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Seven games benchmarked before and after Denuvo got removed
We all know that copy and DRM protection eat CPU cycles, and that can influence game performance. The problem is that to be able to measure that you would need to compare a cracked game with an original one, that all by itself is a red flag. Recently, however, some game scrapped from Denuvo and that effect has been tested on seven games.
First off, credits go to Overlord who posted a Youtube video on it. Secondly, it's good to see he is using our homegrown Afterburner RTSS overlay ;) Overlord tested 7 games with and without Denovo activated. The results are a bit all over the place. Now, he has been using a Core i7 2600K in combo with a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, that was done on purpose to show a greater effect. Personally, I believe that you should test modern games with modern hardware, so the results are a bit let's call it 'saturated and bottlenecked', both pieces of hardware are not exactly a match either.
Among the titles tested are: Hitman - Mass Effect: Andromeda - Abzu - Sherlock Holmes the Devil's Daughter - Mad Max - Agents of Mayhem - Sniper Ghost Warrior 3. A few games showed performance drops with Denuvo enabled. Mass Effect: Andromeda dropped 7 FPS towards 57 FPS. Mad Max saw a more meager that was 6 FPS coming from 60. Pretty much all other games including Hitman, Abzu, did not show a significant enough perf difference or scaled negative.
So on a Core i7 2600K with a GTX 1080 ti at worst the performance drop was 10%. While that is noticeable, I wouldn't call it substantial. With a modern age CPU that difference would have been smaller.
vbetts
Moderator
Posts: 14958
Joined: 2006-07-04
Moderator
Posts: 14958
Joined: 2006-07-04
#5572332 Posted on: 08/09/2018 08:28 PM
So pretty much, nothing.
Perf is not the only concern. What about games that never get updated to remove Denuvo? When Denuvo stops working (Denuvo server goes away and/or Denuvo itself is not compatible anymore with future Windows versions), your game doesn't work anymore?
See your various Star Force or SecuROM or Tages game CDs or DVDs from the 2000's. Good f'ing luck getting them to work. Meanwhile, the pirated, illegal copies of those discs work perfectly fine, so you have to break the law to play the game you paid for.
Denuvo should be illegal.
I don't think that's what this video was meant to do. There were a lot of claims because of Denuvo running a sort of VM on the machine and taking cpu cycles that it was possibly lowering performance of games on a PC. People were making a lot of differences up, some saying performance could be doubled without it. The main concern that so many people cared about at this time as posts even on this forum and articles show, was the performance impact. As far as removing it goes, GOG is there any usually can get this handled with older games and has been.
So pretty much, nothing.
Perf is not the only concern. What about games that never get updated to remove Denuvo? When Denuvo stops working (Denuvo server goes away and/or Denuvo itself is not compatible anymore with future Windows versions), your game doesn't work anymore?
See your various Star Force or SecuROM or Tages game CDs or DVDs from the 2000's. Good f'ing luck getting them to work. Meanwhile, the pirated, illegal copies of those discs work perfectly fine, so you have to break the law to play the game you paid for.
Denuvo should be illegal.
I don't think that's what this video was meant to do. There were a lot of claims because of Denuvo running a sort of VM on the machine and taking cpu cycles that it was possibly lowering performance of games on a PC. People were making a lot of differences up, some saying performance could be doubled without it. The main concern that so many people cared about at this time as posts even on this forum and articles show, was the performance impact. As far as removing it goes, GOG is there any usually can get this handled with older games and has been.
Kaaskop
Member
Posts: 31
Joined: 2013-03-05
Member
Posts: 31
Joined: 2013-03-05
#5572333 Posted on: 08/09/2018 08:29 PM
Can you stop trashing the 2600k.
Like I commented on his YT too, besides a few games (like AC:O or The Division), this CPU isn't being a bottleneck in many games.
So unless you got actual proof that this CPU was affecting anything besides the occasional CPU bottleneck in some instances.
In his video it ONLY bottlenecked around 7:30 while being underground in Agents.
So why would this CPU be not sufficient enough to handle such games and effect results, when you can clearly see the CPU usage in his video.
Besides that, his was even on stock speeds, while most that still got it, it's on 4.2 or higher. So 4 core/8 threads at 4.2GHz (minimum), isn't sufficient these days and could affect results? Let alone, not be "a match" for a GTX1080TI?
Can you stop trashing the 2600k.
Like I commented on his YT too, besides a few games (like AC:O or The Division), this CPU isn't being a bottleneck in many games.
So unless you got actual proof that this CPU was affecting anything besides the occasional CPU bottleneck in some instances.
In his video it ONLY bottlenecked around 7:30 while being underground in Agents.
So why would this CPU be not sufficient enough to handle such games and effect results, when you can clearly see the CPU usage in his video.
Besides that, his was even on stock speeds, while most that still got it, it's on 4.2 or higher. So 4 core/8 threads at 4.2GHz (minimum), isn't sufficient these days and could affect results? Let alone, not be "a match" for a GTX1080TI?
vbetts
Moderator
Posts: 14958
Joined: 2006-07-04
Moderator
Posts: 14958
Joined: 2006-07-04
#5572337 Posted on: 08/09/2018 08:39 PM
Can you stop trashing the 2600k.
Like I commented on his YT too, besides a few games (like AC:O or The Division), this CPU isn't being a bottleneck in many games.
So unless you got actual proof that this CPU was affecting anything besides the occasional CPU bottleneck in some instances.
In his video it ONLY bottlenecked around 7:30 while being underground in Agents.
So why would this CPU be not sufficient enough to handle such games and effect results, when you can clearly see the CPU usage in his video.
Besides that, his was even on stock speeds, while most that still got it, it's on 4.2 or higher. So 4 core/8 threads at 4.2GHz (minimum), isn't sufficient these days and could affect results? Let alone, not be "a match" for a GTX1080TI?
Not sure how he's trashing the 2600k? I mean he even did an article showing it's more than enough still in 2018.
https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/intel-sandy-bridge-core-i7-2600kthe-2018-review-time-for-an-upgrade,1.html
Can you stop trashing the 2600k.
Like I commented on his YT too, besides a few games (like AC:O or The Division), this CPU isn't being a bottleneck in many games.
So unless you got actual proof that this CPU was affecting anything besides the occasional CPU bottleneck in some instances.
In his video it ONLY bottlenecked around 7:30 while being underground in Agents.
So why would this CPU be not sufficient enough to handle such games and effect results, when you can clearly see the CPU usage in his video.
Besides that, his was even on stock speeds, while most that still got it, it's on 4.2 or higher. So 4 core/8 threads at 4.2GHz (minimum), isn't sufficient these days and could affect results? Let alone, not be "a match" for a GTX1080TI?
Not sure how he's trashing the 2600k? I mean he even did an article showing it's more than enough still in 2018.
https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/intel-sandy-bridge-core-i7-2600kthe-2018-review-time-for-an-upgrade,1.html
Denial
Senior Member
Posts: 12746
Joined: 2004-05-16
Senior Member
Posts: 12746
Joined: 2004-05-16
#5572340 Posted on: 08/09/2018 08:44 PM
Can you stop trashing the 2600k.
Like I commented on his YT too, besides a few games (like AC:O or The Division), this CPU isn't being a bottleneck in many games.
So unless you got actual proof that this CPU was affecting anything besides the occasional CPU bottleneck in some instances.
In his video it ONLY bottlenecked around 7:30 while being underground in Agents.
So why would this CPU be not sufficient enough to handle such games and effect results, when you can clearly see the CPU usage in his video.
Besides that, his was even on stock speeds, while most that still got it, it's on 4.2 or higher. So 4 core/8 threads at 4.2GHz (minimum), isn't sufficient these days and could affect results? Let alone, not be "a match" for a GTX1080TI?
It's slower in nearly every game than a more modern CPU - clock for clock - even on GPU intensive titles. When you're running a test like the one here and literally looking for margin of error differences, it's going to play a role in overall results.
Can you stop trashing the 2600k.
Like I commented on his YT too, besides a few games (like AC:O or The Division), this CPU isn't being a bottleneck in many games.
So unless you got actual proof that this CPU was affecting anything besides the occasional CPU bottleneck in some instances.
In his video it ONLY bottlenecked around 7:30 while being underground in Agents.
So why would this CPU be not sufficient enough to handle such games and effect results, when you can clearly see the CPU usage in his video.
Besides that, his was even on stock speeds, while most that still got it, it's on 4.2 or higher. So 4 core/8 threads at 4.2GHz (minimum), isn't sufficient these days and could affect results? Let alone, not be "a match" for a GTX1080TI?
It's slower in nearly every game than a more modern CPU - clock for clock - even on GPU intensive titles. When you're running a test like the one here and literally looking for margin of error differences, it's going to play a role in overall results.
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Senior Member
Posts: 3142
Joined: 2011-11-24
Perf is not the only concern. What about games that never get updated to remove Denuvo? When Denuvo stops working (Denuvo server goes away and/or Denuvo itself is not compatible anymore with future Windows versions), your game doesn't work anymore?
See your various Star Force or SecuROM or Tages game CDs or DVDs from the 2000's. Good f'ing luck getting them to work. Meanwhile, the pirated, illegal copies of those discs work perfectly fine, so you have to break the law to play the game you paid for.
Denuvo should be illegal.