Studio Wildcard’s prehistoric survival sim entered Steam Early Access so way back that you might in all probability mistake it for being an precise relic from the Stone Age. Now, with the ultimate retail launch of Ark: Survival Evolved due on August 29, the sport is stampeding by the ages like a herd of agitated Gallimimus and shall be proper at the doorstep earlier than it. That means it’s time to see whether or not this dino romp appears delectable, or if it’s the graphical equal of three tonnes of Triceratops dung. Can Ark serve us respectable efficiency, tidy visuals, and nonetheless steadiness sufficient leathery leviathans to fill ten Jurassic Parks? Let’s discover out.
Related: the best survival games on PC.
Note: We’ll revisit our Ark: Survival Evolved tech overview when the ultimate sport launches with its day one, 1.zero patch, on August 29. The following efficiency information was primarily based on an unpatched Early Access copy of the sport.
Graphics choices
Ark could have its technical points – don’t fear, we’ll get to these – however there’s no denying Studio Wildcard have thrown a tonne of tweakable graphics choices into its on-line caveman romp. Four major presets govern the look of the sport, starting from the complete bells-and-whistles Epic setting, all the way down to the dreadfully plain Low possibility. All the same old suspects like textures, post-processing, shadow ranges, sky high quality, and numerous lighting results might be tweaked individually to assist enhance efficiency, whereas an FOV slider can also be a welcome sight. That stated, it’s barely disappointing the sport by no means tells you precisely what sort of anti-aliasing it’s utilizing.
Most of the above settings are very a lot par for the course with any half-decent PC port. But the place Ark earns itself critical brownie factors is within the variety of granular visible choices it permits you to fiddle with. Anisotropic filtering; sub-surface scattering; prime quality LODs; two varieties of ambient occlusion (each distance discipline and display area); mesh stage of element – it’s an exhaustive checklist. Switching on all of those settings can severely hamper efficiency (even on monster rigs), but there’s no denying they result in a barely extra vibrant, convincing picture must you go away them on.
Controller assist additionally makes it into the sport and is completely serviceable. Still, contemplating the ‘enthusiasm’ with which most of Ark’s historical beastie assault you with, the pure snappiness of a keyboard and mouse setup is more likely to save your caveman keester greater than as soon as when a Yutyrannus comes on the lookout for its din-dins. And sure, that /is/ an actual dinosaur.
Graphics evaluation
Tested on an Intel i7 6700Okay @four.00GHz, 32GB of Ram, Nvidia GTX 1080 TI, Windows 10
For our graphics evaluation we evaluate screenshots taken on the 4 customary presets; in Ark’s case, Epic (the sport’s tackle extremely), High, Medium, and Low. Commendably, Ark switches presets immediately, and the sport nearly by no means must reboot or reload if you change settings – the one exceptions are when you allow prime quality VFX or high-quality supplies. All in all, tweaking graphics choices on the fly is an absolute breeze.
Epic
We’ve been filled with reward for each the variety of graphics choices Ark provides and the way painless they’re to tweak… so strive to not shed a tear on the Brachiosaurus-sized “BUT” that’s about to squash you mindless. There’s simply no getting round this: Ark is an unpleasant, /ugly/ sport. Even on the Epic setting it’s not possible to look previous its visible failings. It doesn’t matter when you max out each slider, Studio Wildcard’s journey resembles an early Xbox 360-era title (albeit a high-res one). Texture work is horribly plain, and the world comes throughout as terribly flat – there’s little sense of bespokely crafted incidental element. And sure, this scornful abstract is of Ark’s highest setting. Things are solely gonna get an entire lot worse.
As for efficiency, even that is disappointing – although it may be salvaged with tweaks. Despite working Ark on a rig with a i7 CPU and a monstrous GTX 1080 Ti, a locked 60fps at 1080p is off the desk if each Epic possibility is switched on. With all settings absolutely maxed out, we trotted over to a fairly quiet seaside with a couple of dinos stomping about, and measured a median 59fps. This would appear to be a decidedly respectable outcome if it weren’t for lows of 51fps. And belief us, at Epic, the sport spends extra time hovering round 50fps than it does 60fps.
There is a silver lining, although. Providing you’re working an honest, fanatic stage card – say, a GTX 1060/RX 480 or above – we now have a fast and simple tip to instantly increase your body charge considerably. Simply swap off each distant discipline and display discipline ambient occlusion and it’s best to claw again 10fps immediately.
High
Unless you’re supremely gifted at ‘Where’s Wally?’, you’re in all probability not going to identify the distinction between Epic and High settings at first look. In movement, the 2 presets seem similar. It’s solely if you pour over screens that any tangible variations begin to floor. Texture work on dinosaurs is rather less detailed on High, whereas dropping terrain element and shadows down a notch makes the already flat setting look much more two-dimensional.
At least efficiency on High is mighty respectable (a minimum of on our, admittedly, high-end machine). We measured a principally locked 97fps on our 100Hz monitor, with solely occasional dips to lows of round 85fps. Considering Ark isn’t a twitch shooter, these numbers are whole overkill.
Medium
The distinction between High and Medium is minimal to say the least. Shadows are maybe a teeny bit much less pronounced, however aside from that, it’s robust to inform the 2 presets aside. So let’s discuss dinosaurs for a second. The toothy stars of this sinfully fugly present look superb(ish) on Medium and above… so long as they’re static. When they begin to transfer, it’s possible you’ll as properly be watching an much more finances model of Barney & Friends. Many of the bigger herbivores stammer across the setting like they’re skipping frames of animation, and there’s zero grace to the entire historical animals your survivor encounters. Jurassic Park this ain’t.
Performance-wise, taking part in the sport at 1080p on Medium is as sturdy as an Ankylosaurus wrapped in a huge kevlar vest. On common, we bought a massively constant 99fps, with a recorded low of 97fps. Basically, efficiency at this stage is kind of bullet proof.
Low
AHHHHHH! OUR EYES! OUR BEAUTIFUL EYES! Suffice to say, issues get nearly comically ugly if you drop Ark all the way down to its lowest preset. Indeed, the visible buffet served up on Low settings is so ludicrously barren, it’s possible you’ll suppose you’re taking part in a PS2-era demake. Not solely is the sport a barbarically blurry mess on this preset, texture element is torpedoed to oblivion. The remaining kick within the tooth? Ark’s gamma settings go mad if you swap to Low; all the picture turning into a blindingly vibrant, garish mess. Ugh.
Low could have you ever wishing dinosaurs would cease being extinct so one might break into your home and eat your eyeballs to avoid wasting you the ache of Ark’s backside preset, however a minimum of it runs and not using a hitch. We had been locked to a median 99fps all the time we endured this preset.
How does Ark run in 4K?
The setup we’re utilizing for this explicit tech overview was purpose-built to supply extremely HD gaming, and for titles far more visually demanding than Ark. As such, our 1080 Ti-powered rig proves greater than as much as the duty of working Ark at 4K. Playing on High settings at 3820 x 2160 decision, we are able to truly lock in a reliable 60fps, too… offered we flip off ambient occlusion. Like we found with our 1080p exams, enabling this characteristic has a considerable affect on efficiency, seemingly no matter decision.
How to run Ark at 60fps
If you’re planning to play Ark on a mid-range rig, we propose working the sport at Medium settings. On this preset, there’s little distinction to High settings, and in movement, you actually lose nothing. Setups with a 1070 GPU or higher ought to comfortably be capable to run the sport at 1080p/ 60fps, although keep in mind you’ll wish to flip off ambient occlusion to keep away from dips to the low 50s.
Conclusion
On the floor, the PC model of Ark: Survival Evolved is an honest effort. It supplies a great deal of tweakable graphics choices, it runs easily for probably the most half, and switching settings is easy. It’s if you truly dive into its dino world that issues shortly bitter. Even at its max preset, Ark is solely an unpleasant sport. Its creatures transfer like poorly modelled cast-offs from The Land That Time Forgot, textures are flat-out horrible, and the cardboard-looking world seems to have been stapled collectively from cereal packing containers.
We’ll revisit this tech overview when the ultimate sport and its day one patch hits Steam on August 29 to see if Studio Wildcard make any enhancements. In the meantime, whereas Ark could provide an honest choice of graphics settings, artistically it’s the prehistoric pits.
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