ARK: Survival Evolved — Steam Launch Options

19 community-verified launch options for ARK: Survival Evolved on Steam ↗.

DeveloperStudio Wildcard

PublisherStudio Wildcard

Released2017-08-27

EngineUnity Engine

-sm4

Forces Shader Model 4 (DirectX 10). Significant performance improvement in UE games.

Epic Games Documentation
✅ Verified
-force-low-power-device

Uses integrated GPU for battery life (macOS).

Unity Documentation
✅ Verified
-high

Set process priority to high

manual_curation
✅ Verified
mangohud

Proton/Wine compatibility option.

ProtonDB
-popupwindow

Creates borderless popup window in Unity games.

Unity Documentation
✅ Verified
-force-opengl

Forces OpenGL rendering (legacy) in Unity games.

Unity Documentation
✅ Verified
-screen-height

Set vertical screen resolution (e.g., -screen-height 1080)

Unity Engine
-dx10

Launch option from PCGamingWiki

PCGamingWiki
-lowmemory

Enables low memory mode in Unreal Engine games.

Epic Games Documentation
✅ Verified
-EpicPortal

Launch option from PCGamingWiki

PCGamingWiki
-force-vulkan

Forces Vulkan rendering API in Unity games.

Unity Documentation
✅ Verified
-nomansky

Disables sky effects for FPS boost in ARK: Survival Evolved.

Game-Specific Communities
✅ Verified
gamemode

Proton/Wine compatibility option.

ProtonDB
-usecache

"" in Launch Options helps load game quicker

Steam Community
-useallavailablecores

Uses all CPU cores. Specific to L4D series.

Game-Specific Communities
✅ Verified
-force-d3d11

Forces DirectX 11 rendering (Windows only) in Unity games.

Unity Documentation
✅ Verified
-screen-width

Set horizontal screen resolution (e.g., -screen-width 1920)

Unity Engine
-window-mode

Set window mode: exclusive, windowed, or borderless

Unity Engine
-force-d3d12

Forces DirectX 12 rendering (Windows only) in Unity games.

Unity Documentation
✅ Verified