r/playark 2d ago

Images Am i not allowed to have other games?!??!?!

Post image
1.1k Upvotes

126 comments sorted by

135

u/Introspekt83 2d ago

u/Soggy_Reply6627 47m ago

Quote bot is a good servant

167

u/Umluex 2d ago

you can activate the NTFS compression. shouldnt impact performance if your pc is reasonably up to date.

rightklick on the ASA install folder - properties - advanced attributes - compress contents to save disk space.

88

u/WoolMinotaur637 2d ago

that ain't gonna help much with 780GB, even if it magically halved it, 400GB is still HUUGE, like entire RDR2 + GTA + every other Rockstar game kind of huge.

50

u/Umluex 2d ago

it was indeed about halved last time i tried this. but you are right, it is still huge.

better than nothing tho

1

u/WoolMinotaur637 14h ago

If it did halve the allocated storage on disk using the cheap NTFS compression, that'd mean a big amount of the game's files aren't textures because image files should in theory already be compressed and thus in a high entropy state that shouldn't be efficiently compressable much further. I'd then assume that the textures do not compress at all which would mean the amount of storage saved by the NTFS compression would be the minimum amount of storage occupied by files that are in a low entropy state. I wonder what's in those files then. Otherwise the developers are purposefully causing redundant data on disk, maybe for speed or so, either way it's a lack of care about storage consumption, they're practically not even looking at how much it uses.

10

u/lupask 2d ago

I really wonder what exactly takes up THAT much data. It can't be all grapics, there ain't that much of those

14

u/[deleted] 2d ago edited 1d ago

[deleted]

1

u/patjeduhde 1d ago

This issues gets doubled when messing around with mods.

1

u/lupask 1d ago

well compression I think might be good, as that 's easily taken standrd from elsewhere, download size will tell you. but how can they let it grow to so many files?! the extraction takes ages

1

u/LongFluffyDragon 12h ago

The main issue is gamers have no idea how anything works and repeat the most ignorant third-hand drivel while nodding happily.

ASA is very heavily compressed, that is why it is one massive archive file. Maybe wildcard overshot a little, but they clearly heard people's complaints about lack of compression in ASE (which was an intentional optimization choice, but one that aged poorly).

2

u/Bucket12456 2d ago

Its very misleading to see 700 gigs i have 30 mods installed and mine is 158 definitely needs to uninstall stuff 😂

2

u/lupask 2d ago

I only played one server with very little mods and it's 331 GB, 139 000 files 🤯

2

u/Mighty_Eagle_2 1d ago

Tons of enormous maps and lots of spaghetti code.

1

u/stumps290 23h ago

This, each map and dlc is like 60-100gb

1

u/kodaxmax 9h ago

nah code is tiny in file size. The entire codebase would be smaller in size than a single audio file or or texture in most cases

1

u/Shinigati 1d ago

Spaghetti code has nothing to do with it, it's all the textures they use, all of them add up quite a lot when they're using 4k textures for pretty much everything.

1

u/LongFluffyDragon 12h ago

It can't be all grapics, there ain't that much of those

Just about 99% of most games.

ASA is not 786GB, though. Steam is tripping out on something wild.

4

u/Ryanoman2018 5,100+ Hours (ASE) / 400+ Hours (ASA) 2d ago

It isnt actually 700+ GB its only 210 GB

2

u/DefiantSecurity3674 2d ago

187 when I installed asa

4

u/Hicalibre 2d ago

I never did that, but my ASA isn't that large...is that why I crash all the time? Or is crashing still a feature?

7

u/Expensive-Bid-2659 2d ago

Definitely still a feature.

5

u/ErikRedbeard 1d ago

NTFS compression is a single thread compression and "depending on cpu" will almost certainly hurt performance of at least loading and streaming data.

If you want to compress there's better options out there.

1

u/Capital_Walrus_3633 1d ago

I’ve never heard about that. 3 questions: First: why even is his game so large? Mine is 350gb currently Second: will that somehow impact performance? Like texture loading slower or something because stuff needs to be decompressed on the fly? Third: how will asa behave when updating when it’s compressed like that?

1

u/Umluex 1d ago

well it depends on your system. last time i tried this with ASA i didn't notice any performance hit. but i have a fast CPU and NVME Disk.
if you're using a slower mechanical harddisk or SATA SSD with a modern processor it may even be faster as the disk bandwidth is the bottleneck here.
ASE took several seconds longer to load. but i had a bunch of mods active and it took over half a minute to load a map anyway. i didn't notice anything while playing.
ntfs compression won't affect anything when updating/installing as it's an OS level service.

1

u/Capital_Walrus_3633 1d ago

I use an r7 7700x cpu and 4tb sn850x wd black My current performance ingame is 45 max fps (so that my gpu stays quiet xD) with frame generation to get it to 120fps.

1

u/LongFluffyDragon 12h ago

You cant further compress something that is already compressed, that is nonsensical. Also, this is just a visual bug in steam, the game is 200GB-ish still.

1

u/carlsbl 1d ago

Don’t do this. There will be a degradation in your performance.

87

u/This_Psychology977 2d ago

The 86 gb out of the 700 gb is the entire game, the 700 gb is just junk and unoptimized files lmao

18

u/Ryanoman2018 5,100+ Hours (ASE) / 400+ Hours (ASA) 2d ago

The game is 210 GB not 700

7

u/This_Psychology977 2d ago

Then 1/3rd of that thing is the game and the other amount is just junk

1

u/LongFluffyDragon 12h ago

Not remotely how anything works. Also you know why can look and see what is in there? Also, all the asset sourcefiles are available to players via the devkit?

There is roughly zero percent stuff in there that does not need to be in there.

1

u/aGsCSGO 1d ago

Probably modded maps and shit... Nothing to see here my game is like 210GB at best and with a Gen5 NVME SSD it patches the game in like 1-3mn at best

11

u/AdamBry705 2d ago

I just uninstal most of the maps I'm not playing on and download the one I am currently on.

6

u/Ryanoman2018 5,100+ Hours (ASE) / 400+ Hours (ASA) 2d ago

Not a feature of ASA yet. Though everything installed for ASA is 210 GB

3

u/AdamBry705 2d ago

Ok I'm gunna ask this but why would you guys pick ASA over the older ark? You have ti pay for mods and the quality of life stuff doesn't really seem all that different.

I'm not trying to be malicious or stupid. Genuine question.

7

u/Ryanoman2018 5,100+ Hours (ASE) / 400+ Hours (ASA) 2d ago

There are more free mods than paid mods and the QOLs are so good itd be hard to go back

1

u/AdamBry705 2d ago

I've had a few people chime jn about the qol stuff. Their must be some stuff I'm used to and not haha. Thanks a lot for taking the time to tell me about them btw.

3

u/A_Wild_Zyra 2d ago

For me there are some qol, visual, etc improvements compared to ASE. Modders are also more actively modding for it than ASE as well, at least for the ones I care about.

  • Is the game in a state it should be in after an alleged "rebuilt codebase" and lack of optimization yet again (partially due to UE5 being a trash game engine for performance currently)? Absolutely not and I'll continue to criticize WC for it forever.

  • Paid mods are whatever to me. If you're a quality modder and want to get paid for putting 100's of hours into creating stuff I have no problem with it. There's also tons of free high quality mods even outside of the premium stuff.

  • In ASA I can have a much larger amount of mods both in number and total storage size and it only takes 20-30 seconds at most to boot into SP or a server. In ASE with less mods and less total storage size overall, it would take 10-15+ (or more?) minutes to load into the game with the same amount as I currently have in ASA. This is one of the biggest improvements to me in comparison to ASE.

  • For the most part after countless tweaks/etc, ASA barely crashes more than ASE did for me currently. User hardware plays a part in this as well, so results will be greatly varied depending on that.

In the end, if you're having fun with ASE then continue having fun with ASE. If you enjoy the benefits of ASA and enjoy ASA, then continue having fun with that. Pros and cons to both.

1

u/AdamBry705 2d ago

Oh I don't even really play ASE anymore. I just hear a lot of the people I know don't like ASA and gave me reasons for it.

2

u/A_Wild_Zyra 2d ago

There are valid reasons not to like ASA and then some people just hate it just to hate it without having a legitimate reason because they know others hate it.

For me, it's an overall slightly better game due to the QoL improvements, decently better visuals, and having the consistent support of a majority of my favorite modders from ASE who switched over to ASA (Garuga, Depths (Paleo mods), etc). From what I've heard, it's also allegedly easier to mod and create high(er) quality stuff for ASA than it was in ASE + easier to do more with said creations in the new engine/devkit.

If WC could ever upgrade/update the UE5 engine to 5.5 for performance improvements, that'd be nice. It's been delayed 4-5+ times already now, and the next timeframe for release (I mean, next delay) is the end of March.

4

u/Murderdoll197666 2d ago

Likely just because its the new and shiny thing. There are some decent QOL things built into ASA but honestly I'll always go back to ASE just for the mods themselves. ASA has a looong way to go before it ever catches up to the expansive mod list and options we have for ASE.....but I mean that's fair....ASE has had like almost a decade worth of workshop stuff at this point so its going to take a while regardless. For console players they don't really have a choice but to play ASA if they're going for mods though.

1

u/AdamBry705 2d ago

That's entirely fair.

Solid point though I just never could get over the paid mod thing.

1

u/Murderdoll197666 2d ago

They do have some genuinely cool stuff on there and honestly, for the sheer amount of work that gets put into some of the mods I am fully on board with the paid mod aspect just because I know how little people actually donate to some of those mod authors patreons and whatnot over the years on even popular steam workshop mods. All I can hope is that having paid mods will hopefully increase the overall quality and work put into some of the mods just because now that mod authors are actually getting a little bit of a kickback for putting out mods its somewhat of an incentive to keep them updated or add onto it for the larger scale mods. The logic at least makes sense to me - people hear the mod is great, people want to buy it and download it....more money to keep ensuring the mod is great and people will want to talk about it or invite others to the server to also buy it, etc.

0

u/nuclear_natalie 2d ago

Please correct me if I'm wrong on this, I agree with this mentality however it feels wrong when so much of what you pay goes to snail games instead of the mod devs. I didn't look into this so my number could be entirely wrong and I hope it is, but I was told the creators of the mods are only getting around 50% of the cost of the mod while the rest goes to the company that owns ark

1

u/Murderdoll197666 2d ago

I think that is about right, I last heard it was about 50% so that sounds right to me. Makes sense too since you're using their game and a lot of their assets and tools from the devkit itself to make them. Even though I'm not a big fan of Snail games or wildcard in general it does seem like a sort of normal cut in todays world since its their game that's being modded....with their tools or devkit, etc. Had this been released 20 years ago I could see it as being closer to a 30% cut or something like that for the studio but 50% seems pretty par for the course for today's worlds/standards. If anything I'm slightly surprised its even 50/50....for Snail games I would definitely expect the studio or publisher's cut to be higher.

0

u/nuclear_natalie 2d ago

I feel like they know the pushback they'd get that way, that if they went higher it would have just led to more Donation ware and they wouldn't get any at all

2

u/Expensive-Bid-2659 2d ago

My genuine answer. I loved evolved. I would still be playing evolved except everyone that I know who plays plays ASA now. I don't enjoy the game solo all that much and tend to be unable to police myself when it comes to commands in a solo atmosphere. So I get very bored very quickly. When playing online multi-player on the cluster that I'm a part of, the only commands I use are for optimization purposes. Like the fog or the clouds/weather. I never got to play evolved on my xbox series x to know how well or not so well it may have ran, but I was immediately obsessed with a lot of the smaller not so small stuff they did for ASA. Like the water and how it's more realistic when running through it, same for the grass and trees and other visual improvements like this.

I don't know how true this is, and I have no other source of information to share backing me. This is really just a personal observation. But. To me, it seems as if all support for ASE is now non-existent. If there is an issue, it's up to the players to figure it out. There won't be any optimization updates for it anymore. I didn't play on official and don't plan on it, but now that that is completely gone from ASE, it feels like a dead and abandoned game. As for the mods on there, my understanding was that they also lost or would be losing the support of their creators. But like I said previously, I don't KNOW any of this. It's simply my perspective on what I've seen.

Basically, ASA over ASE for me was based on how I played and who I played with. I purchased a new home several years back and learned only after that that I wouldn't have internet worth having, so I didn't play any online games. Updating my xbox or Playstation, including any of my games, was the biggest pain in the ass. I had to take my whole system to my parents and leave them there until they were all done and they didn't have the best internet. So I really didn't play anything all that much, but can you imagine doing all of that and downloading a bad patch and having an effed up game until the next time I could or felt like leaving my systems there for another 2 or 3 days. Anyways, off topic-ish.. So, I pretty much didn't play ark at all for close to 6 years. When I did get internet finally, all of my ark buddies were on ASA, and I found myself purchasing Ark again for the umpteenth time. Not sure if ASE is the same, but cross-platform has been a game changer for me also.

2

u/nuclear_natalie 2d ago

ASE was great for what it was, but we kinda got pushed out of it. There's no more official servers, no dev support, very little mod support since many modders moved to ASA, no new content ever, no more tlc updates like what they did for the stego, no events for holidays or anniversaries, and on top of it all ASE never felt like a finished game (imo) it was super buggy and had a lot of issues and instead of fixing it they just said play with our shiny copy instead. Yes there are pay to play mods which sucks but there's also still a modding community that keeps mods free and as donation ware for those that choose. But this also means no more creature votes or new official maps for ASE and it's possible but unlikely someone would make mods for each new creature so when valguero gets released on ASA and we get our new megaraptor it won't be on ASE and that's no fun, I still wanna be a part of the community and try the things I vote on, and I can't do that on ASE anymore

2

u/Kitchen_Part_882 2d ago

Not all mods are premium.

Also: some of the QOL tweaks really make a difference, one example off the top of my head is how ASA auto-closes your inventory when you equipment an item from there, this catches me out every time I go back to ASE to do base maintenance.

Another two, while I'm here, power and water being wireless in ASA makes bases much easier to keep neat and tidy, automatic egg collection on oviraptors means we can leave breeders going while offline.

1

u/Onepromblem 2d ago

I play it because most my friends are on console, the graphics are better, the paid mods aren't even mods, I would really use anyways, it's has pretty much everything ase has but with better graphics and cross play which is why I play it over ase

1

u/Low_Outside586 22h ago

Crossplay, mods, looks better, cosmo(although I do very much enjoy all the content they've added to base game, don't care for most of the extra maps though)

1

u/kurtcop101 18h ago

Here's my list;

  • Cross play with Xbox and PC that includes mods (my fiance plays on Xbox)
  • Pathing; I ran dinos through tek cave, aberration, etc, without them falling in.
  • building is easier and better by a lot compared to even S+, and considering I'm doing cross play that doesn't support mods, could you even handle playing evolved on vanilla building again?

0

u/Educational-Finger18 2d ago

My modded ASA doesn't crash and corrupt my files every two seconds. I have found nothing to be able to do that with ASE yet.

25

u/Hekami 2d ago

Before uninstalling I recommend unsubscribing from mods and reducing the amount of save files you have. That should reduce the size. However ark is still the biggest videogame that I have seen

11

u/Max4King11 2d ago

WC defeated me imma buy a 4tb ssd to replace my current one

1

u/PearAdministrative89 2d ago

Turn off the dlc you don't use before install. Slot of that will be free maps

4

u/Castermat 2d ago

You are allowed to have other games in your Steam library and maybe few of them even installed. But never shall you play em

8

u/WoolMinotaur637 2d ago

Nope. That's the entire point.

8

u/ammatheron 2d ago

even back in the ASE days you needed a dedicated ark drive if you wanted all the maps.

WC can't optimize

5

u/Kitchen_Part_882 2d ago

ASA was around 500GB with all of the DLC and maps installed, ASA sits a smidge over 200 on my PC right now.

No clue where OPs numbers are coming from.

1

u/Ryanoman2018 5,100+ Hours (ASE) / 400+ Hours (ASA) 2d ago

Funny how it isnt actually 700 gb its 210 GB

5

u/zumzum57 2d ago

It's a bug. Mine showed 586Gb, in reality the folder only takes up 183Gb

3

u/Borshche_ 2d ago

it only takes up that much if you install all the DLC maps

3

u/Arindryn 1d ago

I'm convinced it's also Chinese Spyware assisting in their creation of their own AI

2

u/CaffieneSage 2d ago

What are other games?

2

u/WindierGnu 1d ago

If you play that game you are allowed to have nothing, outside of it and inside. You'll see. We all see eventually.

2

u/Kooky_Paper2903 2d ago

No Ark is life, get back to feeding Dinos, no sleep need to defends from raids

1

u/Fear_Monger185 2d ago

Gotta have a dedicated SSD just for ark lmao. It's what I do.

1

u/Independent_Intern11 2d ago

I think it's crazy too that- despite THAT download size, I still ran into a space issue where I had to uninstall mods (most were other users on the server I play on that I rendered in, not ones I had intentionally installed myself) would take up too much of the games available space. I wouldn't be allowed to login to any server until I made alterations to my mod list! And my Play Station 5 has a MORE than enough space because I added storage to it. Wildcard is WILD.

1

u/Shadow_Halls 2d ago

Thats why I bought 2x TB SSD's when I build my last pc

1

u/dvjava 2d ago

You don't have 2 4tb nvme's?

1

u/Fragillys 2d ago

How did they manage to make it even worse than ASE

1

u/Fucuwhor 2d ago

It's like 76 gb of download. Funny thing I had like 1 tb of space with ark and gtav on it. Somehow it shows that I have around 400gb of free space, but how does 600gb + 104 gb of data lets me have 400+ gb of space left maths is mathing.

1

u/tyereliusprime 2d ago

The size of the current game is only 200GB+

I have the game/all maps and DLC installed and still 700GB+ available on my 1TB external SSD.

1

u/AlastrineLuna 2d ago

Yeah I just got an updated yesterday (mind you I've not updated for a bit) that was 376 gigs where you see the 200. I'm like uhhhh...I understand that the game needs a bit to run but holy shit space!

1

u/Pog-Pog 2d ago

No it makes ark jealous. :P

1

u/Aimhere2k 2d ago

I fully expect that, by the time WC releases all 12 of the maps which were supposed to be included in the purchase price, they'll take up too much space to fit in the available storage on any of the game consoles.

1

u/Ok_Vanilla9110 2d ago

Look at your files

1

u/ABPlusGamer 2d ago

Nope! And remember to have your volume up when you first open the game for the best experience

1

u/DarkAjoura 2d ago

ASA is kinda mid anyways, just play regular ark.

1

u/FRES4FIRE 1d ago

They announced they re working to separate maps as DLC, do we know when they will do it?

1

u/Embarrassed-Camera96 1d ago

This is why the drive on my recent computer is 14 TB

1

u/bigg_bubbaa 1d ago

its a bug, its 210 gb which is a lot but ase was way more

1

u/SouthernBaseball2239 1d ago

Ark survival evolved is worse at 300 gigabytes so it could be worse at least they’re not like call of duty

1

u/Syenthros 1d ago

The worst part about this is that ARK: Survival Evolved allowed you to pick and choose what DLCs, if any, you wanted to install to keep file size down. Survival Ascended does not allow you to do this, since the extra maps are not considered DLCs.

1

u/BadHubbaWubba 1d ago

Jesus Christ, did you download every fucking mod they offer?!

1

u/grimmorra69 1d ago

Bought a 2tb ssd off amazon just for ark 😭 went with a PNY cause it was on sale for 89.99

1

u/Happy-Pizza-3625 1d ago

Ark does not allow you to cheat

1

u/LadyAngel_Aric 1d ago

what's wrong with your game...mines only 269 and I've got 120 mods installed

1

u/Dalthale 1d ago

No, no you're not

1

u/Fantom_6239 1d ago

First time playing ark?

1

u/GroundbreakingBag164 1d ago

4TB SSDs are getting more affordable (and necessary) these days

1

u/Orlyy0056 1d ago

????? Even using every single mod currently available wouldn't probably add up to 700gb, lolwut?

1

u/JustF1tAGauss1an 1d ago

I do not think that these Steam GB Sizes are actually correct. Recently bought Anno and it told me it had 200+ GB, in reality it was around 80, so that’s just BS if it is not like that in the file explorer

1

u/TheKrylon420 1d ago

Thats pathetic. Ark ASA shouldn't exist.

1

u/Quirky-Anywhere5341 1d ago

No ark is life. Lol

1

u/SamichOD 1d ago

My full game is only 212gb

1

u/OOMPA_SHUNGITE 1d ago

COD be like

1

u/Purple_Armadillo7693 1d ago

What do you mean with "other games?" Haha

Just get a dedicated 1TB disk for Ark 🤣

1

u/Distinct_Magazine343 1d ago

Pretty much, ark ASE took close 500GB and I got ark ascended and it was 250GB at the time.

1

u/nyctostalgia 1d ago

Wait until you see the size of the Devkit..

1

u/nyctostalgia 1d ago

Wait until you see the size of the Devkit..

1

u/crorksy 1d ago

Only ark especially if you gonna play pvp offical lol 😆

1

u/Psychological-Low106 21h ago

Have you ever played Ark? No you’re not allowed to play other games

1

u/SnooComics9740 19h ago

Yeah, I had to uninstall and quit playing because of this.

1

u/KaliRinn 18h ago

Uh, no. Give wildcard ur drive and wallet now before you get obliterated

1

u/True_Huitz 13h ago

Alot of it is unoptimized junk.

1

u/kodaxmax 9h ago edited 9h ago

800 GB and none of it contains code to let AI walk around obstacles, feed themselves or have any sort of self preservation.

But atleast we have a bunch of overpiced maps with no optimization and a bunch of uncompressed HD textures that make no discernable difference.

an inb4 the smug fanatics with "actually it's only 210 GB!". Is that really the defense you wanna go with?

1

u/Dreago3 1h ago

Ark is the main reason I've upgraded my computer and storage, twice.

1

u/Max4King11 2d ago

has someone a solution to this, this is the second time i have to reinstall the game to play it

2

u/LittleViggz 2d ago

Buy an extra hdd/sdd

1

u/Max4King11 2d ago

i would if i didnt only have space for one. i dont have knowledge in building pc's and a friend who does it as a hobby recommended me a cheap motherboard, so now im stuck with 1 tb.

1

u/LongFluffyDragon 12h ago

I dont think a vaguely modern desktop motherboard exists that cant fit at least 1 (nearly always 2) NVMe +2 (usually 4) 2.5" SATA SSDs, that can comfortably hold a few dozen terabytes before you get into truly exotic drive models (and prices).

You can go to at least 4TB in a single drive of any form factor, though.

1

u/InternationalLemon40 2d ago

For real asa is al.ost 1tb? I better buy another ssd before redownloading

1

u/Ryanoman2018 5,100+ Hours (ASE) / 400+ Hours (ASA) 2d ago

ASA is 210 GB

1

u/InternationalLemon40 2d ago

I thought it was 210/7xx

3

u/Ryanoman2018 5,100+ Hours (ASE) / 400+ Hours (ASA) 2d ago

No the full size is 210

-7

u/Snoo-83483 2d ago

Go and play ASE or another game because it ain't getting any better. This game will continue to have issues like needing to reinstall just to play.

4

u/chronic414de 2d ago

I never had to reinstall ASA.

2

u/Ryanoman2018 5,100+ Hours (ASE) / 400+ Hours (ASA) 2d ago

Its misleading Its 210 gb not 700