This game runs like absolute ass

[Aš Pingvinas]

A 100yr old man can run better than this game ive spent nearly an entire year looking for ways to run it without it looking like playdoh if you got this refund it before your pc blows up

[Lori37]

get a better PC

[Dradiin]

I run this game on max settings, and play it daily. Lori has the right of it... Sadly PC gaming can be expensive, if you want a low tier PC, do not expect bleeding edge games (yes Ark is one of those not just because of graphics) to run well.

Also, coming to a games "Fan" forum and lambasting it because you have a console mentality about a PC game will get you your weeks worth of vitriolic answers. www.survivetheark.com would address yer concerns more.

[Aš Pingvinas]

ok let me clear up some confusion here im not insulting the game as being garbage no,the gameplay is super fun im insulting the fact i have a fairly high end pc and and all low settings it still lags

[𝔇ave]

what you might think is high end might actually turn out to be low end or at best mid range..

back your claim of high end up by posting your specs as steam detects them

[Rockenrooster]

see my post on this thread: https://steamcommunity.com/app/346110/discussions/0/133256758579091385/

Basically ARK tries to do too much on a Single Thread (main game thread), that's why it chokes on huge bases and large mod maps.

It would run MUCH better on a 10GHz dual core CPU than a 5GHz 8 core i9, because the devs couldn't split the work among threads very well. DX12 would theoretically help some, but not very much if at all. ARK 1 seems to have been mostly "written" with Blueprints, which perform worse than native C++ that Unreal Engine is written on. However, that's not a good enough excuse as there are fully Blueprint driven UE4 games that are very well optimized (But I haven't seen one with quite the scale that ARK has, Fortnite compares on scale but there's absolutely NO WAY its fully blueprint driven to get the performance and optimization that they are getting). Map choice also plays a large role in what kind of performance you get.

ARK 1 running on a very old very custom build of UE4 doesn't help at all, as they cannot very easily implement the latest UE4 improvements that happened since they "forked" it. For example, you can "convert" Blueprints to C++ code with "Blueprint Nativization", which is an experimental option in later versions of UE4. In my experience, it works very well, and would be a PERFECT use case for ARK, although they would most likely have to fix a lots of things before it would compile with "Blueprint Nativization" enabled" See this video for evidence from someone else: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gVixDglpQ4&t=25s
In my own personal projects "Blueprint Nativization" DOES indeed help speed things up a lot.

We can only hope that the devs are much better this time around and start using multithreading at the start and use the new features of UE5 (Lumen, Nanite, Mesh Shaders, DX12/Vulkan, Oodle) to the FULLEST extent for ARK 2.

Source: I mess with UE4/UE5 and a lot lol. (mostly games for personal projects or feature tests)

There are some things that I do that help ARK "run" better.
One thing that I have never heard mentioned was setting "r.OneFrameThreadLag" to "0".
I may not help FPS (may even drop 1 or 2) but it helps a lot with mouse responsiveness.

[skyguard]

Game runs and looks great for me, are there some lag spikes once in a while, yes but beside that, no problem.

[Izeith]

Originally posted by Wesker:

ok let me clear up some confusion here im not insulting the game as being garbage no,the gameplay is super fun im insulting the fact i have a fairly high end pc and and all low settings it still lags

might be your connection then. I dont even have a high end computer anymore being a few years old. I still run the game on high settings and get absolutely NO lag anywhere but inside my base... which currently houses nearly 100 dinos in a confined area. so no big surprise there. That is the only place I lag at. across 10 servers in my cluster. I turn the settings down when inside breeding and hatching but elseware. max settings and runs like a champ.

[Ferchi]

Originally posted by Wesker:

ok let me clear up some confusion here im not insulting the game as being garbage no,the gameplay is super fun im insulting the fact i have a fairly high end pc and and all low settings it still lags

They still working on fix the lag spikes and rubber banding + bugs

if you want another way to play with the most epic settings try:
"geforce now" (ark and more games)
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce-now/download/
you play with a super pc free or pay

but you can't play this game with 0% lag, 0% bugs, 0% rubber banding
nobody can

[InCogKneeToe]

i have zero issues with lag using mid tier parts, 2060 super and an i5

[Aš Pingvinas]

Originally posted by InCogKneeToe:

i have zero issues with lag using mid tier parts, 2060 super and an i5

Man now im confused i have a 2070 super and an i7 and i can barely run the game on low:(

[𝔇ave]

hows your temps while playing? ark likes to heat components up and without adequate cooling you could be thermal throttling

[Aš Pingvinas]

Originally posted by 𝔇ave:

hows your temps while playing? ark likes to heat components up and without adequate cooling you could be thermal throttling

Well i never checked the temp but ima guess at maybe 80°

[𝔇ave]

Originally posted by Wesker:

Originally posted by 𝔇ave:

hows your temps while playing? ark likes to heat components up and without adequate cooling you could be thermal throttling

Well i never checked the temp but ima guess at maybe 80°

guessing won't cut it.. i suggest you download and install Hardware info to monitor your temps https://www.hwinfo.com/

[retsam1]

Originally posted by Wesker:

A 100yr old man can run better than this game ive spent nearly an entire year looking for ways to run it without it looking like playdoh if you got this refund it before your pc blows up

You've not yet bothered to go to the steam help menu, click system information, and then copy paste all that here so we can see what steam detects for your computer and any possible discrepancies that may show symptoms/variables to your issue.

[Aš Pingvinas]

Originally posted by retsam1:

Originally posted by Wesker:

A 100yr old man can run better than this game ive spent nearly an entire year looking for ways to run it without it looking like playdoh if you got this refund it before your pc blows up

You've not yet bothered to go to the steam help menu, click system information, and then copy paste all that here so we can see what steam detects for your computer and any possible discrepancies that may show symptoms/variables to your issue.

Theres a way to check system info through steam?
Il post here once i find it