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Best Settings for ARK: Survival Ascended (ASA)

Actually too dangerous to go alone.

ARK: Survival Ascended is a survival game that you can enjoy solo or with a friend, but before you jump in, you’ll want to make sure your settings are all in order. Even that can be overwhelming though, so here’s a full breakdown of the best settings to use for ARK: Survival Ascended as a solo player, and for folks looking to optimize performance or graphics.

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Best Performance Settings for ARK: Survival Ascended

First off, let’s go over the best PC settings to go for in ARK: Survival Ascended if you’re looking to prioritize framerate and performance. Listed below are all of the options you can fiddle with, and what you should set them to:

SettingOption
Advanced GraphicsLow
View DistanceLow
TexturesLow
Post ProcessingLow
General ShadowsLow
Global Illumination QualityLow
Effects QualityLow
Foliage QualityLow
Motion BlurOff
Light BloomOff
Light ShaftsOff
Low-Light EnhancementOff
Enable Foliage and Fluid InteractionOff
Foliage Interaction Distance Multiplier0.01
Foliage Interaction Distance Limit1
Enable Footstep ParticlesOff
Enable Footstep DecalsOff
GUI 3D Widget Quality0.5

Of course, if your PC rig is well and above the recommended specs for ASA, you can feel free to turn some of these on to make the game look a little prettier. Generally, the most taxing options here are General Shadows, Light Bloom and Shafts, and the Foliage Interaction settings. You may want to consider setting those to a minimum as you fiddle with the other options.

Best Graphics Settings

On the other end of the spectrum, while you could just set everything to a maximum to make the game look extra pretty, we don’t necessarily recommend that either even if your PC crushes the recommended specs. There are still a few optimization issues with the game that could get exacerbated if you’re playing everything on maximum.

That said, here are the settings to consider if you want the game to look its best:

SettingOption
Advanced GraphicsLow
View DistanceMedium
TexturesHigh
Post ProcessingHigh
General ShadowsHigh
Global Illumination QualityMedium
Effects QualityMedium
Foliage QualityHigh
Motion BlurOff
Light BloomOn
Light ShaftsOn
Low-Light EnhancementOn
Enable Foliage and Fluid InteractionOn
Foliage Interaction Distance Multiplier0.5
Foliage Interaction Distance Limit1
Enable Footstep ParticlesOn
Enable Footstep DecalsOn
GUI 3D Widget Quality0.5

Related: What Is The Best Gaming Monitor Size? on Dot Esports

Best Settings for Solo Players

Finally, if you’re planning on playing ARK: Survival Ascended as a solo player, there are some settings you should tweak to make it more manageable, especially if you’re on a first playthrough. Here are the recommended settings for that:

Player Settings

SettingOption
Damage1
Resistance1
Water Drain0.7
Food Drain0.7
Stamina Drain0.7
Health Recovery1
Harvesting Damage2

Creature Settings

SettingOption
Max Count1
Damage1
Resistance1
Food Drain0.5
Stamina Drain1
Health Recovery1
Harvesting Damage5
Turret Damage1
Disable TamingOff
Disable RidingOff

And those are the best settings to consider for ARK: Survival Ascended. Be sure to search for Twinfinite for more tips and information on the game, including a full breakdown of the dinosaurs in-game and how to turn off clouds.


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Author
Image of Zhiqing Wan
Zhiqing Wan
Zhiqing is the Reviews Editor for Twinfinite, and a History graduate from Singapore. She's been in the games media industry for nine years, trawling through showfloors, conferences, and spending a ridiculous amount of time making in-depth spreadsheets for min-max-y RPGs. When she's not singing the praises of Amazon's Kindle as the greatest technological invention of the past two decades, you can probably find her in a FromSoft rabbit hole.