‘ARK: Survival Evolved’ Demoed On PS4 Pro, Near 60 FPS, Resolution Bump, And December Release
ARK: Survival Evolved took part in the Extra Life 24-hour charity Twitch stream event this weekend. Studio Wildcard used the draw of a PlayStation 4 version of the dinosaur survival game to bring in donations. Viewers got to see the very first footage of the game being played on the yet to be released PS4 Pro.
The PS4 Pro version is currently similar to Xbox version, but runs much better. And it should as the new console leaps from 1.84 teraflops worth of graphical processing power to 4.2. Framerate consistently stays above 30 frames per second (fps) and occasionally hits 60, per Studio Wildcard co-founder Jesse Rapczack.
The in-game fps counter was shown on screen briefly while exploring a cave on the Scorched Earth map. The framerate was hovered around 50 fps while moving around underground and touched 60 fps at points.
Studio Wildcard does not put any framerate limiter on ARK: Survival Evolved, so fps is largely dependent on what is being rendered on screen. Player built structures and large numbers of tamed animals are typically the biggest killers of fps in the game.
Update: Studio Wildcard just announced that the PS4 Pro get a resolution bump above the 720p seen on the Xbox One. A “Detailed Graphics” option was shown in the menu, but there were no specifics given as to what this does to enhance the graphics or how high the resolution will go.
The standard PS4 runs very pretty much the same as the Xbox One version with the same resolution, per Studio Wildcard. Those familiar with how ARK: Survival Evolved runs on the console knows this means a struggle to reach 30 fps, especially in heavily built up areas.
Studio Co-Founder Jesse Rapczack ran the PS4 Pro demo during the Extra Life livestream on Twitch. The gameplay was essentially the same, with his character dying multiple times when starting off. He later used a cheat command to spawn a tamed Wyvern, which he flew around The Island for a few minutes.
At the end of the 24-hour livestream, Studio Wildcard demonstrated PS4 Pro gameplay on the Scorched Earth expansion and The Center map. Rapczack joined Community Manager Jat on a player-dedicated server where additional information was given.
The content is exactly the same as the Xbox version. This includes The Center official map, the Primitive Plus total conversion mod, and the Scorched Earth DLC expansion.
Spawning the tamed Wyverns revealed PlayStation Trophies are at least in the beginning stages of being implemented. The fact that Trophies could be earned from using console cheats means there is still work to be done. Still, this is good news for both Xbox One and PS4 owners as Studio Wildcard last officially mentioned Achievements in Trophies this past June, as covered by Inquisitr.
The Xbox One will receive Achievements in an update in December.
The ARK: Survival Evolved version demonstrated on the PS4 Pro is an older build of the game. It ran well during the demo with some pop-in of trees and other objects while flying around. The Xbox One edition of the game has much more object pop-in.
Update: Studio Wildcard announced a December release date for the PlayStation 4. The game has been submitted to Sony for approval and they expect it to release sometime next month. There is no exact release date yet.
Sony isn’t keen on releasing Early Access titles to their consoles, so it must wait for the official release. Studio Wildcard is currently targeting this December or a winter release. There is still no timeline for an official launch of ARK: Survival Evolved beyond that. Studio Wildcard is starting what it calls “TLC” work for release, as reported here, which includes a refresh of the cave system on The Island and new dinosaur character models.
[Featured Image by Studio Wildcard / Twitch]
