I run it on ultra on my i7-3820, 16GB ram, nvidia 1060 3GB computer. It lag while it saves, and on an earlier version it lagged when I walked far away from where I had been before because it generated the landscape, but other than that I cannot complain about performance. Planet Nomads run better for me than both rust and ark.

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This is a game with great potential and is quite fun in early access. I have 30 hours on steam, and plan to play it more as it developed. I haven't played for 2 months now, so all changes from 0.6.4 and newer are new for me. This includes the 0.6.6 update where electrical generators started to require fuel and the 0.6.11 which added a winch to help move a vehicle out of too steep slopes.

Last I played I drove my car into holes in the ground a lot and spent quite some time dismantling my car to rebuild it outside. From the changelog I see there are fewer holes now, and combined with the winch, driving should be a safer experience.

As for testing out the game there are both a survival mode and a sandbox mode where all construction is free and unlocked from the start. I prefer survival, but sandbox is nice to prototype huge constructions, and car designs. You get your parts back when dismantling, but last I played you couldn't convert parts back into raw materials.

If you count how many of each part you use, you can easily figure out how much resources you need to duplicate it in the normal game.

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It is a quite good game, but I played it too much already(153 hours on steam) so I get bored too quickly every time I start playing.

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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?

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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

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There are many games I regret buying, but ark isn't one of them. Most games for linux these days, especially AAA titles, are not fun for me and I regret buying some of them. It doesn't mean the games are bad, they just aren't for me. The same way ARK is a great game for those who don't get too put off by the graphical glitches, and/or are lucky and get fewer of them. The game can still be quite fun, even with the glitches, on a friendly server.

ARK on linux has come a long way. During the last year performance has increased and the glitches has decreased quite a lot. The only regression I experienced was the non-transparent ugly ocean. Because I have played a lot, I keep seeing areas that I remember was either bad, but now is quite good, or areas that were plain and boring that are now beautiful even on medium graphics.

I will not recommend it over $20 at this point, and only for people who are willing to tweak settings and overlook/workaround graphical issues. ARK is a great game that have issues that may or may not be gamebreaking, depending on point of view. The limited vision I experienced in caves before this patch is quite a lot more game-breaking on a hostile PVP server than a friendly server.

I much rather have an enjoyable game with broken graphics, than a game that isn't enjoyable with great graphics.

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It is better to have a fix that touches the right direction, but isn't good enough than no fix at all, because it indicates rendering logic has recently been worked on. Something recently worked on is more likely they still actively work on than some part of the code we haven't seen changes in months.

I think we have far more reason to be optimistic today than we had two weeks ago. That being said, we didn't have much reason for optimism two weeks ago, so having more reason doesn't necessarily mean we have to be optimistic.

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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.

I'm sorry, I meant the title, and the overall tone in the article was misleading for the state of ark on linux in general. Not that your experience was misleading. The experience is an important part of the state, but it is not the full picture, and I thought your article was meant to show the whole picture. I cannot tell if I read it wrong, or if it is written in a way that is easy to misread.

I don't agree that the state of ark on linux is terrible. It is graphically not too great and was terrible before this fix, but the cave issue seems to be fixed in the renderer, if it doesn't use files generated by old version. At this point the water bug is an inconvenience, but it can mostly be worked around by swimming under water when you do water stuff. It is still not good, but it is more an inconvenience that shouldn't be there than a game breaking bug. The cave issue was more game breaking, but I think the new render is able to do it well, if it doesn't use old data that confuses it. I think a clean install would work, e.g. delete all configs and restore the default ones via steam, but I don't have enough data to say for sure.

I am sorry for all the heat in my comments.

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: KetilArticles like this might discourage further fixes because we don't compliment them for what they actually have done, and claim they are not fixing anything. We should complain about what is wrong, but not claim what they have fixed is still broken.

What have they done exactly? Ignore bugs for many months, pull in some Unreal Engine code which gave some people an FPS boost. I won't compliment them, since they're still obviously not putting any effort into the Linux version. This is very clear.

If we want ark to be fixed, I think we must give ark the victories they get intended or not. That way they are less likely to see us as a mistake, too much support for too few buyers. Maybe it is too late, or maybe not. I hope it is not, because I believe this game can be fixed, and if it gets fixed, then it will be quite awesome.

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I think this article should have waited until we had done a bit more research because as it is now, it is misleading for the state of ark on linux as a whole. It paints an important part of the picture, but not the whole picture. Articles like this might discourage further fixes because we don't compliment them for what they actually have done, and claim they are not fixing anything. We should complain about what is wrong, but not claim what they have fixed is still broken.

This patch fix most issues for me, although I still have the ugly ocean and a few minor issues. Talking to other people it seems to be some sort of cache or old config file prevents it from working without manual steps. We should complain that it needs manual steps, not that it doesn't fix anything. We should also find out if manual tweaking is enough to fix it for everyone.

I think one or more of these steps help:

• Reset graphical settings, don't just change it


• Restart the game client


• Reset singleplayer settings, and launch in singleplayer

I encourage everyone who want this game to work to test out these things and see if it fix it. Feel free to try other things as well, the more settings you reset to factory, the more likely I think it is to work.

This is a cave on medium settings on linux:

I had lots of issues with it glitching out before the patch. Before the patch it was like image 2-3 in the article. After patch, those issues are gone. If they fix the water, and manage to make the fixed renderer work out of the box despite old config and cache, then it is release quality for sure. Until then, I'd say it is playable, but in an early alpha state.

*EDIT: Clarified the statement about misleading article, to explain in which way I thought it was misleading.

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This patch seems to make the game much better. I played a lot of train fever, but gradually stopped because it lacked too many things. Transport fever is a realy upgrade to it, but it wasn't enough for me to really play it much, but this patch might be what it was lacking.

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