Ark Survival Evolved Notebook and Desktop Benchmarks

Dinosaur whisperer. It has been one of the most popular early-access titles of the last few years, and now that the dinosaur action spectacle Ark: Survival Evolved has been officially launched it is time to take a look at its system requirements to figure out whether or not the game gulps up computing power as fast as it does player avatars. Update: 25 Systems tested

Florian Glaser (translated by Martin Jungowski), Published 09/02/2017 🇩🇪 🇫🇷

Technology

After almost two years of early access on Steam, the survival game Ark has finally been officially released for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. First things first: even though the game is referred to as “final” and the developers had plenty of time to address the numerous bugs and issues reported during the early access period the game is still far from perfect. Despite the short period of time we spent with it we found numerous graphics glitches, sound bugs, clipping bugs, as well as other problems ranging from things like path finding to dinosaurs randomly falling out of the sky after loading a game. At least those were all minor glitches that didn’t have a massive impact on our overall gaming experience. The game’s overall system requirements have the potential to do so but we’ll get to that later.

But first, let’s cover the basics. The game is built around the Unreal Engine 4 by Epic Games that really shines in high details settings. In addition to crisp textures we adored the thick vegetation, the impressive weather effects, and the day/night rhythm. Lighting is also very nice even though we find it to be a bit exaggerated, resulting in reflections on all sorts of organic material that make it look like metal. Anti-aliasing is also not exactly stellar – even on its highest settings some objects, such as palm leaves, seem to flicker severely. Apparently, Ark is utilizing a rather simple post-processing anti-aliasing algorithm.

The settings menu is surprisingly extensive. While more detailed explanations would have been welcome the 30+ available options are impressive. Some settings can only be turned on or off, others can be fine-tuned more extensively (see screenshots below). Their respective impact on performance varies between negligible and massive. For those of us who prefer playing rather than fiddling with settings a total of four presets are available. Unfortunately, we find them to lack refinement. For example, the medium setting has some settings set to epic while the epic setting doesn’t necessarily mean that all settings are enabled or maxed out. Accordingly, some additional fine-tuning might be necessary.

One thing to note is that regardless of preset, Ark reduces the resolution via “Resolution Scale” somewhat to improve overall frame rates while at the same time resulting in a slightly mushy and blurry image. Thus, after selecting a new preset we had to manually reset this option to 100 % every time. In addition, we found it quite bothersome and annoying that some settings require a restart of the entire game, and more often than not a change in resolution had not been applied after restarting the game. The latter in particular needs to be addressed by the developers asap. In addition to powerful hardware, the game also requires a large hard drive. Despite a download size of only 16 GB once installed the game required around 60 GB without any additional mods installed. Loading times were decent with an SSD, loading from HDDs is obviously going to be significantly slower.

Benchmark

In order to achieve more consistent benchmark results we opted for the single-player instead of the multi-player mode. As can be seen in the video below the avatar is spawned in a newly created map, more specifically the “South Zone 1” map that is part of the “The Island” campaign.

The game stutters noticeably in the very beginning and frame rates obtained during this early period are highly unreliable. Consequently, we start our benchmark sequence the moment we were able to start moving the main character. Once we obtain control over the avatar, we sprint along the beach for roughly 20 seconds until we reach a predetermined point. Due to the random placement of dinosaurs slight variances in the frame rates obtained during this sprint sequence might occur. In addition, the random placement of dinosaurs also leads to occasional attacks by aggressive species early on, in which case we repeat the entire procedure. Although the time of day is one of the many random factors determined when launching the campaign, we found it to have almost no effect on frame rates. It does therefore not matter whether the benchmark is performed at virtual dawn, noon, or dusk.

Given that Survival Evolved is a first-person shooter (third-person perspective is optional) we’re aiming for an average of at least 35-40 FPS (consistent with our requirements for all other first-person shooters). A truly smooth gaming experience starts at around 60 FPS or more. As expected, the GPU has the biggest impact on performance and even high-performance graphics cards turn out to be a bottleneck. The microprocessor was only relevant on low settings and resolutions. Short and sudden FPS drops can be attributed to the less than optimal coding with lots of room for improvement.

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Results

As can be seen on the screenshots below the four presets have different effects on the overall gaming experience. While the main differences between medium, high, and epic are long distance rendering and details (high and epic mostly improve on vegetation in the distance) as well as shadows, the game is shabby and ugly on low due to a complete lack of shadows, mushy and poor textures, and a very short rendering distance.

Unfortunately, the higher settings come at a high price. In order to enjoy the game at FHD resolution (1920 x 1080) in the epic preset you will need at least a GeForce GTX 1070 or a GeForce GTX 1080. In other words: the crème de la crème of gaming GPUs. For the high preset and FHD resolution a GeForce GTX 1060 or GTX 980 will do fine, although with these the medium preset will offer a more reactive and overall smoother gaming experience. The AMD Radeon RX 480 GPU for desktops is in our tests a bit slower than the competing GeForce GTX 1060 and gets even beaten by the laptop version.

Midrange GPUs, such as the GeForce GTX 1050 (Ti), will only be able to render the game smoothly with medium details at lower resolutions (e.g. 1366 x 768). Multimedia laptops with a Geforce 940MX (DDR3) or Radeon R7 M440 (and the like) are not able to achieve playable framerates over 30fps in our tests. Therefore, office laptops with integrated graphics cards like the Intel UHD 620 are not able to display fluent framerates in Ark.

Ark Survival Evolved
3840x2160 Epic Preset (100 % Resolution Scale) 1920x1080 Epic Preset (100 % Resolution Scale) 1920x1080 High Preset (100 % Resolution Scale) 1920x1080 Medium Preset (100 % Resolution Scale) 1366x768 Medium Preset (100 % Resolution Scale) 1280x720 Low Preset (100 % Resolution Scale)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (Desktop), 4790K Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition	22.5 (21^min) fps ∼78% 58.5 (54^min) fps ∼61%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (Desktop), 6700K Desktop PC	17.6 (16^min) fps ∼61% 47.2 (44^min) fps ∼49% 70.1 (66^min) fps ∼67% 91.3 (70^min) fps ∼72% 127 (84^min) fps ∼100% 128 (85^min) fps ∼80%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (Desktop), 6700K Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070	15.1 (14^min) fps ∼52% 40.4 (38^min) fps ∼42% 59.4 (56^min) fps ∼57% 82.6 (73^min) fps ∼66% 118 (83^min) fps ∼93% 130 (85^min) fps ∼81%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Mobile, 6820HK Asus G752VS	13.8 (13^min) fps ∼48% 36.2 (34^min) fps ∼38% 54.3 (51^min) fps ∼52% 74.9 (66^min) fps ∼59% 101 (68^min) fps ∼80% 102 (68^min) fps ∼63%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (Desktop), 6700K Desktop PC	9.9 (9^min) fps ∼34% 27.1 (25^min) fps ∼28% 39.9 (38^min) fps ∼38% 54.6 (49^min) fps ∼43% 85.1 (74^min) fps ∼67% 126 (83^min) fps ∼78%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980, 6700K Desktop PC	9.4 (8^min) fps ∼32% 26.7 (25^min) fps ∼28% 39.7 (37^min) fps ∼38% 57.2 (53^min) fps ∼45% 88.2 (73^min) fps ∼69% 118 (74^min) fps ∼73%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile, 6820HK MSI GT62VR	9.1 (8^min) fps ∼31% 25 (23^min) fps ∼26% 37 (35^min) fps ∼36% 48.6 (46^min) fps ∼39% 76.7 (57^min) fps ∼60% 86.6 (60^min) fps ∼54%
AMD Radeon RX 480 (Desktop), 4790K AMD Radeon RX 480 8 GB Reference	23.3 (21^min) fps ∼24% 33.9 (32^min) fps ∼33% 47.3 (38^min) fps ∼38%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Mobile, i7-7700HQ MSI GE72 7RE-046	21.8 (20^min) fps ∼21% 31.6 (30^min) fps ∼25% 89 (55^min) fps ∼55%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Mobile, i7-7700HQ MSI GL62M 7RD-077	16.5 (12^min) fps ∼16% 24.3 (23^min) fps ∼19% 76 (64^min) fps ∼47%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M, 6700HQ MSI GE72 965M Ti	24.5 (23^min) fps ∼19% 78 (51^min) fps ∼48%
NVIDIA GeForce MX150, i7-7700HQ MSI PL62 MX150 7700HQ	13.5 (12^min) fps ∼11% 53.8 (47^min) fps ∼33%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M, 6700HQ MSI PE60 2QD	10.3 (9^min) fps ∼10% 15.3 (14^min) fps ∼12% 53.7 (49^min) fps ∼33%
NVIDIA GeForce 940MX, 6700HQ MSI CX72 6QD	7 (6^min) fps ∼6% 26.4 (23^min) fps ∼16%
NVIDIA GeForce 940M, 5700HQ MSI GP62 2QD	7.5 (6^min) fps ∼6% 28.2 (25^min) fps ∼18%
NVIDIA GeForce 920M, 2970M MSI CX61 2QC 2970M MS-16GD	16.6 (15^min) fps ∼10%

Overview

Test systems

System	Graphics Card	Processor	RAM	Operating System
Desktop-PC I	MSI GeForce GTX 1080 (8 GB GDDR5X) MSI GeForce GTX 1070 (8 GB GDDR5) Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (6 GB GDDR5) Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 (4 GB GDDR5)	Intel Core i7-6700K	2 x 8 GB DDR4	Windows 10 64 Bit
Desktop-PC II	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (11 GB GDDR5X) Asus GeForce GTX 980 Ti (6 GB GDDR5) XFX Radeon R9 Fury (4 GB HBM) Sapphire Radeon R9 290X (4 GB GDDR5) Sapphire Radeon R9 280X (3 GB GDDR5) MSI Radeon R7 370 (2 GB GDDR5)	Intel Core i7-4790K	2 x 4 GB DDR3	Windows 10 64 Bit
Asus G752VS	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 (8 GB GDDR5)	Intel Core i7-6820HK	4 x 16 GB DDR4	Windows 10 64 Bit
MSI GT62VR	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (6 GB GDDR5)	Intel Core i7-6820HK	4 x 8 GB DDR4	Windows 10 64 Bit
MSI GE72	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (4 GB GDDR5)	Intel Core i7-7700HQ	2 x 4 GB DDR4	Windows 10 64 Bit
Asus GL753VD	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 (4 GB GDDR5)	Intel Core i7-7700HQ	2 x 8 GB DDR4	Windows 10 64 Bit
MSI GL62	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 (2 GB GDDR5)	Intel Core i7-7700HQ	2 x 4 GB DDR4	Windows 10 64 Bit
MSI GE72	Nvidia GeForce GTX 965M (2 GB GDDR5)	Intel Core i7-6700HQ	1 x 8 GB DDR4	Windows 10 64 Bit
MSI PE60	Nvidia GeForce GTX 950M (2 GB GDDR5)	Intel Core i7-6700HQ	2 x 4 GB DDR4	Windows 10 64 Bit
MSI GP62	Nvidia GeForce 940M (2 GB DDR3)	Intel Core i7-5700HQ	1 x 8 GB DDR3	Windows 10 64 Bit
MSI CX61	Nvidia GeForce 920M (2 GB DDR3)	Intel Celeron 2970M	1 x 8 GB DDR3	Windows 10 64 Bit
Asus N551ZU	AMD Radeon R9 M280X (4 GB GDDR5)	AMD FX-7600P	2 x 4 GB DDR3	Windows 10 64 Bit

4K monitor	Nvidia driver	AMD driver
2 x Asus PB287Q, Philips 328P6VJEB	ForceWare 385.41	Crimson 17.8.2

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Editor of the original article: Sebastian Jentsch - Managing Editor Consumer Laptops - 1751 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2010

Computers always had an important place in my life, starting with an Intel 80286 microprocessor in the early 1990s. I became interested in the productive side of technology, especially in campus radio, while studying at TU Chemnitz and during a trainee program in Belfast. Hardware interests led me to manage Notebookjournal.de, which is now a division of Notebooksbilliger, for a few years. I became self-employed in 2010 and took the next logical step in my career by starting to write for Notebookcheck.

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Translator: Finn D Boerne - Translator - 450 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2017

Born in the United States and raised in Germany I became acquainted with both languages from an early age and turned this into my profession later in life. Computers have always played an important role in my life, and my love for all things digital is a huge part of my daily routine. Virtual Reality has captured my imagination and interest in particular, and I cannot wait to see what the (near) future will bring.

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > Reviews > Ark Survival Evolved Notebook and Desktop Benchmarks

Florian Glaser, 2017-09- 2 (Update: 2024-08-15)

Legend
5	Stutters – This game is very likely to stutter and have poor frame rates. Based on all known benchmarks using the specified graphical settings, average frame rates are expected to fall below 25fps
	May Stutter – This graphics card has not been explicitly tested on this game. Based on interpolated information from surrounding graphics cards of similar performance levels, stutters and poor frame rates are expected.
30	Fluent – Based on all known benchmarks using the specified graphical settings, this game should run at or above 25fps
40	Fluent – Based on all known benchmarks using the specified graphical settings, this game should run at or above 35fps
60	Fluent – Based on all known benchmarks using the specified graphical settings, this game should run at or above 58fps
	May Run Fluently – This graphics card has not been explicitly tested on this game. Based on interpolated information from surrounding graphics cards of similar performance levels, fluent frame rates are expected.
?	Uncertain – This graphics card experienced unexpected performance issues during testing for this game. A slower card may be able to achieve better and more consistent frame rates than this particular GPU running the same benchmark scene.
	Uncertain – This graphics card has not been explicitly tested on this game and no reliable interpolation can be made based on the performances of surrounding cards of the same class or family.
The value in the fields displays the average frame rate of all values in the database. Move your cursor over the value to see individual results.