ARK: Survival Ascended Keeps Crashing on PC – Fixed

Have you encountered a sudden crash while playing ARK: Survival Ascended on Steam? Well, do not immediately blame the game. There is a chance that your PC is the culprit. You see, there are several forums where multiple gamers have shared their experience with ARK: Survival Ascended. Some say it works smoothly on their Windows PC, while others have faced left, right, and center crashes.

If it is the only game that crashes on your PC, maybe it is the fault of the game. However, if you have encountered these crashes multiple times, you might be looking at this issue from the wrong perspective.

Well, do not worry; this post will help you fix the issue in no time! How? Keep on reading to find out!

Why ARK: Survival Ascended Crashes on Windows? Possible Causes

Before jumping to any conclusions, it is necessary to understand what causes ARK: Survival Ascended to crash.

Not meeting system requirements is one of the most popular reasons for this issue.

ARK: Survival Ascended is a graphic-intensive game and requires a decent amount of resources to run smoothly. Check out the game requirements to identify if your PC meets them or not –

OS: Windows 7/8.1/10/11 (64-bit versions)

Processor: Intel Core i5-2400/AMD FX-8320 or better

Memory: 8 GB RAM

Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 670 2GB/AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB or better

Storage: 60 GB available space

If your PC lacks any required resources, you will have to compromise with the crashes unless you upgrade your PC. However, if your PC meets the requirement and you still have to face ARK: Survival Ascended crashes often, then you must check the following factors –

Game File Errors
Outdated Graphics Drivers
Last Released ARK Patch
Launch Options for ARK: Survival Ascended

Check these, and you may find your culprit right away. If any of the above issues bother your PC, do not worry; we have listed a bunch of fixes for them. Check out the next section, which will help you resolve the errors on your PC.

How to Fix ARK: Survival Ascended Crashing on Windows?

You must check that your PC meets the minimum requirements, as shown in the previous section. If not, the fixes shown below might not work as expected.

Fix 1 – Check the Integrity of Game Files

Sometimes, when corrupt game files are in the folder, your game may crash out of nowhere. The best way to resolve this is to use Steam’s internal method.

Step 1- Launch Steam and navigate to the ARK: Survival Ascended.

Step 2 – Open ARK: Survival Ascended’s properties, and you will find the Local Files tab.

Step 3 – You can spot the Verify Integrity of Game Files… option in the Local Files tab. Click on it to start the process.

Step 4 – Steam will now check for files and initiate replacing problematic ones with newer ones.
Step 5 – As soon as the process is over, close Steam and relaunch it to play ARK: Survival Ascended.

After the process is over, the game should not crash. If it does, the issue was unrelated to game files; hence, you should move to the next fix.

Fix 2 – Update the Graphics Drivers

Sometimes, the crash appears in a game due to the native GPU’s inability to handle the graphics. The GPU drivers may be responsible if you experience a black screen or flickering display while playing the game.

For many users, updating drivers on the PC often becomes difficult. And rightly so, as the process of manually updating Graphics Drivers is too complicated. The good news is that you need not worry about those steps, as we have just the application you need.

We recommend you use the Driver Updater to update GPU drivers on Windows. The tool is the best and easiest way to handle outdated drivers and works smoothly.

Check this infographic to use the automatic way to update the driver.

After you have updated the drivers, check if the crash is resolved. In case it appears again, try out the next fix.

Fix 3 – Set a Different Launch Action

Steam allows you to set dedicated launch settings for your games. Hence, you can try it and get it done instantly. To set a dedicated launch action that invokes all the resources required, all you have to do is –

Step 1 – Open Steam and navigate to game properties for ARK: Survival Ascended.
Step 2 – In-game properties, click the Set Launch Options button to open the setting.

Step 3 – Check if something is already set in the operation box, remove it, and use the following command – USEALLAVAILABLECORES -sm4 -d3d10.

Step 4 – Save the changes made and launch the game again. Check if it is now working smoothly.

If you face any other issue due to this launch option or your PC heating up, simply go back to the settings and clear the launch option box to remove the same.

Other than these fixes, we recommend looking for the latest game patch update for ARK: Survival Ascended, as sometimes the game has bugs that cause crashes. As soon as the developers learn about these bugs, they release a bug-free patch, and hence, you should try to update the game.

If nothing works, uninstall and reinstall the game. This will help fix ARK: Survival Ascended crashing on Windows. Also, we recommend checking system requirements and the GPU driver as they make the difference.

We hope you find the information useful and that you were able to run the game without any crashes. That’s all for this post. Thanks for reading, and good luck!

Dishank Sharma

A creative tech-writer who loves to explore latest tech-trends & convey them to his readers in the simplest way possible. He loves to blend the crispness of technology with a pinch of creativity while curating best practices for the readers. In his free time, he likes to scribble poetry, listen to rap & travel.