The Denuvo DRM Thread

[karoliner]

Conan Unconquered is cracked too.

 

[Goi~Yaas~Dinn]

I love watching these assholes get digitally spitroasted.

 

[Hirato]

Denuvo, at least for the moment, is a strictly CPU based affair, so benchmark wise, he'd be far better off locking the framerate at moderate settings and comparing the CPU usage of the before and after.
Its known impacts include

1. Massively bloating executable file sizes
   This is bad for cache coherency; meaning it causes thrashing of L1/L2/L3 caches, which can severely impact performance.
   Windows also needs to map the entire executable into RAM, which add a few seconds of overhead and an unnecessary 200MB or so to RAM usage.
   
2. Blocking synchronous checks
   This can cause stalls, in particular causes a ~20s or so stall during first run before the game will even initialise.
   As you can see later on his screen, his CPU didn't even clock up from 800MHz until denuvo validated and the game finally commenced loading.
   
3. General overhead from validation checks
   From what I understand, denuvo games need to do regular validation checks, these are often done in loading screens, or in the input handler.
   The more well behaved games do about 5 a second or so maximum.

In light of Borderlands 3, I have to add a few more items!

1. Keylogger
   The idea appears to be check for "unauthorised inputs" to stop crackers from reverse engineering things, and it also triggers random lock ups of the mouse as a consequence.
   Also kind of highly illegal to do this shit, but I digress.
   The current version also appears to decrypt the executable portions on the fly at a strict fixed rate, of which any variation signals tampering.
   
2. Data mining/spyware
   Denuvo's apparently evolved enough to derive its decryption keys based on a unique composite derived from your hardware, you can bet your ass they're collecting this data.

There's apparently also something about it needing a constant 2mbps of your bandwidth.
The screenshot from some streamer shows the BL3.exe sending 14-25kB/s to about 7 different ISP addresses.
Which most likely suggests the player is actually hosting a multiplayer match...

Denuvo isn't doing anything untoward with the network..... yet.

 

[Vorark]

• Keylogger
  The idea appears to be check for "unauthorised inputs" to stop crackers from reverse engineering things, and it also triggers random lock ups of the mouse as a consequence.
  Also kind of highly illegal to do this shit, but I digress.
  The current version also appears to decrypt the executable portions on the fly at a strict fixed rate, of which any variation signals tampering.

• Data mining/spyware
  Denuvo's apparently evolved enough to derive its decryption keys based on a unique composite derived from your hardware, you can bet your ass they're collecting this data.

This is approaching Securom/Starfoce levels of intrusiviness... or is even worse.

 

[Steamboat Willie]

This is approaching Securom/Starfoce levels of intrusiviness... or is even worse.

Anyone who willingly installs Tumblrlands 3 on their system deserves, and probably even welcomes, this kind of abuse.

 

[deama]

This is approaching Securom/Starfoce levels of intrusiviness... or is even worse.

Anyone who willingly installs Tumblrlands 3 on their system deserves, and probably even welcomes, this kind of abuse.

Perkel
lol

 

[Perkel]

This is approaching Securom/Starfoce levels of intrusiviness... or is even worse.

Anyone who willingly installs Tumblrlands 3 on their system deserves, and probably even welcomes, this kind of abuse.

Perkel
lol

You are thinking that i will defend Denuvo or something ? I wouldn't bother with BL3 if not for my friend who is crazy about it and wanted to play it in co-op.

What i find shocking though is how many people are saying Denuvo doesn't cause issues with framerate, min fps, loadings and so on. That one dude who mede several videos comparing to cracked games or without denuvo for months had legion of angry people calling him fraud.

 

[deama]

This is approaching Securom/Starfoce levels of intrusiviness... or is even worse.

Anyone who willingly installs Tumblrlands 3 on their system deserves, and probably even welcomes, this kind of abuse.

Perkel
lol

You are thinking that i will defend Denuvo or something ? I wouldn't bother with BL3 if not for my friend who is crazy about it and wanted to play it in co-op.

What i find shocking though is how many people are saying Denuvo doesn't cause issues with framerate, min fps, loadings and so on. That one dude who mede several videos comparing to cracked games or without denuvo for months had legion of angry people calling him fraud.

I was just pulling your leg, wanted to see if I was being ignored cause I think this is the first time you responded me.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

I see Borderlands 3 in torrent sites, looks like it was cracked.

 

[Taxnomore]

Heavy Rain fell after 153 days

I guess nobody cared much considering the game is readily available off youtube.

 

[Steamboat Willie]

Heavy Rain was released for PC?

 

[sullynathan]

Heavy Rain was released for PC?

Quantic Dream is done with Playstation exclusivity. They pretty much released or are releasing all their PS3 & PS4 games on PC, and all their future games are multiplatform.

 

[Taxnomore]

Heavy Rain was released for PC?

Quantic Dream is done with Playstation exclusivity. They pretty much released or are releasing all their PS3 & PS4 games on PC, and all their future games are multiplatform.

We're so lucky.

 

[Sentinel]

Heavy Rain was released for PC?

Quantic Dream is done with Playstation exclusivity. They pretty much released or are releasing all their PS3 & PS4 games on PC, and all their future games are multiplatform.

It's the other way around in truth. Sony are done with Quantic Dream, just the same way they're done with Ueda/Team ICO.

 

[Vorark]

https://www.dsogaming.com/news/ther...vo-and-vmprotect-that-only-pirates-can-enjoy/

There is now a version of Assassin’s Creed: Origins without Denuvo and VMProtect that only pirates can enjoy

Now here is a pleasant surprise. A game cracking group was able to completely remove Denuvo and VMProtect from the previous entry in the Assassin’s Creed series, Assassin’s Creed: Origins. As such, there is now a definitive version of the game, without these DRM programs, that only pirates can enjoy.

Going into more details, the game cracking group was able to remove 30 VM entry points for VMProtect and 104 VM entry points for Denuvo. It was also able to fix around 500k absolute & relative code and data pointers.

The group states that this is currently an experimental Proof of Concept release. The main reason behind it was to verify whether Denuvo affects CPU usage and overall performance of this game. Therefore, PC gamers can now test these two versions in this CPU-heavy game and see whether these DRMs bring any performance hit.

As always, we won’t allow any links to pirated content and those who share such links will be banned. Still, and only for educational purposes, we will benchmark this version. We will also compare it with the Denuvo+VMProtect version that is available on UPLAY.

Stay tuned for more!

 

[DalekFlay]

It's the other way around in truth. Sony are done with Quantic Dream, just the same way they're done with Ueda/Team ICO.

Quantic Dream got the rights to their stuff back I believe, and Sony's wishes had little to do with it. There have been rumors for a while now that Sony are more willing to do PC ports of their games, though.

 

[racofer]

"b-but denuvo does not h-harm performance!!!"



Watch the Denuvo stutterfest in the video.

 

[Grauken]

"b-but denuvo does not h-harm performance!!!"



Watch the Denuvo stutterfest in the video.

Finally, hard proof that Denuvo is utter cancer

Not that it will change anything, but it's nice to be able to tell Denuvo-defenders to go fuck themselves

 

[Vorark]

What is great about the AC: Origins crack is that it's based upon the latest game version executable. Tards can't fall back on "b-but the game lacks the most recent patches, doesn't prove a thing!!" argument. I mean, why the heck would you even defend it in the first place? Mind-boggling.

Still, it's disappointing how these types of DRM schemes mostly disappeared once Steam gained grounds, only to reemerge a couple of years later. The cycle never ends, it seems.

 

[DalekFlay]

Still, it's disappointing how these types of DRM schemes mostly disappeared once Steam gained grounds, only to reemerge a couple of years later. The cycle never ends, it seems.

Denuvo has proven somewhat effective at keeping pirated copies off torrent sites for at least a little while, which is all publishers care about. Unless gamers boycotted, which... lol.

 

[Hirato]

"b-but denuvo does not h-harm performance!!!"



Watch the Denuvo stutterfest in the video.

He did it again...
He compared denuvo and non-denuvo versions of games and spend the bulk of it recording and analysing details that don't matter one wit.

The stutterfest would be a pretty good gotcha if he provided proof that he actually ran the corresponding benchmarks multiple times in each version.
Even games without Denuvo can be a complete stutterfest if it doesn't properly preload all the needed shaders.
Without the repeated trials, the likely explanation could just be that the shaders weren't compiled.
For reference, the first time I ran Rise of the Tomb Raider's built in benchmark, it was basically frozen for about 80% of it due to compiling these shaders.

It's good that he highlights the improved loading times and reduction in executable sizes though.


But his game footage is largely useless in showing the actual performance differential, because he once again like a complete fucking idiot, despite me pointing it out to him and telling him exactly how to do it properly last time:
1. Compared a before and after using uncapped framerates (this is utterly stupid because of the variety of ways physics and game logic is implemented - Just consider how badly Bethesda's games break if you uncap the framerate)
2. ...Where the game has a GPU bottleneck in both (so no discernible difference outside of what might just be shader compilation stutter)
3. Doesn't properly isolate the CPU usage (mostly shadowplay recording footage in the background)
4. Barely records CPU Utilisation at all, and doesn't highlight what little he did.

Consider this screenshot

He's highlighting a 7-15% improvement.
However, you'll notice that the CPU Usage, the actually super important thing here, is different at 24% and 20% respectively - The values are however unfortunately useless because they're tainted by shadowplay...
But taking those as a ballpark, if he actually did it properly, (and also factored out shadowplay correctly), he could actually show Denuvo as being FAR worse than providing a 38% (24/20 * 88/76) performance improvement by removing it - as this shows both higher FPS at lower CPU usage.

 

[DalekFlay]

Random Youtubers with no stated testing methodology or expertise aren't to be trusted? Who would have thought?!?!? I really worry for the future of the species when people just blindly trust personable people on the internet for their information. Actually forget the future part, the present is fucked already.

That said Denuvo is cancer for many reasons, even if it has a minimal performance impact.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

It would be cool if Hardware Unboxed made the benchmarks, this guy is pretty bad at that I agree.

 

[DalekFlay]

It would be cool if Hardware Unboxed made the benchmarks, this guy is pretty bad at that I agree.

Digital Foundry did the Batman comparison and found no significant difference, for what it's worth.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Digital Foundry are retards and shills, would not believe anything they benchmark.