What is DENUVO?

[MrSɾ3ɳιƚყ_97]

I'm an unc, I don't keep up with gaming news much these days etc. I just pre-ordered this game because I heard a lot of good thing about it. I'm seeing all over the web people making complain threads about this D-E-N-U-V-O?

Can someone explain why I should worry about this? XDD

[Jowain]

Anti-piracy measure that doesn't actually stop pirates.
It's very invasive and goes pretty deep into your PCs system and often affects performance of both your game and your PC.

Some defend it, others oppose it, I oppose it because I think it's a waste of energy as pirates have time and time again cracked and uploaded games using it, they just remove Denuvo and re-upload the game for those that don't want to have it.

[=Palynzer=]

So, you dont know google?

[fransergio357]

Originally posted by MrSɾ3ɳιƚყ_97:

I'm an unc, I don't keep up with gaming news much these days etc. I just pre-ordered this game because I heard a lot of good thing about it. I'm seeing all over people making complain threads about this D-E-N-U-V-O? Folks aren't gonna play it because of it, bla bla bla.....

Can someone explain why I should worry about this? XDD

If one day they deactivate the Denuvo (DRM) servers, you will never play the game you bought again... it's like a service game! You need to always be connected to the internet to play, that is, you will be in their hands forever, if they want you to stop playing, it won't depend on you.

[HokageSama]

Denuvo is involved in some data privacy issues. And the worst part is that if anything happens to the digital game, we won't have the crack to play. We're also talking about Sony, a company that harms the consumer in every way. Research on the Helldivers 2 controversy

[Hampster-Style]

Denuvo anti-piracy is a low-level driver (ring0, similar to a live-service game's anti-cheat) that phones home upon booting game. You can still go in offline and play (for a set period) once the game has been boot up at least once but at some point it will want to phone home again. The aggressiveness of the DRM is up to how invasive the devs inplement it.
Examples:
1. Saves can be tied to machine's installation and non-transferable (rare if possible)
2. Limited number of activations in a specific timeframe can trigger a timed lock-out in troubleshooting senarios involving installs or game boot/crash problems.
3. Never removing it even years after release

I've personally never had a situation where the following didn't prevent performance loss when a game is infected with Denuvo:
1. After D/L and install, boot into the game so denuvo can update itself.
2. Since it's a low-level DRM driver, exit game and reboot the machine real quick
3. This should prevent performance issues associated with DRM driver.

It wouldn't suck nearly as bad if publishers would remove after a 6 month window or so.
Edit: Oops! ring0 is denuvo anti-cheat not anti-piracy.

[CrazyIvan]

Originally posted by Hampster-Style:

It wouldn't suck nearly as bad if publishers would remove after a 6 month window or so.

Yeah, that would help a lot.
I wanted to buy Stellar Blade but since this is first Denuvo from Sony we do not know if they ever remove it. I must admit I played a few games with Denuvo but I'm trying to avoid it as much as I can.

[HiRed_ThuG]

It's an extremely affective anti piracy solution.

Pirates hate it because it prevents them having games for free so they swarm forums trying to dissuade people from buying Denuvo protected games, mostly using misinformation and disinformation, in the hope that publishers will be forced to stop using it and they can continue to have their free lunch.

[Hampster-Style]

Originally posted by CrazyIvan:

Originally posted by Hampster-Style:

It wouldn't suck nearly as bad if publishers would remove after a 6 month window or so.

Yeah, that would help a lot.
I wanted to buy Stellar Blade but since this is first Denuvo from Sony we do not know if they ever remove it. I must admit I played a few games with Denuvo but I'm trying to avoid it as much as I can.

Sega PC really loves denuvo and has (ring) zero f's given over the backlash they get for it on titles 5-6 years old.
It's getting harder and harder to avoid it but I still think the trade-off is better than console gaming for myself since it works with steam deck/linux as well.

[HiRed_ThuG]

Originally posted by Hampster-Style:

Denuvo anti-piracy is a low-level driver (ring0, similar to a live-service game's anti-cheat) that phones home upon booting game. You can still go in offline and play (for a set period) once the game has been boot up at least once but at some point it will want to phone home again. The aggressiveness of the DRM is up to how invasive the devs inplement it.
Examples:
1. Saves can be tied to machine's installation and non-transferable
2. Limited number of activations in a specific timeframe can trigger a timed lock-out in troubleshooting senarios involving installs or game boot/crash problems.
3. Never removing it even years after release

I've personally never had a situation where the following didn't prevent performance loss when a game is infected with Denuvo:
1. After D/L and install, boot into the game so denuvo can update itself.
2. Since it's a low-level DRM driver, exit game and reboot the machine real quick
3. This should prevent performance issues associated with DRM driver.

It wouldn't suck nearly as bad if publishers would remove after a 6 month window or so.

You may be getting Denuvo Anti-Tamper mixed up with Denuvo Anti-Cheat

Denuvo Anti-Tamper doesn't have Ring 0 access and doesn't install any drivers. It's embedded into the games exe file.

Denuvo Anti-Tamper does not nor have ever relied on kernel drivers/services to function as such a requirement would provide no additional security benefits and only negatively impact end users.[Note 6] This misunderstanding seems to have become more and more common in 2023/2024, most likely because people mistake it for its Anti-Cheat sibling where that requirement exists.

source[www.pcgamingwiki.com]

[☣lolers Mick Jogers☣]

[quote=HiRed_ThuG;604156807333603934
You may be getting Denuvo Anti-Cheat mixed up with Denuvo Anti-Tamper.

Denuvo Anti-Tamper doesn't have Ring 0 access and doesn't install any drivers. It's embedded into the games exe file.

Denuvo Anti-Tamper does not nor have ever relied on kernel drivers/services to function as such a requirement would provide no additional security benefits and only negatively impact end users.[Note 6] This misunderstanding seems to have become more and more common in 2023/2024, most likely because people mistake it for its Anti-Cheat sibling where that requirement exists.

[/quote]
yea it seems like alot of people are very misinformed about what denuvo does

[Hampster-Style]

Originally posted by HiRed_ThuG:

Originally posted by Hampster-Style:

Denuvo anti-piracy is a low-level driver (ring0, similar to a live-service game's anti-cheat) that phones home upon booting game. You can still go in offline and play (for a set period) once the game has been boot up at least once but at some point it will want to phone home again. The aggressiveness of the DRM is up to how invasive the devs inplement it.
Examples:
1. Saves can be tied to machine's installation and non-transferable
2. Limited number of activations in a specific timeframe can trigger a timed lock-out in troubleshooting senarios involving installs or game boot/crash problems.
3. Never removing it even years after release

I've personally never had a situation where the following didn't prevent performance loss when a game is infected with Denuvo:
1. After D/L and install, boot into the game so denuvo can update itself.
2. Since it's a low-level DRM driver, exit game and reboot the machine real quick
3. This should prevent performance issues associated with DRM driver.

It wouldn't suck nearly as bad if publishers would remove after a 6 month window or so.

You may be getting Denuvo Anti-Cheat mixed up with Denuvo Anti-Tamper.

Denuvo Anti-Tamper doesn't have Ring 0 access and doesn't install any drivers. It's embedded into the games exe file.

Denuvo Anti-Tamper does not nor have ever relied on kernel drivers/services to function as such a requirement would provide no additional security benefits and only negatively impact end users.[Note 6] This misunderstanding seems to have become more and more common in 2023/2024, most likely because people mistake it for its Anti-Cheat sibling where that requirement exists.

source[www.pcgamingwiki.com]

You're right - thx for pointing that out. Although it doesn't suck as much for not being ring 0, it still sucks for all the other reasons. Can't wait for MS to build proper windows infrastructure for these things like DRM, anti-cheat and block 3rd party devs from the proprietary ring 0 paradigm. I think the CrowdStrike incident probably hastened these efforts.

[HiRed_ThuG]

Originally posted by Hampster-Style:

Originally posted by HiRed_ThuG:

You may be getting Denuvo Anti-Cheat mixed up with Denuvo Anti-Tamper.

Denuvo Anti-Tamper doesn't have Ring 0 access and doesn't install any drivers. It's embedded into the games exe file.



source[www.pcgamingwiki.com]

You're right - thx for pointing that out. Although it doesn't suck as much for not being ring 0, it still sucks for all the other reasons. Can't wait for MS to build proper windows infrastructure for these things like DRM, anti-cheat and block devs from the proprietary ring 0 paradigm.

Most of your points were incorrect, that was just the one I could be bothered to discuss.

[Zeigy]

You know your DRM is effective when every other thread on Steam complains about it. The pirates just mad they can't play Stellar Blade on Day 1 so they have to try desperately to get Denuvo removed so they can catch their freeloader jollies.

[Hampster-Style]

Originally posted by HiRed_ThuG:

Originally posted by Hampster-Style:

You're right - thx for pointing that out. Although it doesn't suck as much for not being ring 0, it still sucks for all the other reasons. Can't wait for MS to build proper windows infrastructure for these things like DRM, anti-cheat and block devs from the proprietary ring 0 paradigm.

A lot of your points were incorrect. That was just the one I could be bothered to discuss.

If you can find the time I would be curious to know. I will say that for tech explanations on forums with mainly layman users I can/will use the Block diagram analysis techniques for simplicity as opposed to gory circuit details in a schematic. This can help the less techy still understand and address problems without necessarily being a subject matter expert.

[HiRed_ThuG]

Originally posted by Hampster-Style:

Originally posted by HiRed_ThuG:

A lot of your points were incorrect. That was just the one I could be bothered to discuss.

If you can find the time I would be curious to know. I will say that for tech explanations on forums with mainly layman users I can/will use the Block diagram analysis techniques for simplicity as opposed to gory circuit details in a schematic. This can help the less techy still understand and address problems without necessarily being a subject matter expert.

Im typing on my phone so I'll need to edit in my replies as I keep on losing what I just wrote.

Saves can be tied to machine's installation and non-transferable

Incorrect

Limited number of activations in a specific timeframe can trigger a timed lock-out in

Correct, It has a 5 machine activations limit per day. Although this is for different machines. Changing hardware will also count as a new machine. This shouldn't really affect most people although Steam Deck users who like to change Proton versions may trigger this.

Never removing it even years after release

Partially Correct: Saga and EA are the only publishers that I'm aware of that rarely remove Denuvo.

After D/L and install, boot into the game so denuvo can update itself.

Denuvo can't update itself. It's part of the games exe and can only be updated when the game developers release a patch.

Since it's a low-level DRM driver, exit game and reboot the machine real quick

It's not low level or a driver. It's embedded in the games exe and has the same system access as that file.

This should prevent performance issues associated with DRM driver.

It's not a driver and it's very unlikely to cause performance issues. If you understand how it works and how it's implemented you would realise this.

This article should give you an idea of what it's doing.

https://www.thefpsreview.com/2024/04/03/dev-spends-months-cracking-denuvo-in-hogwarts-legacy-learns-drm-has-no-real-effect-on-performance/

One can see that Denuvo does indeed intervene from time to time, but what one can clearly see: It doesn’t do that very often. It’s only once every few seconds. Even less, sometimes it doesn’t do anything. Only when major things happen, scene switches, loading screens or similar, the logs seem to accumulate. …Denuvo executes checks so infrequently, that the likelyhood of it causing major performance issues seems rather low.

In short, developers place the Denuvo triggers where they won't affect game performance. Even Shift Up posted benchmarks showing that it doesn't affect performance in Stellar Blade.

As shown in the test chart below, the DRM has been hard tuned to maintain the same average frame rate, with even higher minimum frames in some cases.

https://wccftech.com/stellar-blade-dev-is-working-with-sony-to-resolve-pc-region-locking-claims-denuvo-doesnt-impact-frame-rates/