ARK: Survival Ascended (ASA) rebuilt the survival formula on Unreal Engine 5.1, and the server software got noticeably heavier in the process. Client-side features like Lumen and Nanite don’t touch the server, but the world simulation \u2014 dino AI, structure integrity checks, save serialization, and network replication \u2014 still runs on a narrow set of threads. That makes clock speed the first decision, not core count. A 6-core CPU at 5.0 GHz will host a busier ASA server than a 16-core Xeon at 2.6 GHz. The second decision is RAM: ASA worlds grow without bound as players build, tame, and hoard, and memory pressure is the leading cause of mid-week crashes on under-provisioned boxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The numbers below are what operators actually see in production, not box minimums. ASA idles around 4\u20136 GB of RAM on The Island and climbs as structures and tamed dinos accumulate; expect 12\u201320 GB on an active 40-player server, and more if you run multiple maps on one machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most common mistake is buying a many-core server CPU with low clocks. ASA’s tick and dino pathing are latency-sensitive: buy the fastest single-core performance you can afford, then add cores for multi-map clusters. If you plan to run The Island, Scorched Earth, and Aberration on one box, budget cores per map \u2014 each instance wants at least two dedicated cores plus headroom for the OS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ubuntu 22.04 is the standard host OS. Install SteamCMD and create a dedicated service account:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ASA server is Steam App ID 2430930 and downloads roughly 25 GB. Launch it with a startup script that sets the map, session name, and ports:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Run the script under screen, tmux, or a systemd unit so the process survives SSH disconnects. A minimal systemd unit for ASA looks like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n On a rented box, confirm the provider is not filtering UDP upstream \u2014 many cheap plans rate-limit UDP, which shows up as rubber-banding long before the CPU is the bottleneck. A simple check is Edit Two settings matter more than the rest. ASA servers also accumulate memory over long uptimes. A nightly restart during off-peak hours prevents out-of-memory crashes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Have the restart script send an RCON warning 60 seconds before it kills the process, so online players can log out safely instead of losing gear mid-fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ASA pulls mods from CurseForge by ID at startup, so there is no manual file management. Append Save files live in Component<\/th> 10\u201320 players<\/th> 20\u201350 players<\/th> 50\u2013100 players<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> CPU<\/td> 4 cores @ 3.5+ GHz (i5-11400 \/ Ryzen 5 5600)<\/td> 6\u20138 cores @ 4.0+ GHz (i7-13700 \/ Ryzen 7 7700X)<\/td> 8\u201312 cores @ 4.5+ GHz (Ryzen 9 7950X \/ i9-13900K)<\/td><\/tr> RAM<\/td> 16 GB<\/td> 32 GB<\/td> 64 GB<\/td><\/tr> Storage<\/td> 250 GB NVMe<\/td> 500 GB NVMe<\/td> 1 TB NVMe<\/td><\/tr> Bandwidth<\/td> 100 Mbps \/ 5 TB<\/td> 1 Gbps \/ 10 TB<\/td> 1 Gbps \/ 20 TB+<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Installing the ASA Server with SteamCMD<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y steamcmd lib32gcc-s1\nsudo useradd -m -s \/bin\/bash ark\nsudo -u ark -s\nsteamcmd +force_install_dir \/home\/ark\/asa-server +login anonymous +app_update 2430930 validate +quit<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n#!\/bin\/bash\n.\/ArkAscendedServer.exe TheIsland_WP?listen?SessionName=\"MyServer\"?MaxPlayers=40?Port=7777?QueryPort=27015?RCONEnabled=true?RCONPort=27020 -log -usecache -NoBattlEye<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n[Unit]\nDescription=ARK ASA Server\nAfter=network.target\n\n[Service]\nUser=ark\nWorkingDirectory=\/home\/ark\/asa-server\nExecStart=\/home\/ark\/asa-server\/start-asa.sh\nRestart=on-failure\n\n[Install]\nWantedBy=multi-user.target<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nPorts to Open<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Port<\/th> Protocol<\/th> Purpose<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> 7777<\/td> UDP<\/td> Game client connections<\/td><\/tr> 7778<\/td> UDP<\/td> Raw UDP socket (RakNet)<\/td><\/tr> 27015<\/td> UDP<\/td> Server browser query<\/td><\/tr> 27020<\/td> TCP<\/td> RCON remote management<\/td><\/tr> 32330<\/td> UDP<\/td> Steam P2P connectivity<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n iperf3 -u<\/code> against a second machine to measure packet loss and jitter on the exact ports you will use.<\/p>\n\n\n\nGameSettings.ini Tuning<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
ShooterGame\/Saved\/Config\/LinuxServer\/GameSettings.ini<\/code> to cap tame counts and stabilize memory use:<\/p>\n\n\n\n[\/Script\/ShooterGame.ShooterGameMode]\nServerTickRate=30\nMaxTamedDinos=500\nbIncreaseMaxTameLimit=true\n\n[\/Script\/ShooterGame.ShooterGameUserSettings]\nbDisableBloom=false\nbDisableFog=false<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nServerTickRate<\/code> at 30 is the sweet spot for most communities \u2014 60 Hz costs roughly double the CPU for a gain most players cannot feel on a survival server. MaxTamedDinos<\/code> is your real memory guard: every tamed dino adds save-serialization cost, and tribes that hoard thousands of dinos are the usual cause of save bloat and rollbacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n0 5 * * * \/home\/ark\/asa-server\/restart.sh<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nCurseForge Mods and Crossplay<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
-mods=887336,903647,895132 -crossplay<\/code> to the launch line; players on Steam, Xbox, and Windows Store auto-download the mods when they join. Mods are the first thing to audit when performance degrades \u2014 a badly written mod can double tick time. Test each new mod on a staging instance for a day before adding it to the live server.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBackup Before You Need It<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
ShooterGame\/Saved\/SavedArks\/<\/code> and run 1\u20135 GB depending on map and structure count. Trigger SaveWorld<\/code> via RCON, then rsync the folder off-box. Keep 7 daily, 4 weekly, and 1 monthly snapshot, and verify restore integrity weekly \u2014 a backup you have never restored is a guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\nCommon Failures and Fixes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Measure Before You Upgrade<\/h2>\n\n\n\n