Despite its success and expansion, users playing Ark on Windows platform reported several issues with the game. According to user reports and experiments done ourselves, we saw that the game kept crashing randomly in between sessions which not only caused the game to crash but also the entire PC.
What causes Ark: Survival Evolved to Crash your PC?
Most of the games crash whenever they face errors or problems when operating. However, if the game is using your resources and they get affected, your PC might crash as well. This is the case with Ark; the game crashes your PC. Here are some of the reasons why this might happen: Before you move on to the solutions, you need to make sure that you have the minimum system requirements for running the game on your computer. Keep in mind that these are the minimum requirements and do not reflect the optimal requirements needed for the game. The requirements are:
OS: Windows 7 or 8Processor: 2Ghz Dual-core 64-bit CPUGraphics: DirectX11 Compatible GPU with 1 GB Video RAMHard Drive: 20000 MB available spaceDirectX: Version 11
If you do not meet these requirements, you should upgrade your hardware first before proceeding with the solutions listed below.
Solution 1: Verifying Integrity of Game Files
The very first thing to do when troubleshooting problems with games present in Steam is to verify the integrity of Steam game files. There are a number of cases where the game files on your computer might be corrupt or have missing modules. This tool automatically downloads the latest manifest from the website and compares the files on the manifest with the ones on your computer. If there is any difference, the files are replaced.
Solution 2: Rolling back/Updating Graphics drivers
If your game files are complete and not damaged, the culprit of your game crashing might be your graphics drivers. If the graphics drivers are not updated to the latest build available, it may cause issues with the running of the game. However, it should be noted that in some cases, installing the latest drivers caused further problems. Hence you have to try two methods; update your drivers to the latest build and see how it goes or try rolling back your drivers. If you already have the latest drivers installed on your computer, attempt at uninstalling them (if your game worked perfectly before the latest driver software release). Manually download the version of the driver which worked for your system from the manufacturer’s website and use DDU to uninstall the driver completely before installing the chosen one.
Solution 3: Removing Mods and Reducing Graphics options
If you are running a server for Ark: Survival Evolved, you should disable the mods used in the game. Mods are a great add-on to the game but may cause problems when frequent updates for the game are released. Their settings clash and the game crashes. Also, you should try reducing the graphics options in the game. Reduce the cloud detail, the viewed distance, shadows, etc. Try playing on low graphics settings and see if this solves the crash from happening.
Solution 4: Reinstalling and Checking Hardware
If all three solutions don’t work for you, you can try to reinstall the game on your computer. The reinstall is meant to eliminate the possibility of corrupt or broken installation files on your computer. When you reinstall, Steam will automatically load your user data back onto your game.
Solution 5: Install Latest Patch
Sometimes these issues are caused due to a glitch with the current patch of the game or due to a general bug in the game files. These sorts of issues are almost every time addressed in new patches from the game developers. Therefore it is recommended to download and apply the latest ARK patch available.
Solution 6: Restarting your PC
In some cases, a solution as simple as this might actually be the fix for this peculiar issue. Actually, there might be some rogue programs running the background that might be preventing the game from being started properly. Therefore, it is always recommended to give your computer a restart to fix the ARK keeps crashing issue to avoid any possible incompatibilities with the background apps.
Solution 7: Allowing Through Antivirus/Firewall
In some cases, the Firewall or Windows Defender on your computer might be blocking some features of the game or preventing it from establishing a connection with its servers. Therefore, in this step, we will be allowing the game through Antivirus and the Firewall to ensure that this is not the case with us.
Solution 8: Running as Administrator
It is also possible that the game requires admin permissions to be able to access some privileges system information or to function properly. In order to grant administrative privileges to your game, follow the steps below.
Solution 9: Changing Launch Parameters
In some cases, the game might require you to set some additional launch parameters on your computer in order for it to function properly. These parameters can range anywhere from setting the game to use Direct X 11 to change the number of cores that the game is permitted to use. In order to do all this with a simple command:
Solution 10: Changing Power Options
Setting the right power options just might be the solution for you especially if you are gaming on a laptop. Therefore, in this step, we will be selecting the High-Performance profile as the default for our computer. Make sure to plug in your laptop as well before trying this fix.
Solution 11: Free Up Space in your Hard Drive
Many people seem to have fixed their issue by freeing up more space on the driver on which ARK was installed. So if you are getting frequent crashes with the game, it is best to check if there is any space on your drive that can be freed up. For a general method, you can try to run the Disk Cleanup to free up space. For that:
Solution 12: Reset Game Resolution
Sometimes if you have selected an improper resolution from the in-game settings that cannot be supported by your monitor or if you have selected the Fullscreen mode, this issue might be triggered. Therefore, as a solution, we will be reconfiguring the game’s configuration file to accommodate a resolution that our monitor supports and also disable the Full-screen mode. For that:
Solution 13: Underclock GPU
This issue was seen amongst almost all overclockers and with users that were running factory overclock settings on their GPUs. Unfortunately, ARK doesn’t respond well to overclockers and that is a common issue for most people with this error. Therefore, in this step, we will be downloading a program to underclock our GPU a bit and check if that fixes our issue. Note: Some people also suggested underclocking and undervolting the CPU so you can try that as well if you ever overclocked your CPU. Also make sure to set your Terrain Shadows setting to Low or OFF because that glitches out the game for some of the newer Graphics Cards.
Solution 14: Running in Compatibility Mode
It is possible that the game might not be fully compatible with the operating system that you are using on your computer. Therefore, in this step, we will be running it in compatibility mode for Service Pack 1 which should get rid of some incompatibility issues. For that:
Solution 15: Selecting Appropriate GPU
Most gaming Laptops contain a Dedicated and Integrated GPU and they switch between the two to conserve power in low usage scenarios. However, if your laptop is configured to use the integrated GPU to run the game, this issue might be triggered. Therefore, in this step, we will be selecting the Nvidia GPU from the Control Panel. For that:
Solution 16: Clear Download Cache
Sometimes, the hurdle in front of applying a game patch or running the game properly might be a corrupted download cache. Therefore, in this step, we will be clearing the game’s Download cache from Steam. In order to do that: If even the reinstallation doesn’t work in your case, you can try to launch the game directly through the game folder without Steam, if that doesn’t work for you as well. You should check your computer hardware for problems. We got several user reports where faulty modules such as RAM and PSU caused the PC to crash whenever Ark started using the hardware resources. If you are experiencing the crashing with other resource-consuming applications as well, you should check your hardware independently. Also, turn down the resolutions slider a bit even if your hardware can support it and check if that fixes the issue for you, in addition to that, unselect some DLCs and additional features to take some load off your system and it can also end up fixing the issue.
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