If there’s one thing gamers love, it’sdinosaur-focused games. From the high-octane action ofExoprimalto thegorgeous yet eerie vistas ofTurok, there are plenty of options to choose from. If you’re looking for a survival game where you can ride these magnificent beasts,ARK: Survival Ascendedis the one for you.
ARK: Survival Ascendedis an Unreal Engine 5 remaster of the already successfulARK: Survival Evolved. While a fresh coat of paint may be everything it needed, not all players have been satisfied. Many prefer the original release, one reason being the remaster’s performance issues. If you are one such player, then the guide below is for you. Explore the graphics settings and learn about the additional improvements you’re able to make to enhance your ARK experience.
Recommended Settings For ARK: Survival Ascended
ARK: Survival Ascendedoffers a plethora of graphical options that allow players to achieve decent performance. While the game may not look as impressive after applying the settings below, many PC players still prefer a higher framerate, especially when trying to reachthe coveted 60 FPS mark.
100
0.01
0.5
GUI 3D Widget Quality
0.6
Some graphical options are exclusive to Nvidia GPUs, meaning Intel Arc and AMD Radeon GPU owners will miss out on these features.
Nvidia Reflex Low Latency
On
DLSS can only be used by RTX 2000 series or above, andFrame Generation by the RTX 4000 series.
If you can’t select the Frame Generation option, even if you meet the GPU requirement, follow these steps to enable the feature:
Now open the game again, and you should be able to turn on Frame Generation.
Additional Improvements for ARK: Survival Ascended
If you want to improve your gaming experience further, there are additional changes you can make.
Use All Cores When Playing The Game
ARK: Survival Ascended isn’t very well optimized; one of the reasons for this is its inefficient use of CPU cores. Thankfully, there’s a solution. You can command the game to use all available cores on the CPU, which should provide a significant performance boost, especially when your game is being CPU-limited. Here’s how you can do it:
Improve Performance With Command Lines
When in the game,press the “~” button(the button below the Escape key) toopen the console at the bottom of your screen. Enter the following commands to get a performance boost not available via the normal graphics settings menu:
You’ll need to enter these commands every time you play the game.
Improve Performance by tweaking the INI File
you may further improve performance by tweaking the Engine.ini file, which should be located in\ShooterGame\Saved\Config\Windows. Open the file and paste the following commands either at the absolute top or the absolute bottom. Do not change anything written under the [Core.System] line.
Save the file and make sure it’s set to read-only. Now open the game, and you should see a significant performance boost.
The above commandsdisable the Lumen lighting technology, which is extremely taxing on the hardware. You should instantly notice a major boost in performance, even more so than when you disabled clouds. Shadows-related commands don’t disable shadows entirely, but they do reduce their quality and range. Water-related commands offer a small performance boost by degrading the quality of water. There’s also a command that can completely disable water rendering, but that step might be a bit too extreme.
Skip Intro Videos
There’s hardly a gamer out there who enjoys sitting through the intro logo screens. All players want to dive into the action as quickly as possible. Fortunately, you can achieve this inARK: Survival Ascendedwith a mod. Head over to NexusMods and download the"No-Intro Videos Fix" mod created by Gametism. Extract the zip file and copy the folder. Then,paste it into your game’s directory.
If you’re unsure where that is, head to your Steam Library, right-click on the game, click on properties, select the Installed Files tab, and click on Browse. The folder that opens up is your game directory.
