ARK: Survival Ascended Server Hosting UK

Running Your Own ARK: Survival Ascended Server

Running your own ARK: Survival Ascended server means renting the machine and running the game on it yourself. GTX Gaming provides the hardware, the network, Windows Server and Remote Desktop access; you install the official ASA dedicated server with Valve's SteamCMD tool and decide everything that happens on it, from the map and the rates to the mods and who is allowed in.

It is the setup that experienced admins and tribe leaders look for when they want an ASA dedicated server with no limits: hand-edited ini files, any start options, a cluster of several maps on one machine, or other tools such as a Discord bot running next to the game. If you have ever hosted ARK from a spare PC at home, it is the same software, just on proper hardware in a datacentre that stays online when your PC is off.

About ARK: Survival Ascended

ARK: Survival Ascended is Studio Wildcard's ground-up remake of ARK: Survival Evolved in Unreal Engine 5, published by Studio Wildcard and Snail Games USA. You wake up on a mysterious island, form a tribe, tame and breed hundreds of dinosaurs and primeval creatures, and craft, build and fight your way to the top of the food chain. The remake uses Unreal Engine 5 features such as Lumen global illumination and Nanite mesh streaming.

It launched on Steam on 25 October 2023 and is also on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, with cross-platform multiplayer so a tribe can play together across PC and console. Official maps include The Island, The Center, Scorched Earth, Aberration and Extinction, each with its own start line name ending in _WP.

Ryzen 9 VPS or Dedicated Server?

Both are servers you run yourself; the difference is how much machine you get.

• Ryzen 9 Bare Metal VPS: 8 assigned Ryzen 9 7950X or 9950X cores, 32GB of DDR5 memory and 200GB of NVMe storage, with Windows Server 2025 or 2022 included. Up to four customers share one Ryzen 9 machine, and each gets their own assigned cores, memory and storage. It is the right size for one ASA map or a two-map cluster.
• Ryzen dedicated server: a whole physical machine to yourself, from a Ryzen 7 9700X with 64GB of DDR5 memory up to Ryzen 9 machines with up to 192GB. Windows Server is a monthly licence add-on. Choose it for three or more maps, heavy mod lists, a busy public server or anything else you want to run alongside ASA.

Not sure? Start with the VPS. A single map rarely needs more than it offers, and you can move to a dedicated server later by copying your saves across.

Installing the ASA Dedicated Server With SteamCMD

Once your server is ready, connect with Remote Desktop and follow these steps. Values in square brackets are yours to choose.

1. Prerequisites: install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 Redistributable (x64) and the DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010). The official ARK wiki lists both as requirements for the server.
2. SteamCMD: download SteamCMD from Valve, unzip it to a folder such as C:\steamcmd and run it once so it updates itself.
3. Install ASA: run the command below. App 2430930 is the ARK: Survival Ascended dedicated server, and it installs with an anonymous login, so you do not need a Steam account that owns the game.

The server program, ArkAscendedServer.exe, ends up in ShooterGame\Binaries\Win64 inside your install folder, and its settings files live in ShooterGame\Saved\Config\WindowsServer once the server has run for the first time.

Your ASA Start Command Line Explained

Create a start.bat file next to ArkAscendedServer.exe. A typical start line for one map looks like this:

• TheIsland_WP: the map. Swap in TheCenter_WP, ScorchedEarth_WP, Aberration_WP or Extinction_WP for the others.
• SessionName: the name players search for in the server browser.
• ServerPassword: optional; leave it out for a public server.
• ServerAdminPassword: your admin password. Keep it last in the list of options joined with a question mark: the official ARK wiki warns that anything after it is read as part of the password.
• -port: the game port. ASA needs -port=7777 with a dash, not ?Port, or it always uses the default.
• -WinLiveMaxPlayers: the most players who can be online at once. It replaces the MaxPlayers setting in GameUserSettings.ini.
• -mods: a comma-separated list of CurseForge Project IDs.

Most other settings, such as taming, harvesting and experience rates, live in GameUserSettings.ini and Game.ini, which you can edit with Notepad over Remote Desktop. Stop the server before you edit them, then start it again.

Ports, Firewall & Joining Your Server

The ASA game port is UDP 7777 unless you change it with -port. If you switch on RCON in GameUserSettings.ini for remote admin tools, its TCP port is 27020 by default. Many guides also list UDP 7778 and a query port of 27015; ASA's server list runs through Epic Online Services rather than Steam's query system, so most admins only need 7777, but opening the others does no harm. Allow the ports inbound in Windows Defender Firewall on your server:

To join, players open ARK: Survival Ascended, choose Join Game, switch the browser to unofficial servers and search for your session name. A new server can take a few minutes after its first start before it shows up in the list.

CurseForge Mods on Your ASA Server

ARK: Survival Ascended uses CurseForge for mods. Every mod has a Project ID on its CurseForge page; add the IDs to -mods on your start line, separated by commas. According to the official ARK wiki, the server downloads the listed mods and updates them automatically every time it starts, so a restart is all it takes to pick up mod updates.

Because the server is yours, there is no approved list to stick to: run quality-of-life mods, building packs, creature mods, overhauls or mod maps. The wiki also documents -passivemods, which loads a mod's data without its features, handy when one map in a cluster needs a mod's creatures to exist without spawning them. Add mods one or two at a time and test, so a broken mod is easy to spot.

Running an ASA Cluster

A cluster lets players carry characters, items and creatures between your maps through Cross-ARK Data Transfer. Run one copy of ArkAscendedServer.exe per map, each with its own start file and game port, for example 7777 for the first map and 7779 for the second. Give every map the same cluster settings:

-clusterid names the cluster and -ClusterDirOverride points every map at one shared folder for transfer data. On the Ryzen 9 VPS two maps fit comfortably; for three or more, move to a dedicated server so every map keeps the memory and cores it needs.

Crossplay With Xbox & PlayStation Players

The -ServerPlatform option controls which platforms can join: PC for Steam, XSX for Xbox, PS5 for PlayStation 5, WINGDK for the Microsoft Store version, or ALL to let everyone in, for example -ServerPlatform=ALL. Console players then look for your server in their unofficial server browser. Keep in mind that the mods you run should be available on their platform too, and that the game's own rules for console access can change with updates, so test with one console player before you invite your whole tribe.

Updates, Backups & Looking After Your Server

Studio Wildcard updates ASA regularly, and players cannot join a server running an older version. To update, stop the server and run the same SteamCMD command again; the validate option checks every file. Many admins schedule this as a nightly task with Windows Task Scheduler.

Your world lives in the ShooterGame\Saved folder, next to your settings files. Copy that folder somewhere safe before every update and on a regular schedule, and keep a few older copies, so a bad mod update or a griefing incident is a restore, not a wipe. Because you run the server, backups of the game files are in your hands.

How Much RAM Does an ASA Server Need?

The official ARK wiki measures an empty ASA server at roughly 8 to 10GB of memory on The Island, 10.5 to 12GB on The Center, 7.5 to 9GB on Scorched Earth, 8 to 10GB on Aberration and 7 to 8.5GB on Extinction, and recommends 4 logical cores per server instance, with fast single-core speed mattering more than core count. A live world grows from there with every player, base, tame and mod, so as a guide we plan 10 to 14GB per busy map plus a few GB for Windows. That puts one or two maps on the 32GB Ryzen 9 VPS and bigger clusters on a dedicated server with 64GB or more.

What Does Your Own ASA Server Cost?

• Ryzen 9 Bare Metal VPS: £69.00/mo for 8 cores, 32GB of DDR5 memory and 200GB of NVMe storage, with Windows Server included. Frankfurt and New York carry no location fee; London costs a little extra each month.
• Ryzen dedicated servers: from £99.00/mo for a whole machine with 64GB of DDR5 memory, plus a monthly Windows Server licence if you choose Windows.

The ASA dedicated server itself is a free download through SteamCMD, so the server is the only cost; every player needs their own copy of the game. See our Ryzen 9 Bare Metal VPS and dedicated servers pages for the full specifications.

ARK: Survival Ascended Server Hosting Glossary

Quick definitions of the terms you'll meet while setting up your own ASA server:

Help & Next Steps

Ready to start? Order the Ryzen 9 VPS for one map or a small cluster, or pick a dedicated server for something bigger. Our 24/7 team looks after the hardware and the network and can answer questions about choosing the right machine, while the ASA server software on it is yours to run. Still playing the original game? Our ARK: Survival Evolved server hosting page has you covered.

Setting it up for the first time? Our complete ARK server guide walks through the start line, ports, crossplay, mods, clusters and backups.

Have any questions? Contact Us