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After 2 weeks, is Ubisoft's Denuvo/VMProtect DRM working? Is Denuvo not a failure?

WaterAstro

Member
With the news that Ubisoft's implementation of VMProtect on top of Denuvo is rumoured to increase processing usage (link here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1456641), is it working?

They are also using the latest Denuvo, which is the latest 4.8, according to reddit. In comparison, South Park, another Ubisoft game, was cracked in a day when it had Denuvo 4.3.

I think having at least 2 weeks of not being cracked is going to have publishers looking at this implementation. The potential, impatient customers that would have pirated probably buckled and bought the game. I think Ubisoft made it work this time around, and the ramification for future game DRM is going to be interesting.
 

luca_29_bg

Member
It's always a matter of time for a new protection, in this case for the VMP protection, after the needed experience to learn to crack it on top of denuvo, in the future games the time needed to crack it will be reduced, more and more, as usual. So no Denuvo is not a success, is only a problem for legit customers, and it always will be. And now with the bonus of Bsod and pc failures thanks to Ubisoft and VMP.
 

kotor22

Member
If the implementation is cracked 2 weeks or more it doesnt matter if devs want this implementation ..it would have been cracked lol it literally cant be done again unless either protection is updated
 

luca_29_bg

Member
of course not since its not true. and the only person who said this is a cracker which was unable to crack the game

Wrong. He showed how the game calls VMP even when the player just move. I follow another reverse engineered guy on Twitter and is agree that is a very bad implementation of the Drm from Ubisoft, and this guy doesn't crack games. Also Voski doesn't crack uplay games, even without denuvo/VMP. He doesn't have anyone interest to invent lies 😉
 
Wrong. He showed how the game calls VMP even when the player just move. I follow another reverse engineered guy on Twitter and is agree that is a very bad implementation of the Drm from Ubisoft, and this guy doesn't crack games. Also Voski doesn't crack uplay games, even without denuvo/VMP. He doesn't have anyone interest to invent lies 😉


he showed a picture that doesnt mean nothing. I need confirmation from some relevant sources, other than internet nobodies. The game runs very well outside of cities which means there are complex ai and physics simulations going on when you're in the cities, which naturally require processing power. Thats it. The game isnt unpotimized and drm, as always, doesnt impact performance.
 

synce

Member
Where does this theory of pirates being impatient come from? If you're barely making enough money to pay the rent, where does impatience come into play? Or if you have literally hundreds of pirated games that you've yet to play, why would you suddenly buy one? I wouldn't say the DRM is working so much as the consumers are being worked.
 

abracadaver

Member
Where does this theory of pirates being impatient come from? If you're barely making enough money to pay the rent, where does impatience come into play? Or if you have literally hundreds of pirated games that you've yet to play, why would you suddenly buy one? I wouldn't say the DRM is working so much as the consumers are being worked.

A friend of me bought ACO because he couldn't pirate it. It's not a money issue it's about only paying for things when you have to. He loves the series and was waiting for this game to come out.

Ironically it runs really bad on his CPU (always at 100%) and so he has played it for less than an hour in total. Not sure if he refunded it.
 

llien

Member
Where does this theory of pirates being impatient come from? If you're barely making enough money to pay the rent, where does impatience come into play? Or if you have literally hundreds of pirated games that you've yet to play, why would you suddenly buy one? I wouldn't say the DRM is working so much as the consumers are being worked.

There is no hard evidence whether it is real, but there is none to show it ain't real either.
So everyone is entitled to pick whatever unproven theory they prefer.
 
he showed a picture that doesnt mean nothing. I need confirmation from some relevant sources, other than internet nobodies. The game runs very well outside of cities which means there are complex ai and physics simulations going on when you're in the cities, which naturally require processing power. Thats it. The game isnt unpotimized and drm, as always, doesnt impact performance.

You have even less proof that your theory is true.

By the very nature of what denuvo and vrm are, they must create cpu overheads
 

luca_29_bg

Member
he showed a picture that doesnt mean nothing. I need confirmation from some relevant sources, other than internet nobodies. The game runs very well outside of cities which means there are complex ai and physics simulations going on when you're in the cities, which naturally require processing power. Thats it. The game isnt unpotimized and drm, as always, doesnt impact performance.

Doesn't prove nothing for you, other people who knows how these things works think a totally different thing from that image, and nearly 100 % use of cpu most of the time for non top of the line cpu i would not call it "optimization" at all. Drm impact perfomance, like Rime already proved to me and many other people, and the implementation can make things more worse if done badly. I don't have any faith in ubisoft doing right things from a programming point of view, their past speaks enough for them. But who knows, one day some people with enormous patience will remove the drm from this game and we'll see the truth...

Speaking of opinions, a random one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpBRT6-7jXA
 

Darak

Member
Where does this theory of pirates being impatient come from? If you're barely making enough money to pay the rent, where does impatience come into play? Or if you have literally hundreds of pirated games that you've yet to play, why would you suddenly buy one? I wouldn't say the DRM is working so much as the consumers are being worked.

Games often make the bulk of their sales during the launch window, when visibility is high due to marketing, shelf space, reviews, hype... If piracy is only available after those few weeks, then it can't possibly have any serious impact on the game's revenue stream.
 

masterkajo

Member
Where does this theory of pirates being impatient come from? If you're barely making enough money to pay the rent, where does impatience come into play? Or if you have literally hundreds of pirated games that you've yet to play, why would you suddenly buy one? I wouldn't say the DRM is working so much as the consumers are being worked.

I think DRM cannot make a true pirate a paying customer. He will have the patience (and other games) to wait for the cracked version of the game. What DRM is trying to achieve is that the launch window is protected. The game is hyped, there are ads for it and people are aware. They want to play the game. If you can manage to protect the first couple of weeks then people who want to get the game, will pay. The lost sales occur when the game is cracked in the first couple of days and people have the option to get it without paying. The opportunist pirates are the lost sales. Why pay, if they can get it for free within the first couple of days?
 
The future of DRM is DRM in DRM.

That being said. Its just some niche form of DRM which would take time to crack. If they started doing it with every product they release someone will take the time to bother cracking it just like with Denuvo.
 

WaterAstro

Member
It's always a matter of time for a new protection, in this case for the VMP protection, after the needed experience to learn to crack it on top of denuvo, in the future games the time needed to crack it will be reduced, more and more, as usual. So no Denuvo is not a success, is only a problem for legit customers, and it always will be. And now with the bonus of Bsod and pc failures thanks to Ubisoft and VMP.

Denuvo will keep updating, so it's just a race between their latest update and the crack teams.

Where does this theory of pirates being impatient come from? If you're barely making enough money to pay the rent, where does impatience come into play? Or if you have literally hundreds of pirated games that you've yet to play, why would you suddenly buy one? I wouldn't say the DRM is working so much as the consumers are being worked.

Piracy is not exclusive for the penniless. There are people who will steal if they know they can get away with it.
 

yurinka

Member
Did they ever prove that drm was causing 40% additional cpu load with aco?
No. He just showed that the game makes many DRM calls, as others do. But as seen in other games with a lot of calls like Rime when removed Denuvo, these calls don't have a significant impact on performace. If lucky you'd win 1fps by removing Denuvo.
 

Aklamarth

Member
yurinka said:
these calls don't have a significant impact on performace.

Buuuuuuuuuullshit. Calling code in a virtual machine with a non x86 instruction set that calls code in another virtual machine CANNOT be cheap from a perf point of view. And Ubisoft does this in the main game loop :(

The only people which know EXACTLY how much performance problem the DRM is causing are Ubisoft : they are they only ones which have access to the non DRM version of the binaries and can benchmark the 2 versions.
 

Neo_Geo

Banned
he showed a picture that doesnt mean nothing. I need confirmation from some relevant sources, other than internet nobodies. The game runs very well outside of cities which means there are complex ai and physics simulations going on when you're in the cities, which naturally require processing power. Thats it. The game isnt unpotimized and drm, as always, doesnt impact performance.

You are basically saying you don't know how to interpret what he showed, and lol at "complex AI/physics simuilations". It's a prettied up PS2 level game at its heart in that regard. The basics of the engine are abhorrent at this point, but they fool the average " I use double negatives, yo!" gamer obviously.,


Piracy is not exclusive for the penniless. There are people who will copy the non-tangible product if they know they can get away with it.

Fixed the inherent lack of comprehension in your post for you.
 

Stiler

Member
he showed a picture that doesnt mean nothing. I need confirmation from some relevant sources, other than internet nobodies. The game runs very well outside of cities which means there are complex ai and physics simulations going on when you're in the cities, which naturally require processing power. Thats it. The game isnt unpotimized and drm, as always, doesnt impact performance.


As always? You obviously never played a game with Starforce or other DRM's that absolutely caused technical issues with games in the past, many of which were gotten around by using no-cd patches to go around the DRM and stop the issues.


Also you think its normal for a top of the line cpu to be hitting 100% across all cores? The game is good but it's mainly built around AI animation loops having set routines, just with a lot of variety. it's not uncommon to walk into an area and see two npc's doing the exact same thing even at the exact same timing in-sync with each other. You can watch an npc complete its animation and then "reset" and do it again. It's not some new fangled super-AI that hasn't been done in games before...
 

xrnzaaas

Gold Member
I haven't bought a PC game from Ubisoft since Heroes 6 probably, it won't change anytime soon with that DRM bullshit. Thankfully I'm not too sensitive about the graphics so PS4 versions suit me just fine.
 

llien

Member
Buuuuuuuuuullshit. Calling code in a virtual machine with a non 86 instruction set that calls code in another virtual machine CANNOT be cheap from a perf point of view. And Ubisoft does this in the main game loop :(.

What you say makes perfect sense, but then, you also need to explain lack of noticeable performance boost in de-dunovod games.
 
of course not since its not true. and the only person who said this is a cracker which was unable to crack the game

I refunded the game because I was not happy with constant 100% CPU utilisation (the link is running at LOWEST settings, at HIGHEST it's only 5 fps average difference, it's all because of the CPU bottleneck), preventing me from hitting 60fps.

I don't know if it's the DRM or not, but it's fucked on PC full stop.
 

dr_rus

Member
Wrong. He showed how the game calls VMP even when the player just move.

Which proves exactly squat. So no, it's not true.

Buuuuuuuuuullshit. Calling code in a virtual machine with a non 86 instruction set that calls code in another virtual machine CANNOT be cheap from a perf point of view. And Ubisoft does this in the main game loop :(

The only people which know EXACTLY how much performance problem the DRM is causing are Ubisoft : they are they only ones which have access to the non DRM version of the binaries and can benchmark the 2 versions.

Non 86 instruction set? What's that?
 

luca_29_bg

Member
Denuvo will keep updating, so it's just a race between their latest update and the crack teams.


Yes but the hard part in this case is the implementation of VMP on top of denuvo, not the denuvo version. After some time hackers will be able to crack VMP on top of denuvo more faster, with experience matured from previous games, so unless ubisoft or other pubblishers will put a third drm on top of these two, things will come back to be faster again in some time, in cracking scene.
 

luca_29_bg

Member
No. He just showed that the game makes many DRM calls, as others do. But as seen in other games with a lot of calls like Rime when removed Denuvo, these calls don't have a significant impact on performace. If lucky you'd win 1fps by removing Denuvo.

not on my pc and in other pc too from steam users. Rime run better without denuvo on my pc...and it's not 1 fps.
 

llien

Member
Which proves exactly squat. So no, it's not true.
It proves squat, so we have no idea if it is true.



Non 86 instruction set? What's that?
To my knowledge poster was referring to the fact, that denuvo runs some of it's protection code in virtual machine with a unique per game (or not per game, not that it matters in this context) instruction set.
 

Coolade

Member
All I know is, personally speaking, I had the game hard lock my PC twice in 80 minutes. No other game I've owned has ever done that. I'm not sure what to blame, DRM, the programming, or my PC, but I had to refund it.
 
This type of DRM is generally a waste of resources, actively harms legitimate customers, and doesn't work to stop piracy at all. Its only proud purpose is anti-piracy PR/political messaging, which means it's basically worthless.
 

gatti-man

Member
You are basically saying you don't know how to interpret what he showed, and lol at "complex AI/physics simuilations". It's a prettied up PS2 level game at its heart in that regard. The basics of the engine are abhorrent at this point, but they fool the average " I use double negatives, yo!" gamer obviously.,




Fixed the inherent lack of comprehension in your post for you.

It’s still IP theft. A group of people spent years of their lives making said IP it is immoral to deny them compensation just for your pleasure.
 

Aklamarth

Member
gatti-man said:
It’s still IP theft.

It's not theft, it's copyright infringement. Theft implies the owner cannot sell the object in question afterwards, which is not the case here.

In a ideal world, game would be cheaper, run without any perf problems, nobody would be able to pirate it and i would not need to install Steam + UPlay to enjoy it. We don't live in a ideal world.
 

Aklamarth

Member
llien said:
What you say makes perfect sense, but then, you also need to explain lack of noticeable performance boost in de-dunovod games.

This is easily explainable. Despite the fuss Denuvo (when properly implemented it) DOESN'T causes any performance problems . When is implemented wrong (see Rime/AOC for instance) , eg running checks DIRECTLY in the game loop, will cause additional CPU usage and implicitly performance problems. It's that simple.
 
It's not theft, it's copyright infringement. Theft implies the owner cannot sell the object in question afterwards, which is not the case here.

In a ideal world, game would be cheaper, run without any perf problems, nobody would be able to pirate it and i would not need to install Steam + UPlay to enjoy it. We don't live in a ideal world.

This reminds me of the whole right to bear arms and then you have people with fully automatic guns saying it's my right. Copyright and theft don't seem to grasp the whole nature of digital content like it should. The value in a game is not the physical disk itself, it's the experience. It's not like stealing a pair of Levi's.

So when someone makes a perfect blueprint of the game and shares it so anyone else around the globe can have access then how could this not be theft? Since when does theft have to be in physical form? I can sell you the Coke Cola recipe without giving you the ingredients so shouldn't copyright and theft kind of relate to one another?
 
Ubisoft's open world engine is very demanding on the CPU these days. You could see it in Watch Dogs 2 too. We're moving on to 16 threads in the high end, 4 threads have already caused bottlenecks in many games. It doesn't make a lot of sense for Ubisoft to purposely raise their minimum requirements for the sake of making DRM work. Keeping requirements low means more sales. From what I've seen, compared to the density of the world and the graphics, the performance is pretty much in line with what you'd expect. There's plenty of games out there that are truly unoptimized, and this game doesn't come even close.
 

joms5

Member
he showed a picture that doesnt mean nothing. I need confirmation from some relevant sources, other than internet nobodies. The game runs very well outside of cities which means there are complex ai and physics simulations going on when you're in the cities, which naturally require processing power. Thats it. The game isnt unpotimized and drm, as always, doesnt impact performance.

By this logic, what you're saying can't be trusted. You're an internet nobody. I need proof that the game runs very well with vs without Denuvo.
 

wetalo

Member
Where does this theory of pirates being impatient come from? If you're barely making enough money to pay the rent, where does impatience come into play? Or if you have literally hundreds of pirated games that you've yet to play, why would you suddenly buy one? I wouldn't say the DRM is working so much as the consumers are being worked.

I have a friend who bought a $2,000 computer, and he has a job. He pirates games just cause, hey, they're free, would rather that over paying for them. This guy is 28 years old, with a job.

Generally I don't lecture people on the ethics of piracy (I would do it all the time in my teens, when I didn't have a job). But this guy's studying computer science, in his late 20's, and has a job. I told him he should try to support the developers that pump their souls and lives into these products. =/
 

KingV

Member
The fact that this game runs at 30 FPS on an i5 but also at 30 FPS on a 5 year old netbook cpu (PS4/xbox1) makes me think there is something fucked with the PC version.

I was thinking of picking it up, but that really throws me off. I won’t pick it up until I can get it to 60fps.
 

prag16

Banned
The potential, impatient customers that would have pirated probably buckled and bought the game.

People always mention this, but how many pirates are actually caving and buying games in these situations? There's probably no way to know for sure... but...

R1fdEt3.gif
 

dr_rus

Member
Not for others reverse engineer developers...and after the Rime experience on my pc, i believe more in them.
Yes for other reverse engineer developers too this doesn't prove anything.

It proves squat, so we have no idea if it is true.
We have official statement that it's not. I also have unofficial statement that it's bullshit which I prefer to believe more than the words of some hacker who failed at hacking the new protection and decided to hurt the company by spreading FUD about it.

To my knowledge poster was referring to the fact, that denuvo runs some of it's protection code in virtual machine with a unique per game (or not per game, not that it matters in this context) instruction set.
So what? Quake 1 run its internal scripting in a "virtual machine" which isn't dependent on any CPU instruction set - does it automatically mean that it's too CPU intensive for modern CPUs?
 
It looks like Agents of Mayhem may have removed Denuvo recently, too bad they didn't launch the game without it since I was one of the only people willing to buy it full price and won't be picking it up for anything less than 75% off now thanks to the dumb ass idea to include it in the first place.
 

Hellshy.

Member
You are basically saying you don't know how to interpret what he showed, and lol at "complex AI/physics simuilations". It's a prettied up PS2 level game at its heart in that regard. The basics of the engine are abhorrent at this point, but they fool the average " I use double negatives, yo!" gamer obviously.,




Fixed the inherent lack of comprehension in your post for you.

I was able to understand exactly what he was talking about.
BTW what's the basics of the engine that are so abhorrent and fooling the many gamers who are not as smart as you?
 

Ubername

Banned
I have a friend who bought a $2,000 computer, and he has a job. He pirates games just cause, hey, they're free, would rather that over paying for them. This guy is 28 years old, with a job.

Generally I don't lecture people on the ethics of piracy (I would do it all the time in my teens, when I didn't have a job). But this guy's studying computer science, in his late 20's, and has a job. I told him he should try to support the developers that pump their souls and lives into these products. =/

People like this aren't stealing precious food out from under game dev's mouths. The people who make games and chiefly the people who choose to put DRM in games are very well paid and will never feel the pinch, especially not from piracy. So piracy has no effect on the livelihood of game developers. They're going to put those hours in regardless because they like making games and I doubt any of them are getting royalties, or having their future decided based on how many people don't pirate the latest game they made. If he was making wooden tables, different story.
 

WaterAstro

Member
People like this aren't stealing precious food out from under game dev's mouths. The people who make games and chiefly the people who choose to put DRM in games are very well paid and will never feel the pinch, especially not from piracy. So piracy has no effect on the livelihood of game developers. They're going to put those hours in regardless because they like making games and I doubt any of them are getting royalties, or having their future decided based on how many people don't pirate the latest game they made. If he was making wooden tables, different story.

Umm, if the game doesn't sell well because of piracy, or even sells less, then it could mean less money for the studio, less money to pay workers.

Yes, it does have an impact. How much of an impact is something that we won't know.
 
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