Civ7 now includes Denuvo

[Dale]

But apparently Denuvo slows the game down big time through excessive CPU usage

Jury is out, no real conclusive evidence either way (whether denuvo causes performance issues or not). Some firms/people have tried to do verification of whether this is true or not, but at the end of the day it's inconclusive and un-verifiable evidence. There are a lot of variables at play which could affect results, such as dev performance patches (at or near denuvo removal time), poor implementation (ie: putting the denuvo checks at bad spots of the game/code), testing methods, etc. Denuvo themselves say it doesn't, but is that just marketing speak or not? Bottom line: can't prove it does, can't prove it doesn't.

The way it works, is developers put in a line of code at various locations within their own code which makes a call to the denuvo code to "check ownership". Denuvo checks its cached result and returns a "yes" or "no". If the cached result doesn't exist or is expired (based on whatever formula denuvo have set), then denuvo will connect to it's service which then does a check against your store platform (steam/epic/gog).

 

[Kwami]

Jury is out, no real conclusive evidence either way (whether denuvo causes performance issues or not). Some firms/people have tried to do verification of whether this is true or not, but at the end of the day it's inconclusive and un-verifiable evidence. There are a lot of variables at play which could affect results, such as dev performance patches (at or near denuvo removal time), poor implementation (ie: putting the denuvo checks at bad spots of the game/code), testing methods, etc. Denuvo themselves say it doesn't, but is that just marketing speak or not? Bottom line: can't prove it does, can't prove it doesn't.

The only hard evidence that we really have comes from Humankind. The developers removed Denuvo right before launch because it was causing performance problems and they told us so.

 

[misesfan]

I admit that I probably need a tin-foil hat, because I despise (despise!) all this telemetry going on within a simple strategy game to play just one more turn. Blech.

 

[Dale]

The only hard evidence that we really have comes from Humankind. The developers removed Denuvo right before launch because it was causing performance problems and they told us so.

Not entirely true.

Read their actual press release, which explains quite clearly, they couldn't implement it correctly to not cause performance impacts. I was there, in the beta tests. That final build did have performance impacts, but as they admit, it was due to how they tried to implement denuvo, not from denuvo itself.

We believe that it’s possible with the right integration, which is what we wanted to test during the Closed Beta. However, we found that the way it was currently integrated was not good enough, and it’s not something we can fix before release. So, we are taking it out.

[Update] Denuvo to be removed for release :: HUMANKIND™ General Discussions

An update from Romain studio head of Amplitude https://www.games2gether.com/amplitude-studios/humankind/forums/168-general/threads/41273-the-day-amplitude-broke-my-heart?page=5#post-323003 Hi everyone, Thank you for all your feedback on this, we have been following along and having internal...

steamcommunity.com

Sorry for the steam article link, it looks like the original Amplitude news post is a 404 now.

 

[Kwami]

Read their actual press release, which explains quite clearly, they couldn't implement it correctly to not cause performance impacts. I was there, in the beta tests. That final build did have performance impacts, but as they admit, it was due to how they tried to implement denuvo, not from denuvo itself.

Yeah, sure. They removed Denuvo because it was causing performance problems. That's what I wrote. I was also there in beta tests.

And there's no way to know if Firaxis implemented Denuvo better than Amplitude did. We can't know if it's impacting performance in Civilization VII. What we do know is that it could be.

 

[Riconatic]

Are you safe if you install Civ 7 on your gaming computer and not on your work computer?

Denuvo anti-tamper has no safety issues.

 

[Kwami]

Denuvo anti-tamper has no safety issues.

* That we know of. The code is obfuscated and not public. We have no idea what information is being transmitted to Denuvo's servers and they won't tell us.

 

[Riconatic]

* That we know of. The code is obfuscated and not public. We have no idea what information is being transmitted to Denuvo's servers and they won't tell us.

That is no different from any game code. All laws which require Firaxis/2k to tell which data they collect apply exactly same way to code from denuvo.

From privacy perspective I am far more concerned what 2k collects than what irdeto collects.

 

[Kwami]

That is no different from any game code. All laws which require Firaxis/2k to tell which data they collect apply exactly same way to code from denuvo.

Sure, but they're asking us to trust two companies (2K and Irdeto) rather than just one. Furthermore, the 2K privacy policy and the Midnight Suns* EULA are not clear on what information is collected by the game or by Denuvo. So, as I said, we don't know what's being sent to the Denuvo servers.

* I chose Midnight Suns because it's the only other Firaxis game with Denuvo and I don't have access to the Civ VII EULA at this time. The link on the Steam store page seems to be a placeholder.

 

[Dale]

Yeah, sure. They removed Denuvo because it was causing performance problems. That's what I wrote. I was also there in beta tests.

And there's no way to know if Firaxis implemented Denuvo better than Amplitude did. We can't know if it's impacting performance in Civilization VII. What we do know is that it could be.

You wrote it was hard proof denuvo causes performance issues, which isn't entirely true. We do not know if the denuvo code/methods cause performance issues, because Amplitude said the way they implemented it did. Which Irdato have previously said other games suffered from too.

True, we don't know if Firaxis(or 2K if they did it) implemented it better. Personally, I won't need to worry since the presence of denuvo is a hard no for me. Lucky for me, the reviews don't look too encouraging anyways.

 

[resonansER]

When I see a beautiful woman, a beautiful car and a release Sid Meier's Civilization (not important which part of this GAME), my critical thinking evaporates. At least for a while. =) And it's been like this for 34 years already, since 1991.

 

[Riconatic]

You wrote it was hard proof denuvo causes performance issues, which isn't entirely true. We do not know if the denuvo code/methods cause performance issues, because Amplitude said the way they implemented it did. Which Irdato have previously said other games suffered from too.

True, we don't know if Firaxis(or 2K if they did it) implemented it better. Personally, I won't need to worry since the presence of denuvo is a hard no for me. Lucky for me, the reviews don't look too encouraging anyways.

You would have had several options to run this game without denuvo. Option even if restricted to HW for Windows type PC. It seems that Linux builds do not have denuvo.

 

[Dale]

You would have had several options to run this game without denuvo. Option even if restricted to HW for Windows type PC. It seems that Linux builds do not have denuvo.

That would assume that I don't just have spare hardware, but hardware of a high enough spec to install Linux et all on it, and to run Civ7. Which I don't. And I'm certainly not going out to buy more hardware and cause a near $2000 AUD expense.

The actual cheapest (and best) option for me is to buy a steam deck, expense it and the game against my tax (since I'm in the industry). However that would still put me out of pocket $640 AUD after all said and done.

There is a possibility that "want" overrides this expense, but quite frankly I'm not happy about a number of design choices in the game. The reviews aren't looking the best either, with quite a few agreeing with me on points. So "want" definitely does not exceed expense.

Besides all of that, I don't support companies that use Denuvo, even if there are non denuvo options.

So I will wait.

 

[Riconatic]

That would assume that I don't just have spare hardware, but hardware of a high enough spec to install Linux et all on it, and to run Civ7. Which I don't. And I'm certainly not going out to buy more hardware and cause a near $2000 AUD expense.

The actual cheapest (and best) option for me is to buy a steam deck, expense it and the game against my tax (since I'm in the industry). However that would still put me out of pocket $640 AUD after all said and done.

There is a possibility that "want" overrides this expense, but quite frankly I'm not happy about a number of design choices in the game. The reviews aren't looking the best either, with quite a few agreeing with me on points. So "want" definitely does not exceed expense.

Besides all of that, I don't support companies that use Denuvo, even if there are non denuvo options.

So I will wait.

Your princible preventing game purchase logic I can follow. Not understand, but follow.

Technical discussion I could not follow. Why would there be any costs? Linux is free. Linux runs on same HW than your windows. Actually it runs worse HW.

Only thing that could prevent you using Linux is that if you are totally out of disk space. But you PC is not in really good shape for new games if you can not fit Linux + Civ vii (small game todays standard).

And sure there is effort that needs to be put in. That I can understand as well.

 

[Dale]

Your princible preventing game purchase logic I can follow. Not understand, but follow.

Technical discussion I could not follow. Why would there be any costs? Linux is free. Linux runs on same HW than your windows. Actually it runs worse HW.

Only thing that could prevent you using Linux is that if you are totally out of disk space. But you PC is not in really good shape for new games if you can not fit Linux + Civ vii (small game todays standard).

And sure there is effort that needs to be put in. That I can understand as well.

Why do you keep pushing this? What is your stake in this discussion?

If I don't want games with Denuvo that's my business. Not yours.

So what do you get out of pushing Denuvo so hard?

If you must know, I hate Linux. Used it for years for work, hate it. My PC also has all my work stuff on it. I'm not dual booting on the PC that is my livelihood. The fact Linux runs on a potato is irrelevant, as Civ on Linux has the same hardware specs as Civ on windows. Free Linux is irrelevant when I would need other hardware to run it on.

Again, why is it so important to you that people accept Denuvo?

 

[Riconatic]

Why do you keep pushing this? What is your stake in this discussion?

If I don't want games with Denuvo that's my business. Not yours.

So what do you get out of pushing Denuvo so hard?

If you must know, I hate Linux. Used it for years for work, hate it. My PC also has all my work stuff on it. I'm not dual booting on the PC that is my livelihood. The fact Linux runs on a potato is irrelevant, as Civ on Linux has the same hardware specs as Civ on windows. Free Linux is irrelevant when I would need other hardware to run it on.

I have again hard time following. What I am pushing denuvo or linux? It is physically impossible to push them at same time. And I see zero continuance path to denuvo discussion any of our messages.

I wanted to continue on linux subject because everything you said seemed factually incorrect about linux. Costs and hardware requirements. But as it turned out you have multiuse work/game computer and you do not want to install Linux on it. Costs would come if you get second computer. For me that was quite unclear and unpredictable bridge.

Again, why is it so important to you that people accept Denuvo?

Yuo have asked something similar earlier. Answer is still same. I like facts.

 

[Taefin]

Why do you keep pushing this? What is your stake in this discussion?

I respect your resolve. For me, I’ll just miss hearing your thoughts and insights at a game’s launch. Always some of my favorite.

 

[misesfan]

Again, why is it so important to you that people accept Denuvo?

Yuo have asked something similar earlier. Answer is still same. I like facts.

And, I would assume you say that people who want to play offline can pound sand.

 

[Thrasybulos]

 

[Riconatic]

And, I would assume you say that people who want to play offline can pound sand.

Your quotations are busted, but I assume you asked me.

Denuvo supports offline gaming in general.

For more details this thread contains detailed discussions about it’s offline capabilites, problems and unkowns. I also participated.