““I think it’s super hard for a gamer,” Ullmann tells Rock Paper Shotgun. “I’m a gamer myself, and therefore I know what I’m talking about. I think it’s super hard to see, as a gamer, what is the immediate benefit for me that a certain game developer, game publisher, is using our anti-piracy services.” This gap, coupled with the fact that Denuvo “simply works” and “pirates cannot play games” which use it, as Ullmann puts it, are two main contributors to its negative reputation, he argues.”
Let’s not forget about being always-online or not being able to test different wine/Proton setups for fear of activating the DRM. Or even trying simply to run the game in some situations…
Too bad. Denuvo sucks.
Denuvo rhymes with “fuck you, no.”
How do you do, fellow gamers!
Well, he’s not wrong that it’s “super hard” to see any benefit of Denuvo for anyone other than the beneficial owners of Denuvo Software Solutions. Gamers might have a better than average ability to suspend disbelief, but that “new study” was pushing it a bit far.
I am not going to say that I think Denuvo is good for gaming. I fully accept the importance of DRM for week one sales (which make a huge difference to publishers) and understand that activation models are incredibly useful for that but I also think activation model DRM is fundamentally shite because it renders games unplayable in order “Why is this random ass server plugged in in this closet?”.
But I do think people overly attribute negative performance to denuvo. Implemented correctly, there are MAYBE a few checks per hour and that is system noise. The problem is that, for whatever reason, so many games end up adding the denuvo checks to critical path operations that either completely delay the loading of a new area or tank performance completely because it is checking a dozen times per minute. And that is 100% on Denuvo for not working properly with the studios they license their tools to.
But for the ones who DO implement it sanely? It is barely noticeable to the end user… from a performance standpoint.
Remember kids: Hate mother fuckers for what they actually do. Rather than going the “bitch eating crackers” route.
Regarding performance implications: I believe Denuvo DRM runs through a type of virtual machine environment. While this theoretically should be relatively transparent, there are definitely documented instances of it negatively impacting performance, sometimes severely. Maybe the VM it runs in is just bad with certain instructions/calls on certain CPU’s or api’s, hard to tell for sure. But it’s not nothing.
Basiaclly all DRM models have had variations of that problem. It, again, boils down to what the check is, when they do it, and how often they do it.
For example:
- Back in the day, Splinter Cell Conviction (and a few other ubi games) actually connected to a remote server for game logic. If you were running a cracked version and a blocker (I think peerguardian is what we used? Been a minute) then you would actually notice your game just completely hang when you went through certain doors and Sam wouldn’t start talking until you turned PG off.
- Similarly, quite a few securom and even starforce games would add the DRM check as part of the fundamental gameplay loop so you were potentially checking dozens of times per SECOND. This was a rapid checksum or a value in memory but it was still very noticeable
And Denuvo is kind of the worst of all worlds since it is an activation model which, potentially, involves phoning home to a server.
To my knowledge, every single case of “Denuvo killed performance in mah gerhms!!” was either
- Complete noise. Like, less than 5% difference which could just as easily be a case of having a different tab open in your browser
- A case of a poor implementation where the checks were way too frequent
I am not aware of anything that was fundamentally denuvo itself. I would love to know more if you can point to a documented example but everything I have seen that actually has numbers ends up being one of the above.
You seem to be arguing it’s all about the implementation of the phoning home itself- I’m arguing that running the entire executable/binary through a virtual environment likely has far more drastic performance implications than a phone home, regardless of frequency. It probably IS mostly an implementation problem, but I’m more inclined to believe that the implementation of the Denuvo virtual environment is at fault, not just a server call and response delay. **EDIT: Apologies, forgot to include a link- see HERE. Looks like a substantial/measurable difference. Not massive, as measured here, but certainly enough that if your hardware is just barely able to run a game it could easily make or break the entire experience.
I can’t forget how my PC get lagged as fuck every time to time in sonic mania when it have denuvo… I mean, sonic mania, my PC can run monster hunter world full graphics with 60fps stables.
“I’m a gamer myself, and therefore I know what I’m talking about”
Should we call it a fallacious call to authority, meme on it for being a “how do you do, fellow gamers” moment, or simply mock the guy for whoring himself out in favor of daddy corporate? I could write an essay on the ways this is an absurd statement.
Gamers hate Denuvo because it doesn’t “simply work”. It limits paying customers from accessing their content, bogs down mid-range machines that are already overtaxxed by poor optimization and, in admittedly uncommon cases, full on breaks some games until patches and fixes roll out. Stop pretending that “gamers” are out here rioting because they’re too cheap and immoral to pay for content. Quit your fuckin’ lying.
I thought this was an onion article.
Think it would go over well at !nottheonion@lemmy.world, or do you think they’d reject it?
Option 4: All of the above.
Spot on, bravo!
What’s crazy is that it’s more than that.
“I’m a gamer so I know what I’m talking about, that gamers know nothing about this topic.”
The logic is very backwards.
only good thing about their drm its so expensive very few companies will pay a subscription to keep it active forever
We should totally just go along with DRM, or they might decide to break other stuff. This is totally an innocent request, and far from attempted extortion.
/s
Well I’m a game dev myself and drm is bullshit. Denuvo can get fucked
Too bad you’re not a gamer like Denuvonian Man, you’d know a thing or two about games.
Well, is because its true.
Boohoo, Denuvo, cry me a fudging river!
fucking*
Fudging gremmar nazis
Ducking heck! 😄
God damn right!
Hm. I wonder why gamers say that.
Its simple.
Pirates don’t ruin games for other players.
Pirates ruin games for the dealers.
Not necessarily even that. Piracy can benefit the developer by increasing popularity. Piracy made Bill Gates a billionaire despite his fighting tooth and nails against it.
Pirates mostly enhance games, in my experience
And also for longevity of the games, I heard that one company (I don’t remember the name) selling pirated version of their games for modern system because they can’t get rid of DRM themselves
I’m a gamer, therfore I know what I’m talking about. Denuvo is SHIT!
I’m a gamer too and I agree. Now there’s two gamers saying that denuvo is crap vs one gamer. We got majority.
Denuvo: I’m tired of this grandpa!
Everyone: THAT’S TOO DAMN BAD
