The ground-up reimagined ARK is forcing AMD GPU owners to use frame generation with less-than-optimal results, even at 1440p. ARK: Survival Ascended is currently in Early Access on Steam, and while some are giving it praise for its visuals, the GPU processing costs may be too high, at least for now. Over the weekend, a video was posted online showing the game running at 1440p using its Epic settings, on an AMD Radeon RX 9070, arguably a fairly powerful mid-range graphics card in its own right, at around 60 FPS. Other system components include the current T-Rex of gaming CPUs, an AMD 9800X3D paired with 32 GB of system memory. The aforementioned GPU was unable to go higher than 60 FPS, but the game also had major input lag along with extended frame times.
ARK: Survival Ascended uses Unreal Engine 5.5, and although it supports FSR and DLSS, AMD GPUs appear to have the raw end of the deal here, with frame gen currently locked to always on. In what appears to be a mixed blessing, users can disable it via a console command, but that reveals another unwanted issue as FPS drops into the 20-30 FPS area, again still at 1440p using Epic settings, which is hardly desirable for anyone. AMD has previously recommended that FSR Frame Gen only be used when rendering is above 60 FPS, so it’s no surprise that issues are popping up in the game’s current state.
Clearly, Studio Wildcard has more work to do before the game can officially launch. It should be noted that the above tester, zWORMz Gaming, did acknowledge that the developers had at least fixed stuttering issues in the game, something quite common with games using Unreal Engine. The developers have stated they are continuing to work on fixes for the game as it prepares to launch its largest map yet, ARK Ragnarok Ascended, on June 18.
“We’re continuing to work through UE5.5 post-launch issues, with high priority currently placed on resolving FPS drops, structure replication delays (how quickly structures render), as well as crashes and exploits. Your reports have been invaluable in helping us patch issues quickly, thank you! We’ll keep actively monitoring performance and stability, with ongoing updates aimed at improving the overall experience for our players.”
-Studio Wildcard
Description (per official site):
“ARK is reimagined from the ground-up into the next-generation of video game technology with Unreal Engine 5! Form a tribe, tame & breed hundreds of unique dinosaurs and primeval creatures, explore, craft, build, and fight your way to the top of the food-chain. Your new world awaits!”