Hodir

Nor does it seem that moderators provide much needed context when replying in a forum topic where a software bug that affects a large portion of paying customers is being described, along with a workaround, and the hopes for an actual fix or even a simple acknowledgement that it exists from the developer. I'm sure you can understand that from an observer's perspective, a post that simply says "Fixed" with no added context could be justifiably construed as misleading. I also don't think there was any expectation of a moderator to adjust patch notes. The ask was that you simply put a link to them if Wildcard actually fixed the problem and pointed it out in the patch notes. Also, your title as volunteer moderator should not exclude you from the reasonable expectation of providing some form of documented evidence in the event that you did find a fix, as it's the same expectation any reasonable person would have of anyone who found a patch or a more permanent solution to this problem, moderator or not. "Moved this thread to the correct forum location." would have been a much better response. Context matters, friend.

Respectfully, this is a terrible response. Fixed, as in you tried it and it worked for you? Or fixed, as in someone finally came up with an actual patch for it? In the case of the latter, and Wildcard has indeed fixed the problem, then you need to link the patch notes or relevant information from Wildcard that specifically addresses this problem. If Epic Games fixed the problem with a patch of UE5, then again...you need to link the patch notes. There would also be relevant patch notes for GPU drivers from Nvidia and AMD, or a specific KB article number if this problem was fixed by either hardware vendors or Microsoft themselves. Simply saying "Fixed" an providing zero additional context is misleading at best. Unless you have evidence you can show us that proves it has indeed been fixed via some software patch or modification, then I would argue the problem has not been fixed. I have reviewed the sparse patch notes for ASA for the past month and nothing indicates to me that this problem has been specifically called out and a fix has been described for it.

The language in their patch notes says it all when you read between the lines: "Updated how unofficial servers are listed to prevent errors and exploits To see non-commercially (non-Nitrado) hosted Unofficial Servers, please enable the checkbox "Show Player Servers" and refresh the session list." Translation: "We owe Nitrasho a truckload of money due to a foolish agreement our inept and incompetent leadership made with them. Therefore, we are deliberately trying to steer players onto Nitrasho servers by hiding better alternatives behind a completely unnecessary checkbox."

I don't know who is responsible for the server binary maintenance, but someone needs to educate them on providing meaningful and helpful log information. This crap is completely useless: LowLevelFatalError [File:E:\ASAContinuous\Projects\ShooterGame\Source\ShooterGame\Private\ShooterGameInstance.cpp] [Line: 829] Requested mods failed to load on server. CL: 468658 0x00007ff94e9049b9 KERNELBASE.dll!UnknownFunction [] 0x00007ff795119c77 ArkAscendedServer.exe!FWindowsErrorOutputDevice::Serialize() [E:\ASAContinuous\Engine\Source\Runtime\Core\Private\Windows\WindowsErrorOutputDevice.cpp:91] 0x00007ff7950c6360 ArkAscendedServer.exe!FOutputDevice::LogfImpl() [E:\ASAContinuous\Engine\Source\Runtime\Core\Private\Misc\OutputDevice.cpp:70] 0x00007ff794886e18 ArkAscendedServer.exe!UShooterGameInstance::StartGameInstance() [E:\ASAContinuous\Projects\ShooterGame\Source\ShooterGame\Private\ShooterGameInstance.cpp:837] 0x00007ff7922b1d7b ArkAscendedServer.exe!FEngineLoop::Init() [E:\ASAContinuous\Engine\Source\Runtime\Launch\Private\LaunchEngineLoop.cpp:4850] 0x00007ff7922a44a6 ArkAscendedServer.exe!GuardedMain() [E:\ASAContinuous\Engine\Source\Runtime\Launch\Private\Launch.cpp:168] 0x00007ff7922b70ea ArkAscendedServer.exe!GuardedMainWrapper() [E:\ASAContinuous\Engine\Source\Runtime\Launch\Private\Windows\LaunchWindows.cpp:118] 0x00007ff7922b7b58 ArkAscendedServer.exe!LaunchWindowsStartup() [E:\ASAContinuous\Engine\Source\Runtime\Launch\Private\Windows\LaunchWindows.cpp:258] 0x00007ff7922b7c2b ArkAscendedServer.exe!WinMain() [E:\ASAContinuous\Engine\Source\Runtime\Launch\Private\Windows\LaunchWindows.cpp:299] 0x00007ff79810428a ArkAscendedServer.exe!__scrt_common_main_seh() [D:\a\_work\1\s\src\vctools\crt\vcstartup\src\startup\exe_common.inl:288] 0x00007ff9526e7ac4 KERNEL32.DLL!UnknownFunction [] 0x00007ff95281a4e1 ntdll.dll!UnknownFunction [] Seriously, is it too much to ask that Wildcard devs actually put a modicum of thought into MEANINGFUL logging? WHICH specific mod failed here? WHERE is the faulting mod ID? Does nobody at Wildcard have even the faintest grasp of proper exception handling? Is there a company-wide aversion to providing useful debug logging?

Summary This is going to be a somewhat long post concerning a common crash I've been experiencing with ARK: Survival Ascended and the endless tinkering and attempts at debugging that I've tried. What I've posted here has thus far worked for me. This should work on Windows 10 and likely Windows 11. It should apply to Nvidia as well as AMD users. My specs: Intel i9-12900KF, 64GB of RAM, nVidia RTX 4090 24GB, 4TB NVME SSD, Windows 10 Professional It's a long winded post from an irritated systems engineer. Deal with it. Disclaimer I'm not saying the workaround I've outlined here is a permanent solution to the problem. It is a workaround until a patch to correct the problem is forthcoming from whoever is responsible for it. This workaround involves editing your registry. If you're not comfortable with this, find someone who can help you or check YouTube University for video guides on how to do it. Please don't reach out to me to walk you through the process of editing your registry. Wildcard and Snail Games aren't cutting me checks to be their tech support, and likely don't have enough money to pay me for such a service. I'm also assuming you have all the latest Windows updates installed for your particular system, you are running the absolute latest version of your graphics card drivers, and ALL of your other system drivers have been updated and you aren't riddled with malware/viruses. I'm also going to assume you aren't doing anything lame with your system like overclocking the processor, memory, or video card and your computer internals aren't blanketed in a cozy layer of dust bunnies, Cheetos dust, and Mountain Dew Red Zone residue. If your computer melts down into a molten puddle of silicon, fiberglass, and metal then I guess now is a great time to think about an upgrade. Basically, if it breaks, you get to keep both pieces. Description When playing ARK, you may crash with the following error: Unhandled Exception: 0x00008000 CL: 452716 0x00007ffea7c2565c KERNELBASE.dll!UnknownFunction [] 0x00007ff646d7533e ArkAscended.exe!ReportGPUCrash() [E:\dave_WC-PURPLERAIN_NVidia\Engine\Source\Runtime\Core\Private\Windows\WindowsPlatformCrashContext.cpp:1815] 0x00007ff646d1e880 ArkAscended.exe!FOutputDevice::LogfImpl() [E:\dave_WC-PURPLERAIN_NVidia\Engine\Source\Runtime\Core\Private\Misc\OutputDevice.cpp:70] 0x00007ff647395c36 ArkAscended.exe!D3D12RHI::VerifyD3D12Result() [E:\dave_WC-PURPLERAIN_NVidia\Engine\Source\Runtime\D3D12RHI\Private\D3D12Util.cpp:873] 0x00007ff6473824ce ArkAscended.exe!::operator()() [E:\dave_WC-PURPLERAIN_NVidia\Engine\Source\Runtime\D3D12RHI\Private\D3D12Submission.cpp:943] 0x00007ff647372e09 ArkAscended.exe!FD3D12DynamicRHI::ForEachQueue() [E:\dave_WC-PURPLERAIN_NVidia\Engine\Source\Runtime\D3D12RHI\Private\D3D12RHIPrivate.h:385] 0x00007ff6473823d0 ArkAscended.exe!FD3D12DynamicRHI::ProcessInterruptQueue() [E:\dave_WC-PURPLERAIN_NVidia\Engine\Source\Runtime\D3D12RHI\Private\D3D12Submission.cpp:1093] 0x00007ff64737f57f ArkAscended.exe!FD3D12Thread::Run() [E:\dave_WC-PURPLERAIN_NVidia\Engine\Source\Runtime\D3D12RHI\Private\D3D12Submission.cpp:83] 0x00007ff646d8f1f6 ArkAscended.exe!FRunnableThreadWin::Run() [E:\dave_WC-PURPLERAIN_NVidia\Engine\Source\Runtime\Core\Private\Windows\WindowsRunnableThread.cpp:149] 0x00007ff646d8f04c ArkAscended.exe!FRunnableThreadWin::GuardedRun() [E:\dave_WC-PURPLERAIN_NVidia\Engine\Source\Runtime\Core\Private\Windows\WindowsRunnableThread.cpp:79] 0x00007ffea902257d KERNEL32.DLL!UnknownFunction [] 0x00007ffeaa52aa58 ntdll.dll!UnknownFunction [] Dammit, Dave.... Note: You may get a subsequent error regarding your display adapter driver crashing. TL;DR Workaround Do the following trickery on your machine: Create a system restore point. Read the manual or watch a YouTube video on how to do this. Launch the registry editor by holding Windows Key + R and typing in regedit.exe. Navigate to the path: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers In the right pane, right click and select New -> DWORD (32-Bit) Value Enter the following for the name: TdrDelay Right click on the new entry and choose Modify. In the Value Data field, enter 60 and choose OK. Repeat steps 4-7, but for the second key name enter: TdrDdiDelay Verify that you now have TWO keys, shown exactly as I've provided them above, and they are both set to 60. You should have TdrDelay and TdrDdiDelay and they should both be be set to 60. Once you have verified your changes, reboot your computer. IMPORTANT: Subsequent Windows Updates and even driver upgrades may revert these values to default or remove them entirely and you may have to re-enter them into your registry. Once an acknowledged fix from whoever is responsible has been made available, you should remove these values from your registry. Technical Description Windows has what Microsoft calls a "feature" known as Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR) and it's supposed to detect when the GPU is taking too long to complete a request. If the GPU fails to respond within the default time frame allotted, then the GPU scheduler "preempts" (read: resets) the graphics adapter and recovers to a functional desktop. Before there was TDR, the whole computer would basically freeze. This is what I believe is causing ARK to die horribly with the above error as resetting the GPU effectively kills ARK. Most graphics engines are supposed to take this into account and break up long compute tasks into smaller, more manageable chunks so that the GPU completes transactions within the defined time frame allotted. I don't think this is happening in the case of ARK and, probably more generically the Unreal Engine. Coincidentally, I also think this is why Wildcard has thus far refused to acknowledge much regarding this error and why a patch isn't more quickly forthcoming, as any fix will likely have to come from Nvidia/AMD or Epic Games (the makers of the Unreal Engine) or possibly even Microsoft. The values that I'm suggesting people try changing are: TdrDelay: The time, in seconds, that the GPU can delay a preemption request from the GPU Scheduler. The default value is 2 seconds. My suggestion is probably overkill at 60 seconds but it's what works for me. TdrDdiDelay: Specifies the number of seconds that the operating system allows threads to leave the driver, after which the OS responds with a bug check of 0x116 VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE. The default value is 5 seconds and my suggestion of 60 is probably overkill but it's what works for me. Final Thoughts Again, what I'm sharing here is what works for me. I have both of these values set to 60 in my registry on my particular platform with my particular hardware configuration and I haven't crashed in three days of roughly 6-8 hour sessions in ARK: Survival Ascended. Worst case scenario is that I get a momentary 1-2 second lag in ARK, usually when opening/closing inventories, and the lag time is usually correlative to the number of items displayed in the inventory pane (or the number of recipes). I can't guarantee it'll work for you or if it's even relevant to your particular system. If it works for you, great. If not, my apologies. If you think I'm full of Bronto poop, then...I guess put me in a compost bin with some thatch when you're between crashes and I'll try to produce some fertilizer for your corn.

Given Wildcard's failure to keep any of its previously stated promises around ARK:SA and ARK 2, I think it would be better to take the "wait and see" approach. Anything that comes out of the studio cannot be taken at face value at this point. Those massive checks to Vinnie D for his mug and voice in Ark 2 don't write themselves, you know.

Complaining about how the negative reviews and feedback left by justifiably angry customers because it's not "constructive" enough for your exacting standards is attempting to water them down. You don't get to set the bar for what is or isn't considered "constructive feedback". We were promised a free remaster of ARK:SE to UE5. Then Wildcard did a classic rug pull and said they'd charge for it, but that we'd get a hefty discount on ARK 2. Then they did a rug pull on that. Now we have ARK:SA at over $40 with JUST The Island, with all the other ARK:SE expansions likely $20-$30. You are buying the exact same game you already own if you have the complete ARK:SE package and will be paying darn near full price all over again. Then, to add insult to injury, Wildcard goes out and finds the single worst game server provider (Nitrasho) on the planet and gives them a monopoly on server hosting for ARK:SA, refusing to release binaries so we can host it ourselves. When a company makes promises that it doesn't keep and releases a sub-standard, overpriced copy of a product that you already own, tied to an even worse third party service that the customer is forced to use if they want to host it themselves, all while ignoring the playerbase that actually buys their products then the correct response is to vote with your dollars and not buy the game, or refund it if you already have. It is also the correct response to leave negative reviews on Steam and leave negative commentary on the forums. Every negative comment comment and negative review and every refund is not only justifiable but also richly deserved by WIldcard/Snail Games. You don't reward dishonesty and negligence with your dollars. Unless you hate money and love dishonesty and negligence, of course.

If Wildcard thinks I'm going to give a trash company like Nitrado one red cent to host a server when I've spent the past several years hosting ARK: Survival Evolved on my own hardware for my own clan, then they really are a bunch of dodos. Then again, if Wildcard thinks that they're going to get me, or my clan, to shell out $40 plus whatever the costs of the DLCs are going to be for a game we already own, then the dodos wandering the beaches of Valguero really are more intellectually evolved than the people over at Wildcard. Charging for what was promised initially as a free remaster, while labelling it as "Early Access" on Steam is bad enough. Forcing people to go to Nitrado just to get a server hosted is just insulting. Wildcard: It isn't the fault of your customers that you chose to blow your funding on a D-list, talentless hack to play poster boy for ARK 2. Instead of punishing us, you should be firing the people responsible making such monumental blunders and reorganizing. Preferably with people who actually know what they're doing at the helm.

This is a textbook example of when you find yourself in a hole, you need to stop digging. Someone forgot to tell Wildcard about the second half of that, however, as you guys seem hell bent on continuing to tunnel your way to China. Nobody wants to pay $60 for a game that they already own. No, slapping a new name on it doesn't make it a new game. I could have stomached the price if it included Ark 2. Maybe. But asking us to pay $60 for a game we already own, just for it to be obsoleted by ARK 2 within the span of a few years is just plain ridiculous. Additionally, using Overwolf modding is a non-starter as well. I refuse to install Overwolf garbageware on my machine. Period. Full stop. I give exactly zero f's, flying or otherwise, about "cross platform modding support", as everyone in my clan is PC/Steam only and we don't use consoles. There is no sales pitch you can deliver that will make me change my mind here. Overwolf is a steaming pile of bronto poop and you Wildcard guys are complete and utter idiots for even associating yourselves with them. If Steam Workshop or Mod.io isn't supported out of the box and you make Overwolf mandatory, then you can just keep the box for both ARK: SA and ARK 2. Some things I'm not sure of yet, but will point out anyway...If you don't support private server hosting with a native Linux binary out of the box for either ARK: SA or ARK2, then you can also keep the box for both titles. I won't buy a game where I cannot host the server myself on my own hardware running my own OS. Lastly I'd like to point out a bit of financial advice since whoever is in charge over at Wildcard clearly has no idea what they're doing. Stop being stupid with your money! Whoever thought that blowing fat stacks of cash on mediocre, B-list Hollywood "celebrities" to play starring roles in your game should seriously have their head examined. Had you not wasted all that money in some feeble attempt to lend what I would guess you thought was "street cred" to your game and instead invested it properly, we wouldn't be looking at a delayed release of ARK 2. You'd also have the bonus of not having to run bait-and-switch scams on your playerbase. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I've tamed dodos on the beaches of Valguero with more common sense....

Except that it's not just women's healthcare being discussed here and there's a significant portion of the population that also believes there's the healthcare of the human life yet to be born that should be taken into consideration as well. Wildcard effectively alienated that portion with their needless drivel about a subject that unequivocally does not fall within the purview of the products or services they provide as a company. Thus, they stand to lose a not entirely insignificant amount of sales revenue on ARK 2 plus any additional DLCs as well as any other titles they intend on releasing in the future. Moreover, they likely have alienated a number of their own employees who for their own personal reasons, religious or otherwise, may not share the same view. All because Doug and the rest of the C-level execs at Wildcard couldn't resist running their collective mouths in a public space about a highly polarizing political subject. From a corporate perspective, the only objective should be to provide a good product/service while following all established laws and regulations for whatever space that corporation does business in. All else is, or rather should be, supremely irrelevant. Instead of letting yourself get pandered to by a company that's obviously virtue signalling (and failing miserably at it, I might add), I recommend you evaluate whether or not a company's products or services are any good from a usability, quality, and practicality perspective exclusively. Exercise your political beliefs in the voting booth, where it'll actually make a real difference.

All the more reason we should be cheering any and all reductions in the scope of what the Federal government is involved with. They even suck at implementing a fair and reasonable tax system, yet people demand that this same organization of epic suckage also be involved in issues of marriage, the bedroom, reproduction, etc..? It's like putting toddlers in charge of building a bridge and expecting the results to be satisfactory. This is coming from someone who routinely gets shafted by the IRS annually. You wouldn't want my tax bills, trust me.

The Federal government exists to protect the sovereignty of the nation, establish and maintain trade and diplomatic relations with foreign nations, maintain the common infrastructure between states, and enforce the rights codified in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as well as laws passed by Federal lawmakers. Anything outside the purview of this should fall within the realm of the individual states to handle. Abortion is not a right found in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights or in any law passed by federal lawmakers to date. The SCOTUS decision doesn't deny reproductive rights to anyone, it simply remanded the issue back to the individual states where it belongs. The Federal government is already demonstrably terrible at the things it should be responsible for and any decisions made by SCOTUS that limit or reduce Federal involvement in areas it has no business being involved with in the first place should only be seen as a good thing. There are still states where abortion is legal within their borders and nobody is being held prisoner in states that intend on regulating or outlawing it. People who find themselves in a position of not liking their particular state's stance on abortion can relocate to a state that aligns with their views, or they can band together with likeminded people and actually participate in in the legislative process to effect that kind of change in their state. It would be in the best interests for Studio Wildcard to stick to making video games and not preach politics to potential customers of ARK 2. Seriously, the propensity for CEOs to run their mouths about political issues while representing the company, and with zero regard for the risk of customer alienation and the damage to profitability that entails, never ceases to amaze me.