Community The Slow Demise of Denuvo (Progress Report)

texhnolyze

Child at heart
Oct 19, 2018
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Sometimes I wonder why do some games get cracked so fast while some others are on their hundreds of days uncracked.
 

prudis

anime occult member
Sep 19, 2018
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The Kingdom of Beer and Porn
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this is big

Release Notes:
This is an experimental Proof of Concept release where the Denuvo DRM and VMProtect have been removed completely from the main executable.
The main idea of this project was to verify whether Denuvo affects CPU usage and overall performance of this game. We noticed faster loading times but will leave the rest of the performance comparison battle to others

Here is a small tech summary of what has been done:
  • VMProtect is fully removed (30 VM entry points)
  • Denuvo is fully removed (104 VM entry points)
  • All required PE directories are fully restored (exports, imports, exceptions, TLS)
  • Fixed around 500k absolute & relative code and data pointers

The team would like to send out special thanks to our hard working mate who is responsible for this huge project. This would not have been possible without you! You rock man!
 
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Aelphaeis Mangarae

MetaMember
Apr 21, 2019
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The performance of AC: Origins on PC has always been contentious (including some old claims they ended up using a DX12 > DX11 wrapper from Intel which increased CPU usage unreasonably). Be interesting to see whether Denuvo removal affects performance in cities and the such. It will most likely improve loadtimes a bit, that much is a given. Denuvo hindering loadtimes moderately is one of its most annoying traits.
 

tet666

Junior Member
Dec 21, 2018
56
88
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this is big

This is an experimental Proof of Concept release where the Denuvo DRM and VMProtect have been removed completely from the main executable.
The main idea of this project was to verify whether Denuvo affects CPU usage and overall performance of this game. We noticed faster loading times but will leave the rest of the performance comparison battle to others

Here is a small tech summary of what has been done:

  • VMProtect is fully removed (30 VM entry points)
  • Denuvo is fully removed (104 VM entry points)
  • All required PE directories are fully restored (exports, imports, exceptions, TLS)
  • Fixed around 500k absolute & relative code and data pointers

The team would like to send out special thanks to our hard working mate who is responsible for this huge project. This would not have been possible without you! You rock man!
Holy Fuck they actually did it.
 
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Anteater

Hentai Specialist
Sep 20, 2018
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Any report on performance? would be interesting to see how it affect performance with ubi games since they're usually the games with heavy cpu usage.
 
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Aelphaeis Mangarae

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Apr 21, 2019
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What are the white vertical lines which are only there with Denuvo?
Like Lashman says, framertime spikes. This means that in theory, even if the framerate looks similar, the non-Denuvo version will feel smoother to play. Frametime spiking can result in a game that is supposedly running close to 60fps but it feels jerky and uneven. The idea that Origins and potentially Odyssey has microstutters due to Denuvo is annoying. I get why they're using Denuvo, and I'd point out that Odyssey's DLC still isn't cracked. So it is effective, at least currently. But you're visibly harming the core gameplay experience. Every spike on the graphic is the game feeling odd. They need to evaluate gamefeel when implementing DRM. This is a very similar problem to what one of those fighting games had, where Denuvo was hammering a register and causing a brief hitch when certain moves were performed.
 

Aelphaeis Mangarae

MetaMember
Apr 21, 2019
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This is great. But didn't we have multiple Denuvo tests with games that removed it by the publisher?
The recent Assassin's Creed games were particularly contentious examples because of how CPU heavy they are. With the possible exception of Hitman, none of the games with pre-post Denuvo test cases had the kind of CPU-wrecking strain an Assassin's Creed game has. Very few companies make games like this. Even fewer use Denuvo and then remove it so we can compare.
 

Aelphaeis Mangarae

MetaMember
Apr 21, 2019
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Someone linked me a report that disputes the earlier benchmark and conclusions drawn from it. It's pretty in depth. Basically, the performance values are within margin of error. But they didn't have proper means to test loadtimes.

 

Aelphaeis Mangarae

MetaMember
Apr 21, 2019
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DSOG did a report of their own. It's rather confusingly worded, TBH.
It sounds like the Denuvo version stutters in certain scenarios without hyperthreading, and also load times are improved in the Denuvo-less version.
 
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Durante

I <3 Pixels
Oct 21, 2018
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Someone linked me a report that disputes the earlier benchmark and conclusions drawn from it. It's pretty in depth. Basically, the performance values are within margin of error.
That's exactly what I found using somewhat rigorous (not what I'd put in a paper, but far better than what I see many popular youtubers doing) testing methods for FF15 in my PC gamer article where we also had a non-DRM executable. (And also that loading times might be affected)

Some people back then got stupidly angry about that article.
Seriously, there are enough reasons not to support any intrusive DRM, you don't need to make up additional ones mostly based on really bad reporting.
 
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lashman

lashman

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Sep 5, 2018
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Did they implement native steam controller trackball input? I always felt that a ball-rolling game would benefit significantly from that.
nope ... both of the touchpads are completely dead using the official configuration ... just the left stick and the buttons work
 

madjoki

👀 I see you
Sep 19, 2018
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Denuvo doesn't even support Unity games so it wouldn't even matter really.

Worst is Two Points Hospital It used workarounds to use Denuvo on Unity,
But they also released Linux on same date, which meant you could copy unprotected .net assembly from there.
 
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lashman

lashman

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Epic just pulled the Detroid demo from the store because it allowed to start the full game with the same Denuvo activation with a simple exploit (Heavy Rain and Beyond had similar exploits)...
good job, lmao
 

Durante

I <3 Pixels
Oct 21, 2018
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Epic just pulled the Detroid demo from the store because it allowed to start the full game with the same Denuvo activation with a simple exploit (Heavy Rain and Beyond had similar exploits)...
Clearly pulling it from the store will remove it from the internet.
 
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madjoki

👀 I see you
Sep 19, 2018
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Clearly pulling it from the store will remove it from the internet.
I'd imagine they also disabled new activations... IF they're competent.
(Based on quick look at reddit, this seems to be the case)
 

Parsnip

Riskbreaker
Sep 11, 2018
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Finland
Seems like the RE2 Demo doesn't have denuvo? The exe sizes between the game and demo is 361 megs vs 117 megs.
The Demo EULA is also missing this one paragraph.
For the use of license management, when accessed for the first or following times of activation, this game may access a server, etc. provided by a third party besides Capcom.
I wonder if I could play the full game through with the demo exe and get better load times.
 

The Janitor

Junior Member
Jul 13, 2019
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This explains why modern games takes so damn long to start. After launching a game I have to stare at a splash screen for a whole minute before the game even starts. Makes me consider downloading cracks for games I own just to reduce load times.

 
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lashman

lashman

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This explains why modern games takes so damn long to start. After launching a game I have to stare at a splash screen for a whole minute before the game even starts. Makes me consider downloading cracks for games I own just to reduce load times.
this would only help with AssOranges ... all the other denuvo cracks only bypass it, not completely remove it (sadly)
 
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prudis

anime occult member
Sep 19, 2018
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i dont think bypass is the right word for current solutions.

Iirc bypass is blanket term for when the DRM is circumvented by using some hole DRM devs missed or through outside method instead of dealing with DRM directly. (for example DX:MD DLC crack that was made by modifying rxr og DX:breach)
Crack is when the DRM is dealt directly no matter if its by removing it completely or making it thing that it runs legit copy
 
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Aelphaeis Mangarae

MetaMember
Apr 21, 2019
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Resident Evil 2 appears to have removed Denuvo from its latest update. Since this is the update hinting at RE3 Remake, they've also made some changes to files. A lot of changes, actually. Which is kinda weird. Data miners might be able to figure out what they're up to.
 
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