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Ark Won’t Launch: How to Fix If it’s Crashing on Startup

Solve the ARK issues using out complete guide

8 min. read

Updated onOctober 4, 2023

updated onOctober 4, 2023

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Key notes

ARK: Survival Evolvedis a popular action game that gained massive popularity during the last few years. Of course, the game has its fair share of issues, and in this article, we’ll see how to fix those issues in Windows 10.

ARK: Survival Evolved players have experienced low frame rates, graphical glitches, crashes, freezing loading screens, and many other problems, so let’s see how to fix these problems.

How can I solve ARK crashes, low FPS, and glitches?

1. Update your drivers

There are reports saying that ARK: Survival Evolved suffers from crashes. According to this information, the game crashes on startup while loading, or it displays ablack screenbefore it crashes.

This makes the game almost unplayable, and so far, the only solution is to update your drivers and try to run the game again.

Updating drivers manually is very annoying so we strongly recommend youdownload and installOutbyte Driver Updaterto do it automatically.

Thus, you will prevent file loss and even permanent damage to your computer by downloading and installing the wrong driver versions.

You don’t even have to click on anything because when you open the program, it automatically starts scanning your drive for any problems with your drivers.

After a few minutes, Outbyte Driver Updater will provide you with a list of recommendeddriversto update.

That’s the only part where you have to intervene and decide which drivers to install separately or if you want to update all of them by clicking on theSelect Allbox from the top of the list.

As you might have imagined, for individual installation, you need to check the corresponding box from the left of the drivers’ names and click the install button from their right.

Outbyte Driver Updater

2. Reinstall Visual C++ Redistributables

It has been reported that ARK: Survival Evolved comes with certain graphical glitches such as green water and black sky. This looks quite unnatural in the game, but there’s a way to fix that:

3. Cancel the download or restart Steam

This is a minor problem, but it has been reported that the game gets stuck downloading at 99%.

To fix this, you can simply cancel the download and the game will automatically finish downloading, or you can simply restartSteam.

4. Run the game in compatibility mode

5. Make sure that you’re running a 64-bit version of Windows 10

If the game won’t start on your computer, this might be due to the 32-bit version of Windows 10.

ARK: Survival Evolved is designed to work with 64-bit operating systems. If you’re using a 32-bit operating system and you really want to play ARK: Survival Evolved, maybe you should consider switching to a 64-bit version of Windows.

6. Set your View Distance to Epic

If you’re having frame rate issues while playing ARK: Survival Evolved, maybe you should change View Distance to Epic in the game options.

We have to admit that this solution seems a bit unusual, but it seems that developers have optimized Epic settings in the game, and users have reported betterperformanceafter changing View Distance to Epic.

This might not work for you, but it’s a still solution worth trying.

7. Change the Launch Options

Note:ARK: Survival Evolved is quite a demanding game, and when you run it you’ll have a list of options to choose from.

If you have 16GB or more of RAM just select Play ARK: Survival Evolved.

If you have4to8GBof RAM select Launch ARK (Low Memory 4GB).

In case you have less than4GBRAM select Launch ARK (Extremely Low Memory).

In addition, you might want to experiment with different values of graphical settings in order to get the bestperformance.

8. Select a PhysX processor

9. Change TdrDelay using Registry Editor

Note:TDR stands for Timeout Detection and Recovery, and this feature is in charge of restarting your graphic card if the system doesn’t receive any response from the graphic card for a set amount of time.

The default time is 2 seconds, and if the system doesn’t get a response from your graphic card in 2 seconds, it will restart the graphic card and crash your game.

10. Boost your gaming performance

The ARK Survival crashing issues also might be related to your system performance. You can still give it a boost without changing your hardware configuration.

All you need is to install a dedicated app such asGame Fire. This excellent toolturns off some system features that are not needed during your gaming session.

It also targets your system resources towards the game you’re currently playing so that your PC to run it smoothly, with higher FPS and without any freezes.

Game Fire also comes with a game management platform that allows you to handle all your titles from one place on your PC, whether they are local or online.

⇒Get Game Fire

11. Use a different screen resolution

Some users have reported crashes, and it seems that these crashes have been caused by the game resolution. If you run the game in 1920×1080 resolution, you might want to change it.

According to users, changing the resolution from 1920×1080 to 1920×1200 has fixed the crashes. If you cannot use 1920×1200 resolution, feel free to use any lower resolution instead.

12. Use official servers

If you are experiencing long loading screens, it’s advised that you switch to official servers because they are faster and more stable.

If switching to official servers didn’t work for you may be the issue is caused by your RAM.

As we already said, ARK: Survival Evolved is a demanding game, and it requires a minimum of 4GB to run, so if you have less than 4GB of RAM you might experience someperformanceissues.

13. Change the Nvidia Control Panel settings

14. Change the game mode and update your audio drivers

Running the game in Low Memory or Extremely Low Memory mode can sometimes cause issues with sound, and in the worst-case scenario, you won’t get any sound while playing ARK: Survival Evolved.

To fix this you need to run games in normal mode, but if this problem persists in normal game mode, you need to update your audio drivers.

15. Add -fullscreen to launch options

If you’re getting a blank screen every time you start ARK: Survival Evolved maybe you could fix this by changing the game launch options.

CheckSolution 7to see how to change launch options and make sure that you add -fullscreen as the launch option.

As you can see, users are facing quite a lot of issues in ARK: Survival Evolved. We hope this article was of at least some help, and that you were able to solve your problem.

In case you’re having problems with some other games in Windows 10, check out ourWindows 10 gameshub, for more solutions.

Don’t forget to tell us in the comments section below what other issues you encountered in ARK: Survival Evolved, and how did you deal with them.

Ark Won’t Launch: How to Fix If it’s Crashing on Startup#

How can I solve ARK crashes, low FPS, and glitches?#

1. Update your drivers#

Outbyte Driver Updater#

2. Reinstall Visual C++ Redistributables#

3. Cancel the download or restart Steam#

4. Run the game in compatibility mode#

5. Make sure that you’re running a 64-bit version of Windows 10#

6. Set your View Distance to Epic#

7. Change the Launch Options#

8. Select a PhysX processor#

9. Change TdrDelay using Registry Editor#

10. Boost your gaming performance#

11. Use a different screen resolution#

12. Use official servers#

13. Change the Nvidia Control Panel settings#

14. Change the game mode and update your audio drivers#

15. Add -fullscreen to launch options#