ARK: Survival Evolved updated with the latest 'Unreal Rendering code', still terrible on Linux

You should update the thumbnail to one of those broken screenshots, more representative of the in-game experience.

You should update the thumbnail to one of those broken screenshots, more representative of the in-game experience.

Good point, done.

Their approach has been similar with the VR version. It's also terrible last I heard.

That thumbnail is making me grin. :D

With the lastes nvidia drivers the cave problems are gone but the water still messed up, and the preformance is horrid!

Even if they fix it, I'm still not playing it because of that ridiculous reset system.

Unreal Engine on Linux + Careless Dev

Not surprising at all

I play this with my girl on Linux sometimes.

On a i7-6700k GTX 970 with SSD it takes probably 30 seconds to get to the loading screen which lags to all hell.

Then launching the server takes about 4-6 minuets while locking up the computer (No alt tabbing or you'll be sorry)

Then you better pray there wasn't a patch and it doesn't have to update your data files or you're out a few more minuets.

Then connecting the second Linux Gaming PC #2 has to be done within the first 60 seconds or else the server on Linux Gaming PC #1 has to be restarted to fix some rediculous broadcast issue.

Oh and did I mention when loading the server list you have to ninja type in your friends server name or the client will explode will downloading the data.

I seriously xkill Ark so many times.

All in all: It takes a good 20 minuets just to login to start to play. I don't know who programmed their menu or thought it would be a good idea to have a lag-fest when loading a server list instead of seperating client and server model and using a fucking asynchronous data call to get data and having a seperate Draw() or fucking UpdateTheFuckingList() function -- but nope -- I guess going with the whole freeze your client to shit method was the way to go.

The water has been broken for about 2 - 4 months, it's a joke.

Maybe it's called "Survival Evolved" because the user needs to survive the evolving shitfest that is the client.

These look like the same rendering problems that are plaguing every UE4 game on Linux. Despite being "officially supported", the Linux version of Unreal Engine sure does seem to get ignored by Epic and therefore rely almost entirely on community code contributions.

I think this article should have waited until we had done a bit more research because as it is now, it is misleading for the state of ark on linux as a whole. It paints an important part of the picture, but not the whole picture. Articles like this might discourage further fixes because we don't compliment them for what they actually have done, and claim they are not fixing anything. We should complain about what is wrong, but not claim what they have fixed is still broken.

This patch fix most issues for me, although I still have the ugly ocean and a few minor issues. Talking to other people it seems to be some sort of cache or old config file prevents it from working without manual steps. We should complain that it needs manual steps, not that it doesn't fix anything. We should also find out if manual tweaking is enough to fix it for everyone.

I think one or more of these steps help:

• Reset graphical settings, don't just change it


• Restart the game client


• Reset singleplayer settings, and launch in singleplayer

I encourage everyone who want this game to work to test out these things and see if it fix it. Feel free to try other things as well, the more settings you reset to factory, the more likely I think it is to work.

This is a cave on medium settings on linux:
![
I had lots of issues with it glitching out before the patch. Before the patch it was like image 2-3 in the article. After patch, those issues are gone. If they fix the water, and manage to make the fixed renderer work out of the box despite old config and cache, then it is release quality for sure. Until then, I'd say it is playable, but in an early alpha state.

*EDIT: Clarified the statement about misleading article, to explain in which way I thought it was misleading.


Last edited by Ketil on 16 August 2017 at 11:56 pm UTC

I think this article should have waited until we had done a bit more research, because as it is now, it is misleading.

If they fix the water, and manage to make it work out of the box, then it is release quality for sure.

Very correct, I feel significant improvements in response and frame rate. The water is not a render issue I think but simply a missing texture or wrong spelled filename (Linux is case sensitive). I mean, on The Center map the water looks just fine.


Last edited by CyberRat on 16 August 2017 at 10:39 pm UTC

I think this article should have waited until we had done a bit more research because as it is now, it is misleading.

No, it's the exact experience for me, it's not misleading in any way. I've tested all settings, tried resetting them and cleared out any cache as well. I did plenty of tests, all resulting in the same thing.

Articles like this might discourage further fixes because we don't compliment them for what they actually have done, and claim they are not fixing anything. We should complain about what is wrong, but not claim what they have fixed is still broken.

What have they done exactly? Ignore bugs for many months, pull in some Unreal Engine code which gave some people an FPS boost. I won't compliment them, since they're still obviously not putting any effort into the Linux version. This is very clear.

It's a shame to see so many problems with the Unreal Engine on Linux, I have yet to see a single UE4 game working well on Linux. Hopefully more Vulkan support in the future and the devs could use it right off the bat for better cross-platform support, it would surely make their work a bit easier too.

I tend to pit this game in the same vein as Rust, they're both survival games and despite Rust being a bit better, they're both a hot topic when it comes to performance on Linux.

Going by the comments, it seems the devs are either not allocating any resources to the Linux version or simply don't have the manpower to tackle the issues.


Last edited by Avehicle7887 on 16 August 2017 at 11:11 pm UTC

I think this article should have waited until we had done a bit more research because as it is now, it is misleading.

No, it's the exact experience for me, it's not misleading in any way. I've tested all settings, tried resetting them and cleared out any cache as well. I did plenty of tests, all resulting in the same thing.

I'm sorry, I meant the title, and the overall tone in the article was misleading for the state of ark on linux in general. Not that your experience was misleading. The experience is an important part of the state, but it is not the full picture, and I thought your article was meant to show the whole picture. I cannot tell if I read it wrong, or if it is written in a way that is easy to misread.

I don't agree that the state of ark on linux is terrible. It is graphically not too great and was terrible before this fix, but the cave issue seems to be fixed in the renderer, if it doesn't use files generated by old version. At this point the water bug is an inconvenience, but it can mostly be worked around by swimming under water when you do water stuff. It is still not good, but it is more an inconvenience that shouldn't be there than a game breaking bug. The cave issue was more game breaking, but I think the new render is able to do it well, if it doesn't use old data that confuses it. I think a clean install would work, e.g. delete all configs and restore the default ones via steam, but I don't have enough data to say for sure.

I am sorry for all the heat in my comments.

Articles like this might discourage further fixes because we don't compliment them for what they actually have done, and claim they are not fixing anything. We should complain about what is wrong, but not claim what they have fixed is still broken.

What have they done exactly? Ignore bugs for many months, pull in some Unreal Engine code which gave some people an FPS boost. I won't compliment them, since they're still obviously not putting any effort into the Linux version. This is very clear.

If we want ark to be fixed, I think we must give ark the victories they get intended or not. That way they are less likely to see us as a mistake, too much support for too few buyers. Maybe it is too late, or maybe not. I hope it is not, because I believe this game can be fixed, and if it gets fixed, then it will be quite awesome.

Since this update my Ark got(even more) broken visually on my desktop(R7 360, amdgpu(xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu v1.3.0-1), Debian testing)

There's a video of my gameplay:
https://youtu.be/OnceJYyMiL8

Did the latest UE4 engine update have Vulkan API option? seems unifying to that could really save this game rather then them attempting to make the OpenGL renderer work (which they clearly can't)

It is better to have a fix that touches the right direction, but isn't good enough than no fix at all, because it indicates rendering logic has recently been worked on. Something recently worked on is more likely they still actively work on than some part of the code we haven't seen changes in months.

I think we have far more reason to be optimistic today than we had two weeks ago. That being said, we didn't have much reason for optimism two weeks ago, so having more reason doesn't necessarily mean we have to be optimistic.

Did the latest UE4 engine update have Vulkan API option?

Yes, latest UE4 has Vulkan.

This is just a situation of hard-love. If we allow our standards to be so low that we accept being treated as sub-equal to Windows, Mac and Consoles -- developers will be conditioned to treat us as so.

There's a time to call a developer out for product defects and a time to say please and thank you, -- they're all part of the same balance -- everything in its right proportion -- I'm glad to see this article in my feed today.

the developer will probably use this to show that linux sales are poor and not worth the trouble. That seems to happen all to often, never mind the fact people can't play their game.

If we want ark to be fixed, I think we must give ark the victories they get intended or not. That way they are less likely to see us as a mistake, too much support for too few buyers. Maybe it is too late, or maybe not. I hope it is not, because I believe this game can be fixed, and if it gets fixed, then it will be quite awesome.

Victories? ok here's a victory they'll love, I'm getting none of the problems Liam is getting, there's your victory, of course the damn game doesn't run anymore on my machine, but at least I'm not getting any of the problems Liam is getting.

eit: further on in this thread I found out the game is working, mostly, but the performance is still way off what it should be by now.


Last edited by lucifertdark on 18 August 2017 at 9:59 am UTC