ARK VPS Hosting

ARK server hosting runs your own ARK world on a VPS. Two games share the ARK name, and a server runs one or the other. Survival Ascended is the 2023 Unreal Engine 5 remaster, and its server only runs natively on Windows. Survival Evolved is the original, and it runs on Windows or Linux. GreenGeeks VPS runs AlmaLinux 9 with no Windows option, so ARK server hosting here means Survival Evolved. Its official servers closed in 2023, so your own server is now the only way to play Evolved online, with mods, maps and clusters.

Survival Evolved runs on 2 logical CPU cores per map, and more cores don't help much. Its server takes about 18 GB of disk, before saves and mods. On Linux it needs glibc 2.17 or newer, which AlmaLinux 9 meets easily. Memory depends on the map, from 3 to 4 GB for The Center or Scorched Earth up to 10 to 12.5 GB for Genesis 2, all on an empty world. Survival Ascended asks for more, about 4 cores and 8 to 12 GB per map, and it runs on Windows 10 22H2 or Windows Server 2016 and newer.

For one Survival Evolved map, ARK server hosting on GreenGeeks starts with the 8 GB plan at $19.99 a month, renewing at $39.99, with 4 vCPU and 160 GB of SSD storage. Heavy mods, Genesis 2 or a two-map cluster call for the 16 GB plan at $39.99, renewing at $79.99. The 4 GB plan is too small, since The Island alone idles near 4 GB. The server's 18 GB download fits easily in either plan's storage. SteamCMD downloads the Evolved server free with an anonymous login, so the plan is the whole bill.

On Survival Evolved, PS4 and Xbox One players can't join a PC dedicated server, so an Evolved server on GreenGeeks VPS is for PC players. Epic Games players can cross over to a Steam server if you launch it with -crossplay and -PublicIPForEpic set to the server's public IP. Console crossplay is only in Survival Ascended, where the -ServerPlatform option lets PS5 and Xbox players join. That server runs natively only on Windows, though. Console players who want Evolved on their own server rent console servers through Nitrado instead.

ARK autosaves every 15 minutes, and a full backup of the game is a copy of the ShooterGame/Saved folder. Run saveworld from the console or RCON, or stop the server, before you copy it. GreenGeeks leaves backups on a self-managed VPS to you, so use rsync to send a dated copy of ShooterGame/Saved off the server every night. To roll back, stop the server, move the bad .ark aside, and rename a timestamped copy to TheIsland.ark.

Not natively. Survival Ascended only has a Windows server, so a Linux machine has to run it through Proton or Wine. The community projects that do it, like mschnitzer's ark-survival-ascended-linux-container-image, run inside Docker. GreenGeeks VPS doesn't offer Windows, so Ascended isn't a fit here, and a Windows server is the supported route. Evolved doesn't have this problem, because it has its own Linux server, which needs glibc 2.17. Run it under systemd as a regular user, not root, and back up ShooterGame/Saved before each update.

An ARK server allows 70 players by default, and the map and mods set the plan you need. An empty Evolved Island needs 3.5 to 4.5 GB, Ragnarok and Fjordur 4 to 5 GB, and each player adds about 50 to 150 MB. The 8 GB plan fits one of those maps for a small group. Move to the 16 GB plan for heavy mods, Genesis 2 or a two-map cluster. A cluster of four to six maps needs more than 16 GB. Structures, tames and mods raise memory use as the world ages.

Survival Evolved uses Steam Workshop mods, listed by ID in the ActiveMods line of GameUserSettings.ini. The leftmost mod gets top priority. Add -automanagedmods to the launch line, and the server downloads and updates them each time it starts. Under systemd, set WorkingDirectory in the unit, or -automanagedmods fails. For older Workshop mods, switch Evolved to the preaquatica branch, which installs build 358.24 without the Aquatica DLC. Players have to switch their game to the same branch. Survival Ascended loads CurseForge mods instead, but its server needs Windows.

Copy the whole ShooterGame/Saved folder into the new install. Everything carries over, as long as the old and new server run the same version. The folder has the world, player and tribe files, plus the config. An Evolved save won't load in Ascended, since the two use different save formats, and the workarounds people report don't work reliably. Evolved players can also download the final official server saves from survivetheark.com, dated August 25 and September 30, 2023, and run them with -newsaveformat -usestore.

You do, along with everything else on the game side. A self-managed VPS gives you full root access, and GreenGeeks looks after the hardware and network, while SteamCMD updates, mods and save backups stay outside its support. Start with the account the server runs under. Running ARK as root is unsafe, so give it a normal user. A systemd unit can then start the server at boot and rerun app_update 376030 before each launch. Copy ShooterGame/Saved before every patch. If a mod update breaks the server, roll back the mod before the game.