New tests show Denuvo's negative impact on performance
Interesting performance tests have appeared on the web, comparing games from Denuvo to no DRM versions. The technology has negative impact on game performance.
The Denuvo anti-piracy system continues to raise considerable controversy. One of the main reasons is the impact it has on game performance. Its creators deny that this is the case, but subsequent tests show something completely different. The most recent examples were shared by the Overlord Gaming channel.
In many cases, developers remove Denuvo from games after some time. This makes it easy to assess whether the performance is affected by the use of this technology, and how severe this impact is. Video footage prepared by the Overlord Gaming channel offers such a comparison for: Dishonored 2, Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition, Life is Strange: Before the Storm and Moto Racer 4 among others.
The results of the tests were interesting. Denuvo seems to have a moderate, but constant impact on the speed of games. Most of the tested productions gained a few FPS on average after removing this anti-piracy system. Large differences were also noted in the case of data loading speed, where versions without Denuvo loaded a few, and sometimes even several seconds faster.
Even greater differences were noted in Rime. Without Denuvo, the game displayed several frames per second more and loaded several dozen seconds faster. Lords of the Fallen was also tested; the game without the protection gained on average several frames per second, but in this case, apart from Denuvo, the Steam DRM system was also removed, which could further improve the performance.
Generally different games produced different results, but each time the version with Denuvo displayed less frames per second and loaded longer. In addition, delays in rendering individual frames were more frequent.
For many companies, all this is simply the price they are prepared to pay for delaying, or completely preventing the emergence of pirate versions of their games. The problem is that, in many cases, it happens just a few days after the release, and the patches removing Denuvo come months or years after the release.
