Running an ARK Survival Ascended dedicated server is not the same job it was back in Evolved, and if you walk in expecting the old numbers you'll get burned fast. ASA runs on Unreal Engine 5. It looks gorgeous and it eats memory like it's a competitive sport. This guide covers a real setup: the settings actually worth changing, how mods work now that they run through CurseForge, and why you need far more RAM than the store page implies. I've stood up a pile of these, and the servers that stay healthy all get the same handful of things right in the first hour.
How ASA differs from Evolved (and why it matters)
Start with the obvious one: ASA and Evolved servers are completely separate animals. Different binaries, different save format, different mod system. You cannot point an old cluster at new files and hope for the best. The server executable is ArkAscendedServer.exe on Windows, it's built on UE5, and the resource profile is heavier across the board.
Mods are the biggest change to your workflow. Evolved leaned on Steam Workshop. ASA uses CurseForge, and the server downloads mods itself at boot from a list of mod IDs, no manual folder drops. It's cleaner once it clicks, but it trips up everyone arriving from the old system who goes hunting for a Workshop subscribe button that no longer exists.
One more thing to internalize: ASA is single-branch and patches often. When Wildcard ships a client update, your server has to match or your players hit a version-mismatch wall and can't join. Watch for updates and keep a quick restart window in your back pocket. Still deciding between the two games? Our ARK: Survival Ascended hosting page lays out which maps and features are supported so you're not guessing.
Getting the ARK Survival Ascended dedicated server installed
Here's the short version of a clean install. Do them in order and you'll dodge the usual first-boot mysteries.
- Install SteamCMD and pull the ASA server app. The AppID is 2430930. Run app_update 2430930 validate so your first copy is verified end to end.
- Open your firewall and forward the ports. ASA wants the game port (default 7777 UDP) and the query port (default 27015 UDP). The old raw socket port from Evolved is gone, so skip forwarding 7778.
- Pick your map. I'd start with TheIsland_WP. Mind the _WP suffix (it stands for World Partition), because leaving it off is a classic mistake that leaves you staring at a server that won't load. ScorchedEarth_WP, TheCenter_WP, and the rest follow the same pattern.
- Write your launch line with the session name, player cap, and ports. A basic one reads: ArkAscendedServer.exe TheIsland_WP?SessionName=YourServer?MaxPlayers=30?Port=7777?QueryPort=27015 -WinLiveMaxPlayers=30. That -WinLiveMaxPlayers flag is the one that truly sets the cap on ASA, and forgetting it quietly limits you to a much smaller number than you asked for.
- Boot it once, let it fully generate the config files, then shut it down before you touch anything. Edit configs before that first launch and ASA will sometimes stomp your changes.
On our end this is a one-click install with ports and files already sorted. But even self-hosting, generate-then-edit is the rhythm you want.
GameUserSettings.ini and Game.ini: the rates worth changing
Two files do the heavy lifting. GameUserSettings.ini holds the broad multipliers and quality-of-life toggles. Game.ini holds the granular, per-thing tuning. Both live in ShooterGame/Saved/Config/WindowsServer/. Edit them with the server off.
The multipliers most servers actually touch
These go in the [ServerSettings] block of GameUserSettings.ini. Vanilla is 1.0 across the board, which is punishingly slow for anything short of a hardcore group.
- HarvestAmountMultiplier: how much you get per swing. 2.0 to 3.0 is the sweet spot for a friendly server. Push past 5.0 and your storage fills up before you've done anything interesting.
- TamingSpeedMultiplier: this one changes the whole feel of the game. Vanilla taming a high-level Rex costs you an entire evening. Set it to 3.0 or 5.0 and taming stays meaningful without becoming a second job.
- XPMultiplier: 2.0 is a comfortable pace for most groups. Newer players especially appreciate not being stuck in the low levels for hours.
- NightTimeSpeedScale: ARK nights are long and dark. Drop this to around 0.7 and nights pass quicker while your daylight stays untouched.
Where Game.ini earns its keep
Game.ini is where you get precise. The pair I always set: faster maturation and a shorter mating interval, because vanilla baby raising is brutal enough to kill a server's population on its own. In the [/script/shootergame.shootergamemode] section, put BabyMatureSpeedMultiplier at 5.0 to 10.0 and MatingIntervalMultiplier around 0.5. That turns breeding from a multi-day chore into something people will actually do. Want beefier dinos too? The PerLevelStatsMultiplier lines let you override per-level stat gains here.
Honestly, don't try to perfect all of this on day one. Set harvest, taming, and XP, get people playing, then adjust from how the server actually feels after a week. Numbers that look sensible in a config file play very differently once there's a base and a dozen tames in the world.
Mods through CurseForge
Adding mods is refreshingly simple once the flow makes sense. Every ASA mod on CurseForge carries a numeric project ID. You collect the IDs you want, hand them to the server, and it downloads and installs them at launch.
- Find your mods on the CurseForge site and grab each project ID (it's on the mod page, usually near the About or Files section).
- Add them as a comma-separated list to your launch args with -mods=, for example -mods=928988,930658. Order matters for some stacks, so list overhaul or core mods first.
- Restart the server. It pulls the mods on boot. That first start with new mods takes noticeably longer, so don't panic when it sits there chewing for a minute.
- Every player needs the same mods, and the good news is ASA prompts them to download automatically on join, so you're not chasing anyone to subscribe by hand.
One gotcha worth flagging: when a mod updates and your server pulls the new build, clients have to update too. If half your players suddenly can't connect after a quiet stretch, a mod update is almost always the culprit. A quick heads-up in Discord before a mod-heavy restart saves you a pile of confused messages.
Cluster basics
A cluster is two or more ASA servers that share transferred characters, dinos, and items, so players can hop between maps and bring their stuff. To link them, give every server the same -clusterid= value and point them at a shared transfer directory with -ClusterDirOverride=. Add -NoTransferFromFiltering if you want unrestricted transfers.
My practical take: run a single map first, and only cluster once you have a stable population that's genuinely asking for a second one. A cluster doubles your RAM footprint and doubles what can break during an update. There's no shame in one well-run island. If you do cluster, keep every map on the same version and update them together, or transfers start behaving in ways nobody enjoys debugging at midnight.
Why ASA is so RAM-hungry
This is the part people underestimate, then wonder why their server stutters. UE5, World Partition streaming, and the higher-fidelity assets mean a single ASA map wants a lot of memory. A fresh, unmodded server can idle around 12 to 16 GB, and a modded server with a busy population climbs from there. Bolt a second map onto a cluster and you're stacking that again.
So size for headroom, not the minimum. When you're speccing hardware or a plan, aim well above the idle figure, because memory use grows as the map fills with bases, tames, and dropped loot. When people say ARK "leaks memory," what's usually happening is a growing world plus mods on a box that never had room to begin with. This is exactly where a cheap VPS or an aging home PC falls over. If you're weighing self-hosting against a managed box, our guide to choosing game server hosting breaks down how to read RAM and CPU specs so you don't undersize it.
Get the rates dialed in, keep your mod list lean, and give the server real memory to breathe, and an ASA server turns out to be low-drama to run. If you'd rather skip the SteamCMD dance, the firewall rules, and the RAM math entirely, our game server hosting handles the install and the DDoS protection in Frankfurt, London, or Gravelines, so your home connection stays yours. Either way, once you like your GameUserSettings.ini and Game.ini, back them up somewhere safe. They're the actual soul of your server, and rebuilding them from memory is nobody's idea of a good afternoon.