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Everyone playing ARK: Survival Evolved on Linux can calm down now, as BattlEye now supports Linux and it's already live.

A whole two day delay to get it in the Linux version, I would say that's a pretty good turn-around for this sort of thing.

Mac and Linux clients now have Official Support for @TheBattlEye #playARK pic.twitter.com/pby8MI9fF7

— ARK (@survivetheark) February 11, 2016


I am extremely hopeful that Virtual Programming can work with BattlEye to get it working on the Linux port of Arma 3 now too. This should cross of one of the reasons listed here.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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24 comments
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Beamboom Feb 11, 2016
How is the performance of ARK these days? I recall it was pretty bad around launch?
Liam Dawe Feb 11, 2016
How is the performance of ARK these days? I recall it was pretty bad around launch?

Still bad.
mao_dze_dun Feb 11, 2016
Ok, that was fast :D
evergreen Feb 11, 2016
does someone know if it now works on Arma3 too? <3
rkfg Feb 11, 2016
I suppose not only it still has bad performance but also bad visuals. IIRC, the engine supports OGL 4.5 but they for some reason only support 3.x on Mac/Linux. And the "True Sky" plugin isn't supported on those platforms completely.
ungutknut Feb 11, 2016
So now that was fast - those guys at wildcard never fail to surprise me.

How is the performance of ARK these days? I recall it was pretty bad around launch?
Could still be better but it has improved over time. Especially (OSS-)radeon-performance is much better now... but maybe it's just the drivers that matured.

I suppose not only it still has bad performance but also bad visuals. IIRC, the engine supports OGL 4.5 but they for some reason only support 3.x on Mac/Linux. And the "True Sky" plugin isn't supported on those platforms completely.
Comparing to the windows version it really looks awful. I hope the devs will add OGL > 3.x support when the game is finished. And I hope it ever gets finished at all - unlike rust. At least the devs seem to care much more about their product and have some kind of a roadmap and listen to suggestions from the community.
Xpander Feb 11, 2016
How is the performance of ARK these days? I recall it was pretty bad around launch?

its still not great, but its a lot better, when you live(ingame, not real life :) ) in snowy areas its really good actually, 50-80 fps and thats pretty much everything maxed except shadows, but other areas are around 30-50 fps and super huge bases make fps drop down to 20.

the strange thing is that i dunno what they use for the ingame HUD but when you turn that off with backspace key, you pretty much just gain +10 fps - reminds me a bit of those flash UIs .. what was it called scaleform?


edit: ok seems that battleye have killed the performance even more.. ~-5 fps


Last edited by Xpander on 11 February 2016 at 11:41 am UTC
legluondunet Feb 11, 2016
On the Steam forum we could read the perf are not optimised on windows too.
Don't forget it's an anticipated game.
dubigrasu Feb 11, 2016
I've seen a SteamOS vs Windows Youtube video where ARK was the only game running better in Linux than Windows.
https://youtu.be/LBIFHo03V-4?t=483
Liam Dawe Feb 11, 2016
I've seen a SteamOS vs Windows Youtube video where ARK was the only game running better in Linux than Windows.
https://youtu.be/LBIFHo03V-4?t=483

ARK has less graphical features on Linux, it's not rocket science ;)
dubigrasu Feb 11, 2016
I've seen a SteamOS vs Windows Youtube video where ARK was the only game running better in Linux than Windows.
https://youtu.be/LBIFHo03V-4?t=483

ARK has less graphical features on Linux, it's not rocket science ;)
You mean features absent from the settings menu?
Liam Dawe Feb 11, 2016
I've seen a SteamOS vs Windows Youtube video where ARK was the only game running better in Linux than Windows.
https://youtu.be/LBIFHo03V-4?t=483

ARK has less graphical features on Linux, it's not rocket science ;)
You mean features absent from the settings menu?

Just in general, the game looks quite different on Linux than it does on Windows.
Xpander Feb 11, 2016
missing true sky, tesselation and ground clutter - those features are missing from linux version

and yeah its the reason it runs better, you can achieve same graphical detail on windows when you add
-sm4 to the launch options


Last edited by Xpander on 11 February 2016 at 1:13 pm UTC
dubigrasu Feb 11, 2016
Well, (I haven't played the game on Windows) but the guy was pretty bent on showing every missing SteamOS features and he failed to notice any difference at the same settings, even at a side by side comparison.
So I guess is pretty safe to say that as a general experience the Linux version of ARK is not that bad.
dubigrasu Feb 11, 2016
missing true sky, tesselation and ground clutter - those features are missing from linux version

and yeah its the reason it runs better, you can achieve same graphical detail on windows when you add
-sm4 to the launch options
Gotcha Xpander, good info.
I guess is a good test case for a benchmark. Not sure if ARK has a running demorec feature.
Xpander Feb 11, 2016
missing true sky, tesselation and ground clutter - those features are missing from linux version

and yeah its the reason it runs better, you can achieve same graphical detail on windows when you add
-sm4 to the launch options
Gotcha Xpander, good info.
I guess is a good test case for a benchmark. Not sure if ARK has a running demorec feature.


If UE4 has then it might have.. console is available in ARK.. unless they specially disabled that feature ofc



edit: also if you look closely at that video you linked, you see that windows version has lots of clouds compared to linux version as well as ground is cluttered with more stuff, specially noticable near rocks or on the beach.


Last edited by Xpander on 11 February 2016 at 1:32 pm UTC
Beamboom Feb 11, 2016
Ah I see it's not properly "out" yet, still in Early Access.
Oh well, then there's hope for a more polished experience once it's out of beta and ready for launch. :)
GustyGhost Feb 11, 2016
I suppose not only it still has bad performance but also bad visuals. IIRC, the engine supports OGL 4.5 but they for some reason only support 3.x on Mac/Linux. And the "True Sky" plugin isn't supported on those platforms completely.

Isn't Mac perpetually stuck on old OpenGL implementations? Maybe it is more cost effective to support the weakest link in the chain.
ronoverdrive Feb 11, 2016
I suppose not only it still has bad performance but also bad visuals. IIRC, the engine supports OGL 4.5 but they for some reason only support 3.x on Mac/Linux. And the "True Sky" plugin isn't supported on those platforms completely.

Probably because Mac only supports up to 3.3 and Apple sees no need to upgrade it especially since they're pushing their Metal API now. Hopefully the Ark devs see the light and push Vulkan support along with their plans for DX12 since the UE4 will support Vulkan once its released.
Xpander Feb 11, 2016
afaik apple supports 4.1, so i dont really see problem there.

4.3+ would be the best though. compute shaders and stuff.

afaik devs want to switch to Vulkan as fast as possible when the UE4 builds with it will be made public. thats what i gathered from the AMA they did
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