Ark Survival Ascended (ASA) is the latest installment in the iconic dino-survival game series by Studio Wildcard and Grove Street Games, now available on PC. Powered by Unreal Engine 5 (UE5), the game brings cutting-edge graphics, enhanced lighting, and realistic textures that make the world of Ark feel more alive than ever before. With the new features like Lumen illumination and Nanite mesh rendering, the game delivers stunning visuals but also demands a powerful PC to run smoothly.
If you’re experiencing performance issues or want to fine-tune your settings for a better balance of graphics and frame rates, here’s a comprehensive guide to the best graphics settings for running Ark Survival Ascended on your PC.
1. Resolution
- Setting: Native
- Explanation: Always set your resolution to your monitor’s native resolution (typically 1080p, 1440p, or 4K). This ensures that the game looks sharp and vibrant. If you find performance dropping too low, you can try lowering the resolution slightly to gain some extra FPS, but native resolution will give you the best visual fidelity.
2. Window Mode
- Setting: Fullscreen
- Explanation: Running the game in fullscreen mode generally offers better performance compared to windowed or borderless window modes. It ensures that the game has exclusive access to your GPU’s resources, reducing the chances of input lag and improving frame rates.
3. Graphics Presets
- Setting: Custom
- Explanation: While Ark Survival Ascended comes with preset graphics options (Low, Medium, High, Epic), a Custom setup allows you to fine-tune individual settings. This way, you can find a balance between high visuals and good performance without sacrificing too much on either front.
4. Advanced Graphics
- Setting: Medium
- Explanation: Setting the advanced graphics to Medium ensures that advanced features like high-quality shaders, textures, and reflections still shine through without causing a massive performance hit. Adjusting this from Epic to Medium can provide a significant FPS boost without sacrificing too much visual fidelity.
5. View Distance
- Setting: Medium
- Explanation: View distance controls how far ahead you can see objects and landscapes. On Medium, the draw distance is still long enough for a satisfying gameplay experience but without overloading your system with distant objects and textures.
6. Textures
- Setting: Epic (depends on VRAM)
- Explanation: Textures make a huge difference in visual quality, especially with the detailed dino skins and environment elements. If your graphics card has enough VRAM (4GB or more is ideal), set textures to Epic for the best appearance. For cards with less VRAM, lowering to High or Medium may help prevent stuttering.
7. Post Processing
- Setting: Medium
- Explanation: Post-processing includes things like bloom, motion blur, and other visual effects. On Medium, the game will still look great but won’t overtax your GPU with excessive effects. You can turn it to Low for even more performance, but Medium generally strikes a good balance.
8. General Shadows
- Setting: Low
- Explanation: Shadows are one of the most performance-heavy settings in any game. Lowering shadows to Low will give you a significant FPS boost while still providing adequate lighting and shadow effects.
9. Global Illumination Quality
- Setting: Medium
- Explanation: Ark Survival Ascended utilizes Lumen, Unreal Engine 5’s dynamic global illumination system. While it looks amazing on high settings, Medium keeps the lighting realistic without hitting your frame rates too hard. For the best balance, keep it on Medium.
10. Effects Quality
- Setting: Medium
- Explanation: Effects, such as explosions, fire, and environmental effects, are visually impressive but can impact performance. Setting them to Medium ensures you’ll still enjoy dynamic effects without overloading your system.
11. Foliage Quality
- Setting: Medium
- Explanation: With the lush, dense foliage in Ark, the Foliage Quality setting plays a huge role in visual fidelity. Setting it to Medium will keep the jungle and forests looking full and detailed without demanding too much from your system.
12. Maximum Frame Rate
- Setting: Unlock
- Explanation: Unlocking the frame rate allows your system to push as many frames as your hardware can handle. If you have a high refresh rate monitor and a powerful GPU, you’ll benefit from higher frame rates. If your PC struggles to maintain consistent frame rates, you can set this to a limit that your system can handle comfortably.
13. Motion Blur
- Setting: Off
- Explanation: Motion blur can often distract from the crisp visuals of a game and add unwanted input lag. Turning it off will give you a clearer, more responsive experience, especially in fast-paced moments.
14. Light Bloom
- Setting: Off
- Explanation: Light Bloom can add a soft, glowing effect around light sources, but it can sometimes cause distracting visual artifacts and lower performance. Turning it off will result in sharper visuals and better FPS.
15. Light Shafts
- Setting: Off
- Explanation: Similar to Bloom, light shafts (sun rays) can be visually appealing but are often unnecessary for gameplay. Disabling this feature helps to improve performance without compromising the overall game experience.
16. Low-Light Enhancement
- Setting: Off
- Explanation: This setting enhances the visibility of dark areas but can be demanding on your system. Turning it off can provide a cleaner experience, especially in well-lit areas of the game.
17. Enable Foliage and Fluid Interaction
- Setting: Off
- Explanation: This feature adds extra realism by allowing interactions between the player, foliage, and water. However, it’s resource-intensive, and turning it off will significantly improve FPS.
18. Foliage Interaction Distance Multiplier
- Setting: 2
- Explanation: This setting controls how far the foliage will interact with your character. Setting it to 2 provides a balance between visuals and performance by limiting the range at which foliage reacts to your movements.
19. Foliage Interaction Distance Limit
- Setting: 1.5
- Explanation: This limits the interaction distance for foliage, reducing the load on your GPU. A value of 1.5 is ideal for keeping the world looking dynamic without taxing your system.
20. Foliage Interaction Quality Limit
- Setting: 1
- Explanation: Lowering the foliage interaction quality limit ensures that interactions, like footsteps or weapon swings, are simplified. This reduces the load on your GPU while still maintaining immersive interactions.
21. Enable Footstep Particles
- Setting: Off
- Explanation: Footstep particles, like dust or sand kicked up as you walk, look nice but don’t add to the gameplay experience significantly. Turning this off can improve performance with minimal visual impact.
22. Enable Footstep Decals
- Setting: On
- Explanation: Footstep decals, such as footprints on the ground, add a level of realism to the environment. This feature is generally light on performance, so keeping it on will enhance immersion without a major performance cost.
RTX Settings (For Nvidia GPUs)
- Nvidia DLSS: On
- DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) helps improve performance by rendering the game at a lower resolution and then upscaling it using AI to retain quality. Turning this on will significantly boost FPS, especially on high-end settings.
- Frame Generation: On
- Frame generation adds additional frames to smooth out gameplay. It can greatly reduce input lag and stuttering, improving the overall fluidity of the game.
- Super Resolution: Quality
- With Nvidia's Super Resolution set to "Quality," the game will maintain great visual fidelity while benefiting from the AI-powered upscaling to boost performance.
Conclusion
By adjusting these settings, you can find the right balance of stunning visuals and high performance in Ark Survival Ascended. The game looks incredible, especially with UE5’s advancements in lighting and textures, but tweaking these settings based on your system’s capabilities will help ensure smooth gameplay. Whether you’re hunting dinosaurs or exploring the wild world of Ark, these settings should help you get the best experience possible!
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