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ARK: Survival Evolved [Steam] has a big update, this time finally updating their Unreal Engine code, but the Linux version is still quite broken graphically.
I decided to test it out, since their patch notes sounded promising and nope. Same issues as before, graphical glitches and completely broken water rendering. See for yourself:
You don't want to drink that water...
Coming out of the water also results in visual issues, with particles flying around everywhere. It's really not in a good state and considering the price £49.99 it's a damned joke.
The developers of ARK have been told about these issues, many times and over quite a while now. They never respond, not even to acknowledge these issues exist.
You can see their full patch notes here.
What a shame. This could have been one of the best survival games on Linux, but they've let the Linux version continue to rot. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I decided to test it out, since their patch notes sounded promising and nope. Same issues as before, graphical glitches and completely broken water rendering. See for yourself:
You don't want to drink that water...
Coming out of the water also results in visual issues, with particles flying around everywhere. It's really not in a good state and considering the price £49.99 it's a damned joke.
The developers of ARK have been told about these issues, many times and over quite a while now. They never respond, not even to acknowledge these issues exist.
You can see their full patch notes here.
What a shame. This could have been one of the best survival games on Linux, but they've let the Linux version continue to rot. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
trawzified Aug 16, 2017
You should update the thumbnail to one of those broken screenshots, more representative of the in-game experience.
7 Likes, Who?
Quoting: trawzYou should update the thumbnail to one of those broken screenshots, more representative of the in-game experience.Good point, done.
3 Likes, Who?
Their approach has been similar with the VR version. It's also terrible last I heard.
0 Likes
With the lastes nvidia drivers the cave problems are gone but the water still messed up, and the preformance is horrid!
1 Likes, Who?
Even if they fix it, I'm still not playing it because of that ridiculous reset system.
0 Likes
ElectricPrism Aug 16, 2017
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.
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.
3 Likes, Who?
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.
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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:
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
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
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