Ark Survival Ascended PS5/Xbox/PC - Legendarily Sub-Optimal... And Now On UE5!

This ground-up remake of Ark Survival Evolved moves to UE5 with a bevy of new visual features - starting with Lumen, Nanite, volumetric clouds and updated physics. The performance cost runs deep on console though, leading to a 20-40fps range with full screen tearing. On the plus side, Ascended offers a small reprieve via a console command menu, letting us tweak select settings on PS5, Series X and S - so can we better optimise the game ourselves for 60fps?

00:00 Intro/Ark Survival Ascended Upgrades
03:28 PS5 vs Xbox Series X/S Visual Comparisons
06:59 PC's Epic Settings Tested
08:13 Command Console Explained
10:04 Xbox Series S Frame-Rate Test
14:07 Xbox Series X Frame-Rate Test
16:19 PS5 Frame-Rate Test
19:08 Verdict

[AstsH]

YOU DID IT ARK DEVS. You made Digital foundry make optimized settings on a console game. what an historic moment for better or probably for worse

[sambagogo]

450p at 13fps.

What a time to be alive.

[Blade]

So what optimisations have you done for Ark? Developers: no

[Jaycy]

It performing that bad on a 4080 is the biggest red flag I’ve ever seen in my life

[mediocresumo]

native 360p on current gen is fucking crazy

[GordonGordon]

I always get the feeling with the Ark games that they have awful technical knowhow. It constantly feels like their games turn on features for the sake of advertising that they're the first there. And then there are zero optimizations. "Just because we can" is rarely a good reason for anything.

[carbonium]

If there is one thing I did not expect in 2024 its Digital Foundry turning into Low Spec Gamer CONSOLE EDITION

[DravenxEyeless]

In my mind I picture ARK developers just buying UE assets and putting them together as they come along with basic gameplay stuff, without actually knowing how to program.

[BradJohannsen]

"Legendarily suboptimal"

My goodness

[CollapseWatch]

Series S version looks like the camera is covered in Vaseline

[floriankolbleitner]

"Can it run Crysis? Yes? But can it run Ark Survival Ascended?"

[itsuadman]

Why wouldnt the consoles just cap it at 30? It was nowhere even close to 60

[joshc]

Console games are not supposed to be DIY troubleshooting to get good framerates - avoiding DIY is like the whole point of consoles.

[GraveUypo]

Ark has always been a reliable showcase of how not to make a game

[xtr.]

At least we have a preview of what ark 2 will be like

[Resuarus]

I love how their idea of a better looking game is to scatter more debris everywhere haphazardly. More geometry = better!

[sclurpsclurp]

I hate how on pc you either have volumetrics on or off, no scaling it down. The way they applied volumetric effects to the game is akin to Homer Simpson's makeup shotgun and I think performance would be so much better (without too many visual sacrifices) if we could just tone it dooown.

[documentthedrama]

ps5 360p not achieving 60 fps
optimisation

[alumlovescake]

3 games and 3 scams what an achivement!

[PenningtonFamYT]

This game is a scam, pure and simple. They stopped updating the broken UE4 version people paid for that remained unfinished even with a 1.0 release. All of the promises they made to fix meshing and continue fixing the game only made it's way into the (again broken) UE5 version that would now cost an additional amount. The icing on the cake is a total monopoly over private server hosting through a Nitrado insider deal that was disguised as a "helping hand" for a studio "running out of money." Vote with your wallet folks.