Is This The Worst Optimized Game EVER? Also Forces Frame Generation!

In this video we'll be testing the RTX 4090 and 7800X3D combo in probably the most unoptimized game to ever exist, Ark: Survival Ascended.
We'll be testing all presets at 1440p and 4K, as well as all DLSS presets. I also show you how you can improve your framerate in Ark: Survival Ascended by removing volumetric clouds.
The game is a complete unoptimized mess, and it forces FSR Frame Generation. A horrible implementation at that too.
System specs:
Ryzen 7 7800X3D
32GB DDR5 6000 MT/s CL30 with tuned sub-timings
MSI Liquid X GeForce RTX 4090
Gigabyte Eagle B650 Motherboard
2TB Gen4 NVMe Storage Drive
Corsair HX850I power supply
Windows 11 23H2
ReBAR enabled
Memory Integrity disabled.
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/ @mostly_positive_reviews

[@aboutthat413]

Forced frame generation is really terrible, especially as they are trying to use it to cover up terrible optimisation.

[@Mostly_Positive_Reviews]

Yeah, and it's a poor implementation too, but you have no obvious way to disable it either.

[@saiyaman9000]

​@@Mostly_Positive_Reviews for interest sake would the nvidia app override work for this frame generation and make it better? When it is released ofc

[@pcgameshardware867]

forced frame generation holy crap whatever you do don't let jensen get a word of this before it's too late!

[@Mostly_Positive_Reviews]

Deleting the video ASAP!

[@pcgameshardware867]

execute order 86 asap ​@@Mostly_Positive_Reviews

[@Mostly_Positive_Reviews]

I am really curious to see what's going to happen when the 50 series reviews launch. You know both Steves are not going to use MFG in their reviews, rightly so, and the amount of people whose worlds are going to be shattered when a 5070 doesnt come close to a 4090 when not using 4x MFG is going to be very high! You know I like myself some frame generation. But in small doses, and where and when it makes sense. 4x MFG being advertised as being faster than a 4090 is not it!

[@Jakiyyyyy]

This is for 2023. What about 2024? What is the most unoptimized in 2024? It's crazy how much CPU demanding UE5 is. This is the same story as Stalker 2 as well. It seems like they just made a game and then that's it. Take it or leave it kind of release. I feel like most people who bought the game just want to make fun of it but not truly playing it, as all the things should be when it comes to half-baked games like these. That forced frame generation was insane. I don't remember any games did that before. You can revisit this again later when DLSS 4 MFG came out to see how much crutches it need until it become truly playable. 🤷‍♀🥴

[@Mostly_Positive_Reviews]

I think Stalker 2 is a very strong contender for 2024. There is a scene where you fight one of the Monolithian bosses on a rooftop and using this 4090 + 7800X3D systsm it drops into the low 70's, while using DLSS Quality and Frame Generation at 1440p. The GPU was doing about 90W in that fight. It's absolutely insane that games like this get greenlit. I understand what the Stalker 2 devs went through, but people are still expected to pay full price for a broken mess. I reckon if they released a $40 early access version it would be understandable. It's in early access state, costs less, and the devs can get some money to continue with development. Will definitely relook at this when I get a 50 series GPU.

[@west5385]

I am really curious how frame generation will be used in the PS6 and NextBox. I wonder if we will be seeing lots of console games with forced frame gen meaning that maybe PC ports of those games will also have it forced in the future. I think this is the direction games on console are going. Sorry for going slightly off topic. Another Good video, liked 👍

[@Mostly_Positive_Reviews]

Yeah, it will for sure be interesting, and I think you are right, we'll probably start seeing more and more forced frame generation in games. I think there already are one or two PS5 Pro games where FG is forced on. Dont quote me on that though. Also, if you have a look at the new Monster Hunter game, the requirements specify 60 frames per second WITH FG enabled. Now that means 30 fps base frame rate, and anybody that has used FG with a base framerate of 30 knows how terrible it is. I like frame gen, but give us the option. Also, devs should optimize their games to reach 60 fps with relevant settings on relevant hardware at least, and then the user can choose to enable frame gen or not. What I mean by the relevant settings and relevant hardware is that a 4070 Super should be able to do 1440p High at 60 fps. 4070 Ti Super should be capable of 1440p Ultra 60 fps etc etc. Appreciate the interaction. Hope you have an awesome day!

[@west5385]

@Mostly_Positive_Reviews Great take, you are my favorite GPU youtuber now because we have the same opinion of upscaling and frame gen. You could probably get more views by being overly negative crying and raging about the prevalence of upscaling and frame gen in modern AAA games but u still provide level headed take on these software features. Really looking forward to see your opinion of DLSS 4 Multi Frame Gen and maybe the new DLSS model too. If not you, Digital Foundry and Hardware Unboxed will be there for me too. Daniel Owen is pretty good too.

[@Mostly_Positive_Reviews]

@@west5385 Really appreciate it bud. A LOT! I will definitely cover the new GPUs, it all just depends on when we get them here, and how much they cost. I wont be able to do day 1 reviews like the big boys, but it will be done for sure. Currently eyeing a trio of B580 or B570, 5070 or 5070 Ti, and 9070XT. If the 5070 and 9070XT can be found for around $600 here I'll get those probably my March / April, assuming they have launched by then. The 5080 and 5090 are just WAY too expensive for me to buy outright just for the channel as I will continue using the 4090 for myself for now.

[@UltimateAssetoRaces]

FSR fragmen forced on for all cards. But you can disable it with a command. Personally I wouldn’t remove clouds, the game looks strange in certain scenarios. And it’s not as the game was meant to be played, the sky has the wrong color to it when its changing between night or day from my knowledge.

[@Mostly_Positive_Reviews]

You know what the command is? The game definitely looks great, but I'm not sure I'll take these visuals when this is how it performs. I tried it on a 4070 at 1440p and it's borderline unplayable.

[@UltimateAssetoRaces]

@@Mostly_Positive_Reviews r. FidelityX.FSR3.Enabled 0 | r. FidelityX.FSR3.QualityMode 0 l r. FidelityFX.Fl.Enabled 0 get ready for even worse performance!

[@lenscapes2755]

r.FidelityFX.FI.Enabled 0​@@Mostly_Positive_Reviews

[@lenscapes2755]

They are also updating the game to UE5.5 that will bring CPU optimization as well and bring back DLSS framegen. Expected to come in March.

[@lenscapes2755]

@@Mostly_Positive_Reviewsr.FidelityFX.FI.Enabled 0 is the command.

[@tudor-octavian4520]

Laughs in No Man's Sky at release. Also, Starfield. No, this is not the most unoptimized game by a longshot. Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Wildcard. I'm running this game singleplayer, at 1080p 60FPS with most settings set to high, on a Lenovo Loq that's got a Ryzen 7 7435HS and an RTX 4060. The game runs well for PVE. And keep in mind that my CPU is also running all the AI of the dinos, not like playing on a hosted server. That's good in my book, as far as I'm concerned. However, yeah, it might run like shit for those that want to play PVP, where reflexes actually matter, and have 30s series RTX cards, though my PC 3060 gets the job done as well. Oh, and yes, Wildcard took out DLSS FrameGen a couple of updates ago and replaced it with the AMD solution. They did say that they'll add the Nvidia FrameGen back into the game in the future, though. We're kind of waiting for that to happen with the Unreal Engine 5.5 update in March, but we'll see what happens. The thing is...from what I've seen, the game is really CPU-intensive. When playing on a server, it's definitely just Unreal Engine 5 being a resource hog. But people have to face one thing. Wildcard is just using the stock Unreal Engine. They're not customizing, optimizing, or modifying any part of the engine to work better for their use-case. This is the state of the entire gaming industry. Hell, even NVIDIA has started marketing their 50 series cards more based on their DLSS and frame gen capabilities rather than on raw performance. If y'all want good, well-optimized games, support indie developers. Oh yeah, and try playing Warframe. The game looks great and will run on a freaking potato xD.

[@UltimateAssetoRaces]

I’ve been following ark and its remaster for a while now, both renowned for terrible performance for the time, however there’s no denying the games look good. I just don’t think they don’t justify that performance, Learned quite a few things a bout both. For example the grass is a lower resolution than everything else in ase ,and scales terribly with DLSS/FSR therefore. Looking forward to the unreal engine patch on ase.

[@RJTHEGAME]

Complete joke how bad some of these devs are That Black State game might actually be good however apparently for smoothness but UE5 games mainly are so stupidly heavy I've just been going back to some older games lately & it just opens your eyes to how well some of those run over todays games Quite refreshing

[@Mostly_Positive_Reviews]

Yeah, it's very frustrating. Hopefully Black State runs fine, and apparently without FG it does run at above 60 fps on a 5090 at 4K, though not sure what DLSS setting was used. We'll have to wait and see.

[@RJTHEGAME]

@@Mostly_Positive_Reviews Probably performance knowing them lol

[@sephiroth17181]

i own this game (regretably) i run a ryzen 7 5700x 32gb ddr4 3600mhz ram and an rtx 3070, i started playing at 1440p medium but as updates kept dropping the requirements kept getting higher and higher. now i cant even play the game at 1080p low settings..... i load into game and roughly 5-10 mins i get hard crashes so bad i have to force reset my pc. and eventually when i get back into game i get artifacting like my card is dying (i know it isnt at all) and now i will be seeking a refund because for the 2nd time they have rugpulled over their "roadmap" how can a port of a unity game to unreal take 3-4 years??? the game has now been marked as not being fully complete until xmas 2026 which i highly doubt that will even happen, and i see this garbage being delayed until midway through 2027 maybe even 2028. snail games/wildcard need to just give up on this and admit they are literal trash developers who dont have a clue what they are doing. but they are too busy releasing pay to win/premium maps/dinos to milk the playerbase even more than they already have my advice to anyone looking to buy this game DONT WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY!! 100% total and utter garbage......

[@Mostly_Positive_Reviews]

This is just utter nonsense from these devs. I remember when it came out, I was so excited because I loved ASE. It ran very poorly at launch, but tweaking settings it was possible to get it playable. I decided to wait a bit until it is fixed, and well, 14 months later and it runs worse than at launch with forced frame generation. Completely unacceptable.

[@sephiroth17181]

@@Mostly_Positive_Reviews i used to play survival evolved and i did enjoy it, but now the devs are super lazy and are only interested in pumping out "premium" content so they can pad their pockets before the inevitable "oh sorry after so long we have decided that this isnt worth our time anymore" and the game being shelved the same as with ark 2..... honestly the worst dev team out there, and to think they charge so much for the game honestly its a dumpster fire.

[@Mostly_Positive_Reviews]

@ yeah, the game is still full priced here, and all it is is a graphical remake of ASE basically. Shifting from Unity to UE5 and that's basically it. Apparently there is an Unreal Engine 5.5 update scheduled for this game for March, so let's see how it goes. I have no hope whatsoever, and have reverted to just playing Survival Evolved now. Unfortunately I have too much time in this game to refund, so the best I can do now is to warn other people not to buy it.

[@elementshadow9767]

why its so blurry? oh nvm dlss garbage

[@west5385]

No way you can tell the difference between DLSS Q and Native on a compressed youtube video lol

[@saiyaman9000]

​@@west5385there are also many types of other blur, motion blur, post process can distort the image