Assassin's Creed Origins is crippling gamers' CPUs due to anti-piracy DRM

Oh, so the cracked version that inevitably comes out will actually have decent performance? Adorable. Can&#x27;t wait.<p>It&#x27;s often been the case that pirated versions are objectively superior to the crippled originals, but I don&#x27;t think I&#x27;ve ever seen a case as blatant as this.

The fun fact time.<p>Denuvo DRM happens to be... a repackaged VMProtect. Moreover VMP devs were suing Denuvo for illegally repackaging and selling a _single copy_ of VMP that Denuvo bought from them and then actively trying to evade paying licesning fees. Apparently prior to that Denuvo was talking to VMP about doing some custom development work, but they weren&#x27;t able to agree on terms. [1]<p>VMProtect itself is a well-established virtualization-based DRM solution and it <i>does</i> dramatically increase the complexity of cracking of binaries. It&#x27;s been around for a while now and it&#x27;s popular in shareware circles as a successor to Armadillo protector, which too was a form of a code virtualizer. From what I&#x27;ve seen said about VMP, it is stable and reasonably light, so Assassin&#x27;s Creed maxing out CPUs is more likely the Creed&#x27;s own problem rather that of the VMP.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rsdn.org&#x2F;forum&#x2F;shareware&#x2F;6733344" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rsdn.org&#x2F;forum&#x2F;shareware&#x2F;6733344</a> (in Russian)

&quot;Ubisoft has also implemented VMProtect, a piece of software that protects code by executing it on a virtual machine with non-standard architecture [...] tanking the game&#x27;s performance by 30-40 per cent&quot;<p>This feels so extreme.

Talk by CD Projekt&#x27;s CEO about not using DRM, and dealing with piracy: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;kotaku.com&#x2F;some-real-talk-on-piracy-from-a-witcher-3-dev-1783864910" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;kotaku.com&#x2F;some-real-talk-on-piracy-from-a-witcher-3...</a><p>Their approach always made so much more sense to me.

While I wouldn&#x27;t trust the source in this case, the very unusual CPU scaling and the very high CPU usage in general for this game could be explained by this.<p>The game even benefits from Threadripper, scaling beyond 8 cores, which is very unusual for games. And as it also runs on consoles with much, much less CPU power, I would suspect it is doing something very inefficient on PCs.

This is why I don&#x27;t buy games with DRM other than steams default DRM (although I mostly play games on PS4 nowadays anyway) and why I generally tend to avoid Ubisoft games (amongst others). I might buy a second hand copy at some point, or if its very heavily discounted, but I&#x27;m certainly not pushed to get this game, especially with this news.

I&#x27;ll wait for the cracked version, thanks.

It may works as a stopgap as this extreme move is not usualy found in games where performance is key to the experience.<p>Hackers will develop better tooling for VM introspection or something in the near future dropping again the time between release and initial anti-drm patch.<p>As a concerned consumer who buys game on pc or ps4, knowing this I will pass on the PC version and buy a second hand PS4 version.<p>No way I&#x27;m upgrading my 3570k for the sake of a pointless virtualization overhead.

I&#x27;ve stopped gaming on PC and I only use Xbox One now.<p>First, I can buy all my games digitally through a single store. I don&#x27;t have to install Steam, Origin, Blizzard, etc.<p>Second, I don&#x27;t have to worry about installing DRM software that runs on my computer 24&#x2F;7 even when I&#x27;m not gaming.<p>Third, I can play in my living room instead of hunkered down in a dark room while my wife complains that I&#x27;m hiding from the family.

The next version of Assassins Creed will probably only be available via on demand streams for the first month ;-)

Ubisoft has a long history of using questionable DRM. I remember having problems uninstalling their Starforce crap after playing Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones.<p>If it&#x27;s an Ubisoft game, it&#x27;s worth paying attention when people complain about the DRM. It might not just be the pirates complaining.

LOL the cracked version removes this glitch. The irony that paid game is worse than free pirated.

I wonder if they hijacked GPU a bit instead and used that for mining cryptocurrencies - whether Ubisoft would be better off (and deliver better experience to end user), instead of crippling CPU?

Publishers don&#x27;t seem to have learned much since StarForce

odd, watching a few streamers with this and there were no indications as such from watching them play. now I do not know if they were given the game copies or merely codes so perhaps the DRM is not active for them.<p>would be another can of worms if so

I don&#x27;t touch anything by ubisoft on pc due to being burned too many times, i don&#x27;t want uplay.

I remember when I bought Assassin&#x27;s Creed 2 years ago (legitimate, legal copy from Steam) and the game would never connect to the authentication servers, no matter what I tried.<p>I ended up having to download a cracked version of my legally owned game just to play it.

According to reliable source, The Inquirer, citing reliable source TorrentFreak.

who is the customer if so extreme anti-end-user measures are taken, because it surely isn&#x27;t the end user?

I don&#x27;t think I&#x27;ve read the inquirer articles before, but is this a standard?<p>&gt; EARLY ADOPTERS ... have been quick to moan that ...<p>&gt; ... gamers have taken to the Steam forums to whine about ...<p>&gt; DRM all too often seems to make users lives&#x27; a misery<p>They&#x27;re just talking about a broken game, right? (That will likely get patched in a few days&#x2F;weeks)