is that the dedicated server takes a long time to initialise, so you have to wait a while from starting it up before you can join, but again this isn't that big of a deal as you can take a bathroom break or make yourself a drink before you start playing.

There is the 'ease of use' downside - that it's much easier to just log into the game and set everything up in the in-game menus rather than having to do everything separately to the client through the ini files. But the benefits vastly outweigh that detrement imo, and until the game is fixed up and the devs actually give single player some love, it'll probably remain that way.

this is so true... Also another issue with singleplayer is a lot of the dinos love spawning inside trees so you will find dinos stuck just about everywhere you go. When you run a dedicated server and play on it locally you won't have this problem nearly as often. I would say it would be around a 15% problem where as on singleplayer its about a 90% issue heh. I just host my own server on the computer I play on so if you have a beast of a rig it shouldnt be an issue. Heres my specs to give you an idea as it's no longer a top dog rig as its outdated.

Specs:
i7 4820k 4ghz OC

32gb 1866mhz ram (2- 4gb quad channel kits) Also If you host a server and play game on same machine I recommend atleast 32gb since this game is really bad with memory handling

500gb 850 EVO SSD (both server and game here)

Evga 780 TI Superclocked with acx 2.0 cooler 3gb

----------------

I play at 1080p on high settings with about 38 to 60 fps depending where I'm at. (Indoors fps goes way up)

Using both the server and game on same machine barely uses much of my cpu. I usually run about 30% cpu usuage total when playing. So if you have a cpu somewhere close to mine you should be fine.

[Skons]

Originally posted by Gorebane44:

Originally posted by Hermit:

I run my single player games on a dedicated server. As Rom said above, it avoids the single player glitch of caves being empty of dinos, and also a few other bugs that affect single player such as the overspawn of rare dinos like titans/quetz. Also it allows you to keep all your config changes in one place (the ini files), rather than adjusting some in-game and having to change others using the ini files because their options do not appear in the game menus.

The down sides...I haven't found that many tbh. It might take a slightly more powerful computer to run than non-dedicated, since the game is taking into account the whole map at once not just a part of it around the player, although since most of that map will be in stasis until the player travels there it isn't that much of an increase. Another downside is that the dedicated server takes a long time to initialise, so you have to wait a while from starting it up before you can join, but again this isn't that big of a deal as you can take a bathroom break or make yourself a drink before you start playing.

There is the 'ease of use' downside - that it's much easier to just log into the game and set everything up in the in-game menus rather than having to do everything separately to the client through the ini files. But the benefits vastly outweigh that detrement imo, and until the game is fixed up and the devs actually give single player some love, it'll probably remain that way.

this is so true... Also another issue with singleplayer is a lot of the dinos love spawning inside trees so you will find dinos stuck just about everywhere you go. When you run a dedicated server and play on it locally you won't have this problem nearly as often. I would say it would be around a 15% problem where as on singleplayer its about a 90% issue heh. I just host my own server on the computer I play on so if you have a beast of a rig it shouldnt be an issue. Heres my specs to give you an idea as it's no longer a top dog rig as its outdated.

Specs:
i7 4820k 4ghz OC

32gb 1866mhz ram (2- 4gb quad channel kits) Also If you host a server and play game on same machine I recommend atleast 32gb since this game is really bad with memory handling

500gb 850 EVO SSD (both server and game here)

Evga 780 TI Superclocked with acx 2.0 cooler 3gb

----------------

I play at 1080p on high settings with about 38 to 60 fps depending where I'm at. (Indoors fps goes way up)

Using both the server and game on same machine barely uses much of my cpu. I usually run about 30% cpu usuage total when playing. So if you have a cpu somewhere close to mine you should be fine.

Thanks for this.

I have a fairly good gaming laptop (I know I know):

Asus ROG G752 but with some varied/custom parts:
i7 6700HQ 2.6Ghz
32Gb RAM
200 gb SSD
GT980m 3Gb

I have OC'ed my 980, but not much. I play on 1080p on high with post processing and AA on medium, and I run between 40 and 50 fps in general.

I have a similar specced machine that collects dust at home, so my plan is to get a dedicated server running on there, as mentioned, for local play.

I'm glad to hear about the stuck dinos, it feels a bit cheated, I have a turtle and trike that I tamed without effort, because they were stuck, I couldn't resist really haha.

Do you use the Ark Dedicated Server tool to host, or some other 3rd party app?

I have found the following, and sofar it is working very well for me in setting everything up how I have my single player profile setup.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=468312476

[Ri0Rdian]

What would be the weakest recommended setup for a dedicated server? Just 2-3 players top. Would a random 4 core and 16 GB of RAM be enough? Running off SSD ofc.

[crimsondrac]

Another point to make is that with the local server setup, you can keep a persistent world going so that is something to keep in mind. If you want the world to stop when you log out, single player makes it easier. But if there are times that you would want the world to keep alive, then the local server setup would be best.

[GobboKirk]

Originally posted by Ri0Rdian:

What would be the weakest recommended setup for a dedicated server? Just 2-3 players top. Would a random 4 core and 16 GB of RAM be enough? Running off SSD ofc.

I was with 3 others on mine, so 4 players total. Have a 4790k and had 16gb at the time.
Ran smoother than our normal server for me :p
Doesn't really answer your question but gives you an idea at least.