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ARK Graphics
Ehvis Jul 30, 2016
I tried ARK again (second time after the free weekend a while ago). It seems to have gotten worse since then. Although I can run high/epic settings on my current hardware, the game still looks crap compared to what it should do. Part of that is due to bugs like reflections messing up. But I also have the idea that half the graphics is missing from Linux version. Especially the environment looks barren as if the vegetation has been dialled down. Maybe to compensate for the expected lesser performance? Has anybody ever compared that to the Windows version?
GustyGhost Jul 31, 2016
The branch of Unreal Engine they are using causes reflection/particle bug regardless of what driver you use and they don't plan to update their OpenGL target until closer to release.
Joeyboots80 Aug 7, 2016
Holy crap. I am glad I read this because i was just about to buy it. I will wait a bit longer for them to update their Linux version and get it up to par before I get it. Thanks guys! :)
Xpander Aug 7, 2016
Ground clutter is missing from linux version. Thisone should make the ground texture green under the small grass, sandy near the beaches and so on, the reason it looks barren.

True Sky is missing. it makes the sky look less detailed, moon is small dot and there are no cloud reflections on the water/ground

Tesselation is missing. It should add small details near rocks and beaches. like small tree branches on the ground, footprints and plantprints on the sand etc.


Rest of the options are working, except broken shaders. black water glitch, colored rain glitch, black rain glitch. usually goes away when you go far from the bug area and load up new region and then return.


They are still using UE4.5, which is super old, linux version is also stuck at opengl3.3 not having any 4.x features.
Ehvis Aug 7, 2016
This time I had a lot of lighting glitches which I didn't remember from the first free weekend. Sky bloom was so bad it made half the screen white. At night I had all kinds of light streaks across the screen (they looked like the effects coming from the pods going haywire when you weren't facing them). And the general night lighting from coloured lights just didn't look right.

The barren ground is especially bad on the medium distance. Like a hilltop on the other side of the river looking like a small repeating texture.

Anyway, they'll need to update if they want to get that DX12 in. If they wait a bit more, it may have Vulkan too.
slaapliedje Aug 8, 2016
Isn't it just a matter usually of importing the assets into a newer UE version? It really does need full on Vulkan support. Is this due to Mac port that it still has an older OpenGL (I think they have version 4.2, right?) ARK has been broken for a very long time on Linux.
Xpander Aug 8, 2016
Quoting: slaapliedjeIsn't it just a matter usually of importing the assets into a newer UE version? It really does need full on Vulkan support. Is this due to Mac port that it still has an older OpenGL (I think they have version 4.2, right?) ARK has been broken for a very long time on Linux.

it would be matter of just updating the engine, if they didnt use too much custom code and shitloads of thirdparty plugins that may break with newer versions
GustyGhost Aug 11, 2016
Quoting: slaapliedjeIsn't it just a matter usually of importing the assets into a newer UE version? It really does need full on Vulkan support. Is this due to Mac port that it still has an older OpenGL (I think they have version 4.2, right?) ARK has been broken for a very long time on Linux.

They have stated that they don't want to be chasing "a moving target" until after the game is finalized. Linux will remain on UE branch 4.5 until after release. But that doesn't mean they aren't fixing things. Just recently, Wildcard added/fixed skybox textures and lighting for the Linux build which helps... a little. And I'm pretty sure the black rivers/particle glitch is caused by alpha dinos being nearby but don't quote me on that. Turn down your bloom all the way and the glitch isn't so annoying.
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