How to play ARK on a bad computer?

[equidna1612]

Hi, i purchased the game aprox. 2 years ago, i tried to play with basically no graphics, but my computer did not run the game very good, now it just don't launches (when uptaditng it says that time expired and stops) this game looks very good, but i cant enjoy it if i cant see what im doing and ark constantly crashes.
Is there any way i can play this?

(Sorry if i express as a 4 year old boy, but english is just not my native lenguage, so have fun decriptyng this :D )

[Dradiin]

1. Go into your steam games library
2. Find Ark Survival and right click it
3. Select properties
4. In the General tab, click: Set Launch Options...
5. Paste this in

Code:

-USEALLAVAILABLECORES -sm4 -d3d10 -nomansky -lowmemory -novsync

Click okay
Launch the game NORMALLY, meaning do not click anything else but normal game start when
booting the game up.

What it does---

-USEALLAVAILABLECORES
This makes it so the game uses all of your CPU cores.
If all of your CPU cores are NOT being used after using this launch option then disable it as it may cause more stuttering.

-sm4
It forces the game to use Shader Model 4 instead of the usual Shader Model 5.
The game looks and feels almost the same but you get much better performance.
There is more a matte look to the game but it is not bad at all. Best performance boost out of all of these options.

If you have your FOV slider up 100% of the way then a circle will appear in the sky.
Just lower your FOV to about 70% (give or take ~10%) or until the circle goes away.
If you didn't touch your FOV slider then you are fine.

-d3d10
Using sm4 forces the game into using DX10 instead of DX11 and this does the same thing.
I put it here to make sure it launched correctly. you are not missing out on anything.

-nomansky
This disables a lot of the detailed sky features like a lot of clouds and super stary night sky.
This minimizes all of those but you still get them. It looks almost the same but it has less of all of it.
You still get stars and you still get the sun and moon. This just gets rid of the sparkling stars at night that can blind you.

A user reported that -nomansky causes the FOV bug to pop up as well. I have yet to verify it but it was worth mentioning anyway.

-lowmemory
This launches the game in 4gb memory mode. If you have less than 16 gigs of RAM then this is basically a must have for better performance.
You are missing out on some effects like the breaking of bushes and leaves go everywhere. Nothing major at all and the game runs better!

-novsync
This forces Vsync to be off. Vsync is typically used to stop screen tearing when over your monitors refresh rate.
If you are getting below 60fps then make sure to leave this in, if you are getting over 60fps then leave it as it can cause screen tearing.
IF YOU USE THIS REMEMBER TO SHUT VSYNC OFF IN THE GAME SETTINGS!!!!!

Other tips ---

Other things you can do to improve performance & FPS
ShooterGame.exe High CPU Priority
This will just make your CPU prioritize the game above everything else.
This will NOT affect anything else on your computer like Skype, Teamspeak, Mumble, etc. It helps with reducing the amount of stuttering in the game.
Stuttering still happens but it is nowhere near as bad.

Open windows task manager
Go to the "Processes" tab
IF ON WINDOWS 10 THEN FOLLOW THESE EXTRA STEPS
---A. Right click ShooterGame
---B. Select "Go to details"
Find ShooterGame.exe (should be the first on on there if you are ordering the list by
memory)
Right click it and hover over "Set Priority"
Select High
Click "Change Priority" at the prompt (THIS WILL NOT CAUSE SYSTEM INSTABILITY IF
ALL YOU ARE DOING IS PLAYING THE GAME)

Also---

Set ARK Survival settings inside Nvidia Control Panel
This will make it so the game runs at its best with little to no visual loss!

Open Nvidia Control Panel
Go to "Manage 3D Settings"
Click on the "Program Settings" Tab
WAIT for the dropdown menu area to fully load so you dont make the panel freeze (common
issue for me anyway)
Select "Add"
SKIP TO STEP 7 IF YOU ALREADY PLAYED THE GAME, IF NOT THEN READ THIS AND
GO ON TO STEP 8. Click on Browse and go to the install directory for the game (Example:
C:/ProgramFiles(x86)/Steam/Steamapps/common/ARK/ShooterGame/Binaries/Win64/ShooterGame.exe) and select the ShooterGame.exe file and click Open.
You will see a window pop up that has the sorting set to "Recently Used." If you already booted the game up then you should see ShooterGame in the list somewhere. Select it and click "Add Selected Program"
When you added the game to the list then it should have automatically opened the game within the control panel window. Edit the following settings:
A: Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration: Single Display Performance Mode
B: Power Management mode: Prefer Maximum Performance
C: Texture Filtering - Antisotropic Sample Optimization: On
D: Texture Filtering - Quality: Performance
E: Triple Buffer - Off
F: Vertical Sync - Off
G: Maximum Pre-rendered frames - 1
Click apply
Check the settings to make sure they changed correctly, if not then change them.

This was all posted here https://www.gaming-legion.org/showthread.php?t=884

Was the first result on google when i looked up "how to play ark on low end pc"

[equidna1612]

Ok, thanks, i will try it

[Vesuvius]

go to Help ... system information... copy ALL of that to here.

No amount of tweaking will help if the best option is to throw your PC out the window.

[༒ǝꞁf⚣٩๏̯͡๏)۶]

I have an old junk pc and I can get Ark to run.

Windows has a program called Superfetch that runs in the background. It loads the most recent thing you use in ram so it will open quicker than other programs. It's suppose to run in the background without us noticing Superfetch. But for very old computers we depend on it.

So load up the game and let it set running for a couple of hours. I am not able to get into the game for at least one hour until Superfetch does it's thing. Just keep the game running and keep trying to log in. Do not run anything else but the game. After about an hour Ark plays fine on my ancient junk pc. A little slow but it works.

You will at least need a fair graphics card for this to work.

[Icaro Waisman]

If I can run on a 2012 laptop, then you can run on anything. good luck

[equidna1612]

Originally posted by ✠ Icaro Waisman ✠:

If I can run on a 2012 laptop, then you can run on anything. good luck

Can you play multiplayer ?

[Duracuir]

If you have the fiber (dont try below) you can subscribe to Shadow PC , it s a virtual desktop with win 10 but u ll have to pay 30euros per month.... There is a try-month free . But with that u all be able to run any game at max.

[Duracuir]

If you have the fiber (dont try below) you can subscribe to Shadow PC , it s a virtual desktop with win 10 but u ll have to pay 30euros per month.... There is a try-month free . But with that u all be able to run any game at max.

[Dradiin]

Originally posted by equidna1612:

Originally posted by ✠ Icaro Waisman ✠:

If I can run on a 2012 laptop, then you can run on anything. good luck

Can you play multiplayer ?

Curious if you tried any of the suggestions i made ??

[equidna1612]

Yes, and they work

[equidna1612]

I uaed that code a long time ago, but i did not remembered it