Missing foliage and small rocks

[Karathkasun]

Fresh install of Windows and ARK.

Trees are missing leaves, bushes are missing leaves, small rocks do not render but can be picked up. Loading times are terrible.

ARK is the only game exhibiting issues.

i5-2500k
GTX 750 Ti (driver 368.39)
8gb RAM

Will add screenshot.

[Karathkasun]

Screen shot showing missing graphics...

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=711428569

[WarmedxMints]

Don't use the startup options sm4 or lowmemory

[Karathkasun]

I am not using ANY startup options, nor am I using any of the steam launch dialog options.

SS above is with epic settings as well. The trees/bushes cast shadows WITH leaves though they are not rendered on the tree/bush itself. Same goes for rocks and other misc objects, shadows are there while the object is not.

[WarmedxMints]

o, do they load in if you leave it for a few mins?

[Karathkasun]

No, they do not.

I have already verified game local files as well. Looks like it may be a driver bug. Will check using IGPU and a different card (AMD) later and post results.

[WarmedxMints]

How much free space do your hdd(s) have?

[Karathkasun]

Terrabytes.

[Karathkasun]

Still having this problem, game is unplayable on my main PC because of it.

I have tried a nVidia GPU and an AMD GPU, I have re-downloaded the client. Are there any config files hiding outside of the game folder?

[margalus]

Have you tried lowest settings?

[crimsondrac]

Which version of windows are you running? Is Steam (and subsequently Ark) installed in your Program Files folder? If so, are you launching the game with Admin rights?

[margalus]

The problem I see is that you have a low end, low memory gpu in a system that is low on ram for this game.

The game plus windows and steam will be using about 10GB of ram, you have 8. That is not a major problem, the swapfile will correct that to an extent.

The big problem is the lack of vram on the low end gpu. Even on medium settings this game needs 4GB of vram. Normally your gpu would just use system ram as virtual vram and things would be okay. Maybe with some minor performance issues, but generally okay.

But since you have no system ram left for the gpu to use when your gpu runs out of ram it just cannot load anything else in.

Try the game on the absolute lowest settings and see what happens. Maybe try -sm4 also.

[Leslie]

Again, it's not a bug, it's a feature.
It's the new game mode... ARK: GTA-San Andreas... there has been a brush fire in the hills....

[Karathkasun]

Originally posted by margalus:

The problem I see is that you have a low end, low memory gpu in a system that is low on ram for this game.

The game plus windows and steam will be using about 10GB of ram, you have 8. That is not a major problem, the swapfile will correct that to an extent.

The big problem is the lack of vram on the low end gpu. Even on medium settings this game needs 4GB of vram. Normally your gpu would just use system ram as virtual vram and things would be okay. Maybe with some minor performance issues, but generally okay.

But since you have no system ram left for the gpu to use when your gpu runs out of ram it just cannot load anything else in.

Try the game on the absolute lowest settings and see what happens. Maybe try -sm4 also.

Game ran fine on the hardware before, performance was not the issue.

2GB of VRAM is more than enough for medium textures, VRAM usage maxes out at ~1500 with high/medium settings. Problem still exists with a 4gb R9 290 ayway, so that rules that idea right out.

Game uses less than 8gb of ram in multiplayer, have only seen 8+ used in single player. The machine has also had 16gb of ram at one point, it makes no difference in ARK unless I have a bunch of websites open in the background (2gb+ firefox memory usage).

You are also assuming this hardware has never run the game properly before, except that you are wrong. It worked perfectly until the HDD's got pulled for other systems and new ones were installed in this machine.

It worked before in W10 on this rig, after a new set of drives/new OS install it does not.

[Jerry Hart]

so i have had the same issue, and in reading multiple posts on this subject the common seems to be goood rigs. so i think i found the problem, and for the past week, this has not been an issue anymore. check your task manager under resorces. it is likely that your gpu is maxing out under 3d. if you right click on the desktop, and open nvidia control, you will see that your gpu is setup to let the program decide for your 3d settings. on my rig, (top of the line, extreem gaming system i spent a furtune for) ark survival was telling my gpu to run 3d, so i just simply turned down the setting on the slide bar from quality to perfermance, and this has fixed it for me. hope this helps you and maybe others who are subscribed to this thread will pass this fix on.

oh, and for everyone reading this, i have seen that this problem seems to be primarally happening on higher end rigs, from what i have been reading on other furums around the web.

[Karathkasun]

I'm not sure what was going on, but I re-installed the OS sometime later and the problem went away. Never found out exactly what caused this exactly. On the Ragnarok map, the trees in the coastal desert occasionally exhibit this bug as well on all machines I have tested on. It comes and goes though, the leaves disappear and reappear seemingly depending on where I am looking.