Ark Survival Ascended: Best Settings for RX 9070 XT With Ragnarok DLC

Use these settings for Ark: Ragnarok Ascended on your RX 9070 XT and enjoy decent visuals and smooth framerates.

Ark Survival Ascended: Best settings for RX 9070 XT with Ragnarok DLC
Image from within the game (Image via Snail Games USA)

The RX 9070 XT is the most powerful card from the RDNA 4 architecture, offering serious firepower in the mid-range segment. Ark Ascended runs poorly on any GPU at the moment due to its notorious lack of optimization.. Thankfully, the developers have mitigated the infamous traversal stuttering with the UE 5.5 update; however, many gamers have reported performance regressions with this update. These settings minimize performance loss by specifically adjusting certain fields, so you can play the game seamlessly now and when the Ragnarok DLC launches.

Note: The RX 9070 XT can easily achieve 1440p with upscaling, still producing a good-looking image and decent playable frame rates. Unfortunately, GPUs with this kind of firepower require upscaling to reach 1440p, which is why UE5 is so intensive.

Ark: Ragnarok Ascended – Best Settings for RX 9070 XT (1440p Optimized)

Ark: Ragnarok Ascended  Settings page
Ark Ascended Settings page (Image via Snail Games USA)

A few keynotes to consider:

  • FG is forced on from the start. The devs do this because of the game’s poor optimization. To achieve real frames from your GPU, you need to disable Frame Generation (FG). You can do this by pressing the Tab key and typing r.FidelityFX.FI.Enabled 0
  • The developers have not yet implemented FSR 4 support. For this reason, you can use the Unreal Upscaler or the FSR one, whichever gives the best image quality.
  • If you prefer FSR, use the DLSS Swapper to get the latest iteration of the algorithm.
  • The 9070 XT plays nicely with these settings, and with Volumetrics enabled, it still churns out reasonable frame rates. However, if you insist on disabling them for improved performance, you can do so by typing the following commands after pressing the Tab key: VolumetricFog 0, r.VolumetricCloud 0, r.Fog 0

Best Settings Explored

Setting CategoryOption/Value
Resolution2560 x 1440
Custom Resolution2560 x 1440
Window ModeFullscreen
Max Frame Rate(Uncapped)
Upscaler & AAFSR / UNREAL
QualityQuality
Resolution Scale100
VSync ModeOff
Graphics PresetCustom
Advanced GraphicsMedium
View DistanceHigh
TexturesHigh
Post ProcessingMedium
General ShadowsMedium
Global IlluminationMedium
Effects QualityMedium
Foliage QualityLow
Motion BlurOff
Light BloomOff
Light ShaftsOff
Low-Light EnhancementOn
Foliage & Fluid InteractionOff
Foliage Interaction Distance Multiplier2
Foliage Interaction Distance Limit2
Foliage Interaction Quantity Limit1
Enable Footstep ParticlesOff
Enable Footstep DecalsOff
Disable HLODOn
GUI 3D Widget Quality0.5
Cinematic Lighting ModeOff

Verdict

That concludes the recommendation for the RX 9070 XT and Ark: Ragnarok Ascended. If only the optimizations had been implemented correctly, the 9070 XT could have handled the game at high settings, at native 1440p instead of upscaled, and still produced a 60+ framerate. There are other UE5 games available that demonstrate this. Ark: Ascended will one day catch up to the others in terms of optimization. The game is truly unique in its concept. 


We provide the latest news and “How To’s” for Tech content. Meanwhile, you can check out the following articles related to PC GPUs, CPU and GPU comparisons, mobile phones, and more: