ARK FPS Boost Commands
ARK: Survival Ascended runs on Unreal Engine 5, and a handful of rendering commands claw back a lot of frame rate. These are client-side render toggles — not cheats — so they work in single-player and on servers without admin. Check the ones you want and copy a ready-made Engine.ini, or grab a single command.
Before you start
Enable the console first: Settings → Advanced → turn on Console Access, then press Tab in game to open it. Paste a command and press Enter. To turn an effect back on, run the same command with its default value (usually 1).
These are Unreal Engine render variables, not cheat gameplay commands, so they don't need admin and won't get you banned — but anything typed in the console resets when you relaunch. To keep your settings, put them in Engine.ini using the builder below.
Build your config
Biggest wins — start here
The core ASA recipe. Turning off Lumen and the volumetric sky is where most of the frame rate comes from.
Shadows & lighting
Foliage & grass
Heavy frame-rate savings, but these are the commands Wildcard treats as a visual advantage — they may be overridden on official servers.
Effects, water & post-processing
Your Engine.ini
Paste under ShooterGame/Saved/Config/Windows/Engine.ini so it applies on every launch.
Or paste in console
Temporary — these reset when you relaunch. Open the console with Tab.
Launch options
In Steam, right-click ARK: Survival Ascended → Properties → General → Launch Options, and add:
-USEALLAVAILABLECORES uses every CPU core, -nomansky disables the heavy volumetric sky, -high raises process priority, and -lowmemory eases pressure on low-RAM systems. The old -sm4 / -d3d10 flags are legacy Survival-Evolved options and do nothing on ASA's DirectX 12 engine — skip them.
What to expect
Gains depend heavily on your GPU — the Lumen and volumetric-cloud toggles do the most on almost every rig. The grass and foliage commands give the biggest extra boost but are exactly the ones some official servers override, since stripping grass also clears sightlines; they always work in single-player and on unofficial servers that allow them. Start with the Balanced preset, then add shadow and foliage commands until you're happy with the quality-versus-frame-rate trade.