Final answer:
The student's fatal error in 'Ark: Survival Evolved' is likely related to Direct3D 12 and memory access violation.
Step-by-step explanation:
The student is experiencing a fatal error while playing Ark: Survival Evolved, which is indicative of a crash within the game's rendering engine, likely related to the Direct3D 12 (D3D12) API used for graphics rendering on Windows. This error, 'Exception access violation reading address', suggests that the game tried to read or write to an unauthorized area of memory. The occurrence during thread execution ('in the runnable thread RHIThread') points towards a threading issue or resource conflict. Verifying game files, updating drivers, lowering graphics settings, and ensuring system updates are recommended troubleshooting steps. Further support may be sought from the game's technical support.
To troubleshoot this problem, it's recommended to perform a series of steps. First, verify the game files through the Steam client to ensure all files are intact and up-to-date. Second, update graphics card drivers as these errors can often be related to outdated or corrupted drivers. Third, it might be helpful to reduce graphics settings temporarily to see if the error persists. Lastly, ensure the operating system has all the latest updates installed.
If these steps do not resolve the issue, further assistance from the game developer's technical support or community forums may be needed, as this issue may be related to deeper engine-level bugs or conflicts with specific hardware setups.