Boot Options
When you first boot up ARK there are a variety of boot options. This is most likely done in order to increase performance on various systems due to suboptimal optimization.
Launch ARK (Extremely Low Memory)
This setting is recommended for systems with less than 4GB of RAM. It makes the game look quite a bit worse (though it is impossible to get a side-by-side-comparison), but can cause up to an 80% FPS increase.
Launch ARK ('No Sky Effects')
This setting disables some of the Sky effects seen in Ark. On most systems it won’t have a major impact, but may decrease CPU usage a little.
Launch ARK (Low Memory 4GB)
This setting makes ARK look a bit worse but still manages to get the same FPS as in the normal boot mode. It does, however, cause there to be less FPS drops. If your FPS is dipping regularly, this setting could be a good solution.
The majority of the following benchmarks will use the first, typical option: “Play ARK: Survival Evolved”. However, we will also do benchmarks for “Extremely Low Memory,” “‘No Sky Effects,’” and “Low Memory 4GB” to see how these affect performance, especially because it will be pertinent to those with lower-end systems. The others are for playing on different servers or re-setting features so these won’t really affect performance.
In-game, there is also an option menu, which is where the vast majority of setting tweaking is done.
Resolution
Resolution simply affects the display resolution of the game. Higher resolutions will perform worse than lower. For example, there is around an 18% performance impact between gaming at 1080p and 900p resolution.
Graphics Quality
These are the graphics presets which the game uses. Options include Low, Medium, High, and Epic
Drag the cursor to compare Graphics Quality on Low and on Epic.
Drag the cursor to compare Graphics Quality on High and on Epic.
Resolution Scale
Resolution Scale is a slider which changes the render quality. Maxing out the slider will display the game at the set resolution, while lowering it will display it at a lower resolution. This causes a loss in image quality but bump in performance.
World Tile Buffers
This affects the amount of graphics memory used to render areas of the map that the player isn’t in. Areas and models are stored in buffer, leading to quicker loading times when going into different areas. Increasing it will lead to better load times and no performance impact on higher-end system, while those with VRAM and RAM may see a performance difference. This is hard to quantify, however, and varies from system to system.
View Distance
This is the maximum distance at which ARK will load models and environments. Lowering it increases performance at the cost of the visual fidelity of farway objects.
Performance impact: ~15% between Low and Epic.
Anti-Aliasing
Anti-aliasing smoothes the edges of objects and models, making them appear less jagged.
Performance impact: ~20% between Low and Epic.
Drag the cursor to compare Anti-Aliasing on Low and on Epic.
Post Processing
This setting controls visual effects, such as bloom, depth blurring, portal distortion, character lines, light rays, and scene tinting.
Performance impact: ~10-12% between Low and Epic. (Varies slightly by location.)
Drag the cursor to compare Post Processing on Low and on Epic.
General Shadows
General shadows adjusts the quality, intensity, and abundance of the majority of shadows in the game.
Performance impact: ~25% between Low and Epic.
Drag the cursor to compare General Shadows on Low and on Epic.
Terrain Shadows
Terrain shadows adjusts the quality, intensity, and abundance of certain terrain specific shadows not covered under general shadows.
Performance impact: ~15% between Low and Epic.
Drag the cursor to compare Terrain Shadows on Low and on Epic.
Textures
Textures controls the texture quality of models in the game. Surprisingly, this setting has a big impact on visuals without having a significant impact on performance.
Performance impact: ~2-3% between Low and Epic.
Drag the cursor to compare Textures on Low and on Epic.
Sky Quality
Sky quality is a slider which affects the quality of the sky. This doesn't have a huge impact on performance, but it does change the game's visuals enormously.
Performance impact: ~5% between Lowest and Highest.
Drag the cursor to compare Sky Quality on Lowest and on Highest.
Ground Clutter Density
This slider affects the amount of clutter that you can view on the ground. These often include bones, shells, and sticks, for instance.
Performance impact: ~15% between Lowest and Highest.
Drag the cursor to compare Ground Clutter on Lowest and on Highest.
Ground Clutter Distance
This slider affects the distance from which ground clutter can be viewed.
Performance impact: ~5-7% between Lowest and Highest.
Drag the cursor to compare Ground Clutter Distance on Lowest and on Highest.
High Quality Anisotropic Filtering
Anisotropic filtering is a method of enhancing the quality of textures that are at oblique viewing angles. Basically, it makes things look a little smoother sometimes, and generally has no major impact on performance.
Performance impact: Negligible.
Drag the cursor to compare Anisotropic Filtering Off and On.
Motion Blur
Motion blur provides a streaking visual effect on objects or characters which are moving, but has no performance impact. Turn it on if you like it!
Performance impact: Negligible
Film Grain
Film grain adds a grain filter to the visuals, making it look like older film. It doesn’t affect performance, so turn it on if you like it!
Performance impact: Negligible
Distance Field Ambient Occlusion
This setting deals with shading and rendering for how exposed each point in a scene that is exposed to ambient lighting. It doesn’t seem to have a noticeable performance impact, but this may change with location in the game world and future updates.
Performance impact: Negligible
Drag the cursor to compare Distance Field Ambient Occlusion Off and On.
Screen Space Ambient Occlusion
This setting, similarly to Distance Field Ambient Occlusion, deals with shading and rendering for how exposed each point in a scene that is exposed to ambient lighting.
Performance impact: ~10-12% between Off and On.
Drag the cursor to compare Screen Space Ambient Occlusion Off and On.
Distance Field Shadowing
This setting primarily deals with shadows of objects in the distance, as far as I can tell. It is also worth noting that turning this off supposedly makes it easier to see at night.
Performance impact: ~12-15% between Off and On.
Drag the cursor to compare Distance Field Shadowing Off and On.
Simple Distance Character Movement
This setting affects the animations of characters and dinosaurs in the distance. It sets them to their most basic possible form which will decrease CPU usage a little bit. It is hard to tell how much impact this setting has, but if your CPU is maxing out then it is worth turning off.
High Quality LODs
This setting basically improves the quality of LOD files, making the meshes look a bit better.
Performance impact: Negligible.
Extra Level Streaming Distance
This setting appears to deal with the loading and unloading of map files into memory, so it likely affects moving between map tiles.
Performance impact: Generally negligible, except on low-memory systems.
Drag the cursor to compare Extra Level Streaming Distance Off and On.
Color Grading
Color grading is basically a process which alters the colors visible in the game. In the instance of ARK, it seems to make colors just a little bit brighter. It doesn’t have a noticeable FPS impact, so use it if you like the effect!
Performance impact: Negligible.
Drag the cursor to compare Color Grading Off and On.
Mesh Level of Detail
This setting is relatively self-explanatory. Turning the slider up to the highest setting results in the high quality meshes, while turning it down makes the meshes look worse.
Performance impact: ~25-30% between Lowest and Highest.
Drag the cursor to compare Mesh Level of Detail on Lowest and Highest.
Note About Other Settings
We were unable to test the settings Dynamic Tessellation, High Quality Materials, Sub Surface Scattering, and High Quality VFX. These say that they require restart to work, but when we saved our settings and restarted the game, they remained deselected. This is likely a glitch in the game, but at any rate it was impossible to know their performance impact and their influence on the game's visuals.
