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

Quoting: liamdaweI am curious. For those who say the caves work fine for them, what NVIDIA driver version are you running? I have a feeling it's a driver fix, not a game fix. It would certainly help explain that even after wiping everything possible, that I still experience it.

The 384.59.

I run arch not upgraded for 9 days. I tried ark before and after the new patch, and it was definitely the patch that changed it from not working to working. I checked out caves about a week ago without upgrading after, and they didn't work then. It is possible that the new renderer code only is better with the right driver though.

I have nvidia 384.59


Last edited by Ketil on 17 August 2017 at 11:38 am UTC

Quoting: poisondNope, the title and the article are pretty appropriate. The state of ARK on linux is abominable.

For some it works great, for others not so great. It is correct to say that linux users have very different experience with the game. I still think this article implies that the patch fixed nothing at all for any linux users, while it clearly did for me and a few others.

Quoting: poisondinput for non-US keyboards: broken, never got fixed

This is true. I run us keyboard layout, and ark was actually the software that made me switch. This is not a fix, it is a workaround, so we should continue complaining about this. Even on us keyboard layout the numpad doesn't work, so if we want shortcut for taming groups(quick select of e.g. all rexes), we have to edit the ini files manually to reassign them to some other keybinding.

Quoting: poisondcaves: unplayable due to graphics glitches, never got fixed

Caves has been partially fixed. They have been fixed for me and a few others, but not for everyone. If we find out why, then it might be easier for them to fix it.

Quoting: poisondwater rendering: never got fixed, just in various states of brokenness

This is true, we should keep complaining about this.

Quoting: poisondperformance: abominable, no improvement ever on linux, only got worse over time

This is not true. I have had lots of improvements the last year. From risking the game to crash my computer when in a large base on heavily customized graphics settings, it runs quite smooth on medium preset now. It is quite possible that the fixes don't work for everyone though, and again, it would be nice to identify why they don't work.

Quoting: poisondcountless other graphics glitches: never fixed, just varied in the frequency they got triggered

Here is a list of my experiences:

• Black rain: fixed


• Farming: fixed


• Black water in caves: fixed


• Sparkling water in cave: not fixed, looks like partially intended from random youtube video


• Black cloud when using pickaxe/hatchet on rock: Fixed


• Black cloud under walking dino: fixed


• Black waterfall: Mostly fixed. Still a few black particles left, but they are not many


• Black snow in the arctic(the falling snow, not the ground texture): not fixed

Most glitches I have left are quite minor, and I can only see them if I look for them. On the other hand the ocean surface bug is not a minor one, and is hard to overlook.

I am curious, does everyone with radeon have regressions? Does anyone on radeon experience any improvement from this patch?

So, there have been improvements for some players.
For some players, there has been no improvement.
It seems that overall there is still a big proportion of users for which the quality is unacceptable.

From this I'd say "still terrible on linux" is pretty much accurate.

I really want to believe in Ark, but there's a strong impression that any improvement was rather accidental than intentional (added to their zero communication about linux problems).

Honest question- do they even have anyone doing any linux work, or do they just have a calendar reminder to press 'export for linux' in UE4 when it's time?

Ok I have to admit I was wrong, the game DOES start for me, but the DLC The Centre is the part that crashes the game, I've just tried it again with the same result, Ragnarok, The Island & Procedural maps work, the water looks horrible & the giant light eating black boulders are offputting to say the least.

I still hold this game in a positive light. Not defending it. It does have a lot bugs and glitches with the Linux client. That being said it still the most played game in my library. I still have hope its all going to work out.


Last edited by Nor Mantis on 18 August 2017 at 4:06 am UTC

Yesterday I played about 3 hours with my son on Ark. We have both (me on pc and my son on his laptop, both latest Nvidia 384.59 drivers) no problems, except the annoying grey water and me some red light shadows on the right screen side.
But I have to say the graphic has been improved, not so much as on windows, but I saw a nicer Sky and better textures on long distances. It's worth to try it.

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: KetilI 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.

Liam, I do think he is right in that you as a reporter should take a more moderate stance. Yes, I see you as a reporter trying to be as objective as possible.
It doesn't take away that their communication is very very bad, but that's towards everyone. And in the salty environment they are in, I can't blame them:
"I got an update, but there is no changelog, what a bunch of loosers",
"The changelog has been updated, but I can't download it, what a bunch of loosers", this being only a small thing of which they never can get right, and the wording has been made a bit less offending.
We don't want a "the witcher 2" debacle. As such, please use words like: "I am slightly dissappointed". As a matter of fact: ark is *the* game we can have a reversed effect, as the comments are so toxic I want to just completely filter out those that have not learned that word respect. Unfortunately it's impossible.

Anyway, it is good to hear the caves are fixed if we follow Ketils steps. When I read about the updated engine, I suspected we need to do something, usually that's noted in the changelog though. Despite those glitches, this game has me hooked in a fun way, that I was even considering removing it and all data from my computer. And now my new base is at liams server so I can't even delete that 8-D.

If I feel a game is terrible, I'm sorry, but I won't sugar-coat it. Saying something is terrible isn't being hostile, it's giving my honest opinion on it. There's a large difference between calling developers names and using a normal adjective to describe the state of something.

If it was cheaper, I would probably be a little more understanding, but again, this is a £49.99 game. It's not cheap, it's about to release soon and their support of the Linux version has been awful.

Believe me, I want to play it, I personally purchased myself a copy of it. When they fix Linux issues properly and give us a tiny bit more support, I will happily change my stance.

I have to compare this to Rust, which recently had an issue where on Linux no players or animals could be seen unless they were close to you. The developers acknowledged it and fixed it within 1-2 days. That's reasonable, and you would have probably noticed how I've had a complete turn-around on my thoughts of the developers and the game, because they deserve it for actually supporting Linux and fixing issues.