I was gonna buy it until I saw it has Denuvo malware in it. So close, Capcom. So close.
Developers wouldn’t share their profit with Denuvo if not for pirates.
Never really understood the hate against denuvo. Yes, it’s annoying and unnecessary, but it’s no vanguard or ricochet that requires full access to the system. Especially on linux this is honestly a complete no-issue since it runs as a user-process within the prefix.
There’s other battles that should be fought, especially against vanguard, ricochet or EAC.
Denuvo, and in fact ALL anti-piracy countermeasures (including kernel level anti-cheat like nGuard Protect, or Vanguard) added to computer software, is cancerware. It does not do anything to prevent piracy beyond maybe a month depending on cracking scene interest. But it does severely negatively affect game performance. In some cases, games with Denuvo removed have seen +40 fps and more for end users with absolutely no change to game settings or hardware.
Denuvo runs game functions within a VM, and uses the game license, your machine HWID, and magic numbers to make calculations so it can decrypt the partially encrypted by Denuvo game code. It does this EVERY FRAME. Computers have become fast enough that people like you might say you dont notice the difference because your copy of the game runs at 60fps “most of the time” with dips into the 30s or 40s. But without that literal circus of cancerware your game could be running at 90+ fps with absolutely no change from you. Now why, exactly, does Denuvo need to do these checks with your license and HWID every single frame? Well, you silly wallet, your license might expire or be revoked inbetween frames.
Denuvo, and all DRM, only harms genuine paying customers. Its only a minor inconvenience to game cracking groups and pirates.
Just because kernel level anti-cheat is bad doesn’t mean that Denuvo is somehow good. They are both equally bad.
I mean, did we all forget SecuROM? It is malware, defined by most operating systems and anti-virus software as malware. Thats what all DRM is.
I do agree with you that it makes games worse, but…
It does not do anything to prevent piracy beyond maybe a month depending on cracking scene interest.
The first months of the release are the most profitable time for games. Denuvo is not meant to be uncrackable. Its just meant to protect the release window. Thats why some studios remove it some time after the launch.
Its only a minor inconvenience to game cracking groups and pirates.
Even the most popular games take one to two week to crack. That is not just a minor inconvenience. It takes time and effort. Also updates ofter change things enough for the crack to stop working.
Denuvo is now cracked on day one. In fact I’m gonna go and play the pirated version right now. How long ago the game was released again?
*Bypassed
Works until next patch and does not stop denuvo eating recources at the background. But yes you can download and play it, if you want.
Denuvo, and in fact ALL anti-piracy countermeasures (including kernel level anti-cheat like nGuard Protect, or Vanguard) added to computer software, is cancerware. It does not do anything to prevent piracy beyond maybe a month depending on cracking scene interest.
This part I can agree with.
But it does severely negatively affect game performance. In some cases, games with Denuvo removed have seen +40 fps and more for end users with absolutely no change to game settings or hardware.
Never seen that myself so idk. However, I’ve checked youtube for “denuvo vs no denuvo fps”, and I’ve quickly skipped through around ~20 videos, and the FPS loss is in all cases either minimal or nonexistent. The only game that was seriously affected was hogwarts legacy with a ~25 FPS difference between cracked and non-cracked which is obviously huge, however, that could be due to a wrong implementation or other factors. No other game displayed that behavior, leading me to believe it’s not necessarily denuvo that’s the problem in hogwarts legacy.
Denuvo runs game functions within a VM, and uses the game license, your machine HWID, and magic numbers to make calculations so it can decrypt the partially encrypted by Denuvo game code. It does this EVERY FRAME
You make it sound like that’s a huge deal, but this is running in parallel, not in sequence. Meaning denuvo would only be a bottleneck if the game renders it’s frames faster than denuvo takes to finish it’s next step. This is unlikely as denuvo isn’t utilizing the GPU as the game mostly does, but the CPU, and the CPU is rarely ever a bottleneck in modern games. So, at worst, it consumes a few more CPU cycles and therefore a teensie tiny amount of power, which is quite frankly negligible.
Computers have become fast enough that people like you might say you dont notice the difference because your copy of the game runs at 60fps “most of the time” with dips into the 30s or 40s. But without that literal circus of cancerware your game could be running at 90+ fps with absolutely no change from you
Well, the reality shows that this isn’t the case and those numbers sound like you made them up for dramatic effect like some supplements tiktoker telling me that costco rotisserie chicken is literally poison.
Now why, exactly, does Denuvo need to do these checks with your license and HWID every single frame? Well, you silly wallet, your license might expire or be revoked inbetween frames.
Once you boot a denuvo game, it (usually) connects to a server and receives a ticket. Now, how long that ticket is, depens on the game. The ticket lifespan is configurable by the developer/publisher, it could be days, weeks or even months. Less than a day? Very unlikely. Afaik, the ticket is only checked on game startup anyways, so the license will never expire inbetween frames. Only a restart of the game could do that, in which case the game would probably request a new ticket.
I mean, did we all forget SecuROM?
SecuROM, Starforce or vanguard install themselves as an application on your system, requiring root access (or whatever the pendant on windows is. Admin?) on your system, enabling it to do all kind of things and literally being an open security risk on kernel level.
Denuvo doesn’t. It runs in userspace and doesn’t have any more privileges than the game itself. That’s why denuvo doesn’t really cause any problems on linux - because it’s a userspace process that runs in the prefix. That’s it.
I get you don’t like denuvo, but your dislike of it seems to be founded on either:
- Best case: Very outdated information
- Bad case: Wrong information
- Worst case: Information you made up for dramtic effect, as you did above
I would prefer if you’d just say: “I hate the thought of not fully owning my game” which is a perfectly legitimate claim. But making up these horror stories like “DENUVO IS LITERALLY EATING YOUR CHILDREN !!!” is just not a good way to argue against something. It makes you unbelievable.
Ok, well you obviously don’t understand how Denuvo actually works, so let me give you the simple TLDR version. Maybe if you understand how it works, you can see why it is so bad.
When a developer compiles their game with Denuvo, Denuvo adds itself to various functions of the game (set by the developer but has defaults as well). Usually this includes at least the main game loop which runs every frame, but also to other functions in the game as well. I cannot remember if Denuvo is added to every function of the game by default or just a lot of functions of the game, but it is added in multiple places and not just one. Anyway, by doing this, Denuvo basically partially encrypts the functions it adds itself to. Then, when the game is running in Denuvos virtual machine, it uses a magic number set during development and does a math calculation using a formula with parameters that include your HWID and your game license. It then compares the math calculation result to the magic number, and if those both match then everything is good and the game can keep running. Again, it does this in every function it is added, and since it is usually at least in the main game loop that runs every frame, you often can have Denuvo checking your license multiple times each frame, which is at the very least, wasteful. This is the only actual function that Denuvo accomplishes, by the way.
Denuvo ALSO adds a bunch of other unnecessary “dead end code” to these partially encrypted functions, which either loop on themselves or do nothing, in order to throw off cracking groups. This dead end code contains calculations that the CPU actually processes. They are not just there for looks, they do take up compute power even though functionally they do nothing important. Again, wasteful. The ticket can certainly expire between frames and cause issues.
When you said you watched videos comparing cracked games and non-cracked games and saw minimal gain, this is where I knew you didn’t really know how Denuvo works, because I wasn’t even talking about cracked Denuvo games.
Cracked Denuvo games still run Denuvo. Yes, thats right.
The way that Denuvo games get cracked is simple, but it is tedious and takes time. A hacker has to sift through the game code to find every Denuvo infected function. Then, they have to find where Denuvo checks the results of the magic number and the math calculation which is not always at the end of the function. The hacker then alters the check to always pass even if the numbers don’t match. Sometimes, they can catch the function before it does the math and it just instantly passes the check, but other times it has to be done later in the function depending on what the function does in the game and where it performs the check in the code. Regardless, this is why it generally results in a negligible performance gain: its still running Denuvo. Denuvo is just modified to always say “yes, the license is correct” every time. Two games which had a less negligible difference in performance when Denuvo was altered was Rime and Syberia 3.
I was talking about games that were officially updated to remove Denuvo by the developers. NieR Automata on PC, most notably, on the 21st of June, 2021, received an update that fixed performance issues with the game:
- Removed 3rd - Party DRM - Denuvo Anti-tamper
You can verify this on SteamDB, the change is U:24088901.
The performance gain was immediate, and everyone that had the game could tell the difference. Just for reference, when the game had Denuvo, the executable was ~100MB. After Denuvo was removed, the new filesize was just ~17MB. Thats ~83MB of bloated cancerware removed. Gone. And with it, the stuttering issues that plagued the game when it launched ~5 years prior.
This isnt a made up horror story. I never said Denuvo killed any children. This isnt made up for dramatic effect. This is how Denuvo works, and why I say it is cancerware. It only harms real paying consumers and should be removed for their benefit. Businesses that sell games are forgetting that the only thing that keeps them alive is being slightly more convenient than piracy.
If you don’t like it, I don’t know what else to tell you. This is the way it is.
Excellent explanation, thanks for typing that all out!
Thanks for the explanation! Didn’t know most of that. Especially the part with the cracked games.
However, my point does still stand. GPU’s rarely have to wait for CPUs these days. So while the CPU utilization would increase with denuvo, it wouldn’t have a noticeable impact on performance.
Just for reference, when the game had Denuvo, the executable was ~100MB. After Denuvo was removed, the new filesize was just ~17MB. Thats ~83MB of bloated cancerware removed
That might be true, but I’m also gonna be very honest, 83MB is irrelevant in a timeline where we have terabytes of storage. Two assets left in the game and never removed would take up more than that. It’s more a question of bad optimization in that case. Also, filesize has nothing to do with performance (unless the filesize is really absurd).
And with it, the stuttering issues that plagued the game when it launched ~5 years prior.
I bought the game a few weeks after release back then and didn’t notice any performance issues, even tho I gotta admit my PC back then was top-of-the-line. So that’s probably not going to be true for everyone.
So, I did some digging regarding that because that’s honestly pretty interesting. So I’ve dug up the patch file list from steam DB for that time, which is https://steamdb.info/patchnotes/7020666/ and to me, this looks like a bunch of optimizations. The performance improvement could’ve just as well been a result of that instead of the removal of Denuvo.
I also found https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/a-version-of-resident-evil-village-which-reportedly-removes-drm-runs-better-analysis-shows/ which claims that RE:Village runs better without denuvo, and https://www.vg247.com/resident-evil-village-patch-denuvo-drm which says that “adjustments” to how denuvo was used were made. That in turn also leads me to believe that denuvo is only a problem if it’s utilized incorrectly - something that almost any application that interfaces with a game does and can’t be blamed on denuvo, but the dev team.
For me personally, it’s just difficult to pinpoint. The way you describe denuvo and how I read about it online doesn’t really lead me to believe that the way it works has any particular impact on performance, unless you have a VERY weird setup, like a RTX 50 series GPU but an ancient CPU. CPU bottlenecking just hasn’t been a thing for over 10 years at this point. So it’s just not that believable. However, at the same time, don’t know enough about the inner workings of denuvo to debunk what you’re saying either.
I never said Denuvo killed any children
Well I obviously never claimed you did, I was just making a funsies.
Businesses that sell games are forgetting that the only thing that keeps them alive is being slightly more convenient than piracy.
I think that’s a pretty stupid stance. If there’s no businesses making games, there’s nothing to pirate. It’s a bit like the AI discussion. If Wikipedia or StackOverflow die, AI will have nothing to learn from.
I definitely recall part of the setup of Denuvo involves the developer having to call into it on many phases of the game running. But I specifically remember there was a contention where one dev decided to call it every frame, which thrashed some part of the computer, and even Denuvo engineers themselves said that’s a bad idea. It’s more likely something like a common event, something like a player getting a kill, or even loading between levels.
We’re all going to be competing on data about exactly how much Denuvo affects performance, when even common accessibility technologies and other modern game features have effects too. To me, it’s a simple question of whether it’s smooth and playable, and especially in Capcom’s case I can say performance has generally been good.
involves the developer having to call into it on many phases of the game running
Absolutely, I’m not doubting that. That’s how denuvo works from what I understand. My point is that I am doubting that these calls would stall the system hard enough to cause any significant framedrops to be mad about.
If denuvo would result in like 20% performance loss, I’d be mad about it aswell, but everything I’ve seen so far points to a shitty implementation of denuvo that causes the performance loss, not denuvo itself.
the CPU is rarely ever a bottleneck in modern games
GPUs are often idle waiting for instructions from the CPU in modern games. If you were familiar with hardware benchmarks you would know about this.
Your description for how things work with Denuvo is way off. It has real performance impact on games and it literally costs paying customers electricity to run the garbage.
GPUs are often idle waiting for instructions from the CPU in modern games. If you were familiar with hardware benchmarks you would know about this.
That’s a straightup lie. You either got a top-tier GPU but a pentium 4 in your system or you don’t know anything about hardware.
Instead of me explaining to you in detail why that’s wrong, please just get any monitoring software, start a game and observe the CPU/GPU utilization. You will notice that the CPU is mostly bored at 20 - 30% while the GPU is at 60+%. So no - there is no CPU bottleneck. There haven’t been CPU bottlenecks in games in over 10 years.
The only games that run into CPU bottlenecks are simulation-heavy titles like Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron or a heavily populated rimworld map, but these aren’t games shipped with denuvo usually.
Your description for how things work with Denuvo is way off
The only thing I described is the ticketing system, which is mostly accurate. I didn’t explain anything else because I don’t know how it works. I did make assumptions based on the post of the person I replied to and pointed out why if their explanation was true, it wouldn’t really have a big impact on performance.
It has real performance impact on games
Something I have not seen any proof of. Many people claim that, but most sources I find online cite that it’s either a negligible performance impact or nonexistent.
literally costs paying customers electricity to run the garbage.
That is true, but probably negligible in the grand scheme. I’m fairly sure that the shitty copilot-app eats up more electricity.
If you are in favour of any kind of DRM then you are arguing against your own interests as a purchaser of games.
I’m not in favor of it, however, denuvo doesn’t impact my gaming experience in the slightest. It’s like a crash tracker running in the background, monitoring if shit goes wrong and if it does, gives me a prompt to ask me to report it. It doesn’t have any special privileges (unlike something like vanguard, for example), it doesn’t start with my PC but starts and stops with the game and it has no impact on performance (lots of videos about it on youtube).
I get that people don’t like the thought of “I’m not fully owning my game” which is reasonable, but in that case, your reason for not playing pargmata shouldn’t be denuvo, but steam itself.
I get that people don’t like the thought of “I’m not fully owning my game” which is reasonable, but in that case, your reason for not playing pargmata shouldn’t be denuvo, but steam itself.
This is whataboutism. They’re both DRM, they’re both bad. I should point out though that it is up to the developer/publisher whether they use Steam DRM. There are games on Steam that you can play the game without Steam (Cyberpunk 2077 for example).
As far as your comments about anti-cheats… at least those are actually trying to do something for the gameplay experience. Where people disagree with them is how it is going about it or whether different multiplayer models might negate the need for it.
DRM though exists solely for the publishers/developers, is very debatable whether it has much real benefits for them and is always a negative for customers. IMO DRM is the far more important issue in gaming.
This is whataboutism
It’s not. If “That game has denuvo so I won’t buy it because I hate DRM” if a stance you have, you should also not buy it because of Steam’s DRM. Otherwise you’re not true to your own word and therefore unbelievable.
IMO DRM is the far more important issue in gaming.
Anti-Cheat is on kernel level with far more elevated rights. You don’t know what vanguard or EAC are doing on your system at any given time because these applications literally have more rights than you. They also require full compatibility on the OS, which is why league doesn’t work on linux since the introduction of vanguard.
On the other hand, denuvo is running as a userspace process that, at worst, wastes a handful of CPU cycles and costs publishers a ton of money.
Dunno, I got WAY more gripes with anti-cheat than denuvo.
It’s not. If “That game has denuvo so I won’t buy it because I hate DRM” if a stance you have, you should also not buy it because of Steam’s DRM. Otherwise you’re not true to your own word and therefore unbelievable.
Strawman fallacy. You’re arguing against something I didn’t say. I did in fact say “They’re both DRM, they’re both bad.”.
As surprising as it may be for you, it’s possible to be against both anti-cheat and DRM, which I am. You’re the one here defending Denuvo and trying to minimise other people’s opinions on it.
I won’t be replying anymore as you’re clearly not here in good faith.
I think it’s valid to point to exceptionalism in the reasoning.
Excuse racism as an analogy here; but if a homeowner complains “That young man has been loitering around that corner store all day! He’s up to no good!” then a good cop (yes, I know) should rightfully point out “So, that young man is black. To be clear, your issue is with loitering, so you also have an issue with that white boy that’s loitering around another corner store, right?” If the homeowner’s response is “I didn’t say that!!” then it suddenly becomes telling as to why they have a favorable view of one circumstance and not another, even if they’re not verbally stating “I don’t like black kids!”.
You said they’re both “bad”, but by lack of mention, it sounds like you’re not boycotting Steam’s, and if I had to guess, it’s due to effectiveness; so long as it can be circumvented, you don’t especially care, right? For the purposes of the argument, circumvention and performance are two very distinct concerns. If it can be shown that Steam DRM also affects performance, what would be your opinion then?
Strawman fallacy.
You sound like a twitter lawyer. “STRAWMAN!” - “WHATABOUTISM!”.
You’re arguing against something I didn’t say.
You never said it, however, you implied that SteamDRM is acceptable while Denuvo is fine. Which, in my book, is a contradiction if you say you’re against DRM in particular.
You’re the one here defending Denuvo and trying to minimise other people’s opinions on it.
I’m not defending it, I’m just wondering why Denuvo leads people to not buying games but being all fine with using SteamDRM (they’re both DRM after all) or highly invasive anti-cheat. It just makes no sense to me.
I won’t be replying anymore as you’re clearly not here in good faith.
That’s fine, have a nice day!
Not sure why you’re being downvoted for asking a legit question, but I believe the hate comes exactly from the fact that its annoying, unnecessary and a drain on resources. And even if others are worse we shouldn’t be normalizing it. Personally I avoid it also because until recently it was borderline uncrackable and thus prevented me from keeping my games through posterity.
annoying
How so? You usually don’t even notice it’s there.
unnecessary
True, but I just don’t think most people care about that a lot. Because if you look closely at how much shit is running on your PC at any given time, denuvo is probably just a small drop of water in the atlantic ocean.
drain on resources
That has mostly been debunked by today.
Personally I avoid it also because until recently it was borderline uncrackable and thus prevented me from keeping my games through posterity.
That is the only reason I can absolutely understand. Not “owning” your game is a shitty feeling, but we also lost that battle like 25 years ago with steam. I think it’s silly to be mad about denuvo but still use steam for your games if DRM is such a problem.
Anyone that pays for a game infected with Denuvo malware is part of the problem.
I don’t mind buying something like that on a dedicated gaming machine, Xbox, PlayStation, Switch. I would not buy that for my computer
Piefed.social has 29 comments under this thread, 21 of those comments are about Denuvo with over half of them being a variation of the “Denuvo bad”. I get it, I don’t like Denuvo either, but do we really need a “This game has Denuvo so I’m not going to buy it” comment whenever a game with Denuvo is in the news. At this point it’s become another circlejerk. I thought we’re here because we love gaming but it feels like some people are just looking for an excuse to complain.
I can already see this not being well received (considering how popular hating on Denuvo is) so I’m going to save everyone some trouble. I don’t care about your need to defend your circlejerk in front of me. I know where I stand on Denuvo and to me that topic is a dead horse, I’m not going to beat it so I’m not going to respond. I might respond if the comment is about how it impacts the community here, but my stance on that is very simple. We’re intelligent people here, we know how to check whether a game has Denuvo or not, lettings others to the game has Denuvo is not some PSA and calling people the problem for buying a game with Denuvo hurts the community more than it helps.
I have to say that it has become almost impossible to discuss anything about Video Games on Lemmy. If you mention a Video Game made by Nintendo, and that you like it -> Stop supporting Nintendo, they are bad. If you mention a Denuvo Game, and that you like it -> Stop supporting them, they are bad. You have a Problem with a game -> switch to Linux and it will fix all your problems.
And you should buy a steam deck, because GabeN and getting people addicted on gambling is cool. We’re not being hypocritical here.
I for one like both Nintendo and Valve, and the few Nintendo game discussions I read had as much obligatory “Nintendo bad” complaints as every Valve thread has obligatory “Valve bad” comments. I’m finding those complainers more obnoxious even, because at least Nintendo criticism usually sticks to posts already criticising Nintendo.
Hell, I’ll admit, I don’t care much for Nintendo now but I’m also not going to invade topics about Tomodachi Life to insist every Nintendo fan boycott it because of what they did to Garry’s Mod.
This game is so fun. Like holy crap, I haven’t found a game this fun in a while. I never knew I needed puzzle mini games while shooting things, but I guess here we are!
Ironic that you say that.
I play Bioshock every 3-5 years and finished my latest playthrough today. It has a puzzle mini-game you play often in order to hack into things and lots and lots of shooting.
If you haven’t played Bioshock, you can pick it up for almost nothing now. Savor the first 30 minutes. I wish I could play it again for the very first time.
It says a lot that Bioshock’s hacking minigame was derided though. I can’t fully explain why, but the implementation in Pragmata feels much more engaging. It manages to build it less as an obstacle out-of-combat, and more of a reward in-combat, while also not needing that much thought process to apply it decently.
The fanfare is interesting to me, because I played the demo and found the exact opposite from my experience! The mini games in the middle of it all was too many subsystems for me to find enjoyable. But that’s clearly the minority opinion based on the sales and reviews.
I never knew I needed puzzle mini games while shooting things, but I guess here we are!
This is a formula as old as 3D gaming.
I can’t think of a single game that has a mini puzzle while shooting. Plenty of games with those at independent times.
I can’t think of a single well-known game that has something similar.
For some reason, I thought this already came out years ago to little fanfare; I seem to recall a demo or trailer for it from way back …
Ah, development hell and indefinite delays from Capcom. Looks like it’s being recieved well, too.
Ye same, it was a very special and captivating reveal trailer too. That said, these days things are revealed before development even starts soooo
Ye, it can take 6 years between reveal and releaseThere was a demo for it, quite a while even. But I don’t think it was development hell tbh. Between an initial demo to gather feedback on the fundamental systems and a released game can be several years.
No, it was in development hell, and Capcom even indefinitely suspended development at one point.
Idk tbh, I haven’t really kept up to date with it. I never even heard about it before last week. It just doesn’t really feel like a development hell game to me, it feels very well rounded and polished, not something I’d expect from a development hell game. When I think of development hell, I think of cyberpunk 2077, fallout 76 or skull and bones, these games were truly a disaster on release. Pragmata doesn’t feel like that in the slightest.
But then again, as I said, no idea.
Congrats to Capcom. Solid game deserves solid sales
Also: Denuvo-DRM prevents paying Linux and Steam Deck players from playing
Literally just played it on Linux. lol They did something to make it work without Denuvo. Haven’t really investigated how/why but I’m glad they did.
I hate Denuvo as much as the next guy but it’s literally Steam Deck Verified
That’s not even tru tho. Played all weekend on Linux
It’s definitely true if you troubleshoot your system and change proton versions more than 5 times. Then you are locked out of the game you purchased and “own” for at least 24 hours.
Why the hell are you changing proton 5x lol?
It literally works out of the box.
Ok so there’s this thing called “other games”, which sometimes require a different version to function. The game prevents you from making these changes to you own PC if you want to play it.
Force compatability per game under preferences. Can pin a version for pragmata and still change things system wide for other games if you are tinkering
Also stop being a smart ass.
Ok, tell that to these people who were not able to play their game https://respawnfirst.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Pragmata-Linux-1920x1920.webp
For fellow lazies who don’t like when a third slice of fellow lazies don’t embed the image in the comment:
Nah you tell em
Who upvotes this bullshit without even a lazy cursory check to learn it’s completely false?
It’s definitely true if you troubleshoot your system and change proton versions more than 5 times. Then you are locked out of the game you purchased and “own” for at least 24 hours.
It works on my Linux setup
People with ethics might be prevented from playing, but that’s due to the game’s publisher, not the OS.
Thanks, saved me from reading any further
Except it’s a straight up lie, it works on Linux and runs fine on steam decks
Except that it definitely has denuvo. Which prevents me from being interested at all
It does, and that sucks ass, agreed. But the person saying it doesn’t work on Linux is straight up lying hahaha
I said it prevents people from playing, not that it doesn’t work. See some steam reviews
It’s definitely true if you troubleshoot your system and change proton versions more than 5 times. Then you are locked out of the game you purchased and “own” for at least 24 hours.
