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[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

The Digital Foundry team recently received reports that the PC version of the Resident Evil 4 remake has ditched the controversial Denuvo DRM - but the good news was short-lived as it appears that Capcom has replaced it with what many believe is the Enigma Protector DRM, causing performance drops and issues with long-standing, highly regarded mods. We decided to take a look. Is performance impacted? And beyond that, what are the ramifications for switching DRM years after a game's release? To put it simply, we think it's a very bad idea, especially for a game that's almost three years old.

First of all, let's talk about performance in the most general terms. There are a couple of key performance bottlenecks that may impact any given gaming PC: primarily, the capabilities of the graphics card. Secondarily, the prowess of the CPU. In the case of DRM performance hits, it's the CPU that is most impacted.

Alex took a look at the game running with a Ryzen 5 3600 paired with an RTX 4070 Super and compared the latest Steam release of Resident Evil 4 to a patched version courtesy of the "RESTORE PREVIOUS VERSION" mod found on Nexus Mods.

By ramping up settings while reducing GPU load as much as possible at 1440p via FSR 2 performance mode, we can isolate pure CPU performance. Looking at the game's rendered intro, we found a circa 40 percent drop to CPU game throughput. Clearly, the CPU is being occupied with other tasks instead - and the new DRM is the most likely candidate. In this scenario, an average 1.9ms of CPU time is sucked out of the game - which is pretty shocking. Immediately after the intro, we move into gameplay where the deficit shifts to a 20 percent drop in performance.

However, moving further into the game sees something curious happen. Once we reach the village, populated by zombie AI, CPU performance between old and new versions can stabilise with almost entirely like-for-like frame-rates. That said, once the zombies move out of camera view, a performance variance opens up again in favour of the older version of the game. In short, CPU performance seems to have various bottlenecks - zombie AI can supersede the impact of DRM, but where there are no zombies, the DRM can really make itself known in terms of depressed frame-rates.

As things stand, a mod is available to restore the game to how it was before the new DRM was added - a makeshift measure while creators of mods like the excellent REFramework aim to get the new version of the game fully working (right now, there are still some crashing issues) but there really is a much larger point we can't ignore.

The use of intrusive DRM changes the performance profile of a game that was reviewed three years ago - the goalposts have shifted in terms of how well a user can expect the game to run and initial performance testing on the CPU side is now void. Ideally, performance should improve over time with bug fixes and optimisations. It shouldn't get markedly worse in any dimension at all. Is there any other industry where you can buy a product and then arbitrarily have its function diminished without consultation?

Worse still, as Oliver mentions in this week's DF Direct, there's the sense that publishers are treating PC builds as mutable testbeds, where aggressive DRM experiments and platform controls are added over time, sometimes at the expense of stability, performance and modding. Capcom is on the record as recognising the positive impact of mods but at the same time worries about how unchecked mods can lead to "reputational damage".

At this point in Resident Evil 4's lifecycle, mods are adding features the game arguably should have had at launch - like DLSS support via REFramework- and it's hard to see any negative impact at all. Meanwhile, if we're talking "reputational damage", the impact of the new DRM is, we'd say, far more disadvantageous to Capcom. Realistically, there are no winners in releasing this patch.

Our take on this is that if a game must ship with DRM, the process needs to be done in a transparent manner with consumers, the goalposts shouldn't shift post-launch and - crucially - DRM should be budgeted into game performance targets. Resident Evil 4 Remake remains a great game, but on PC, it's now a worse version of itself than the one reviewers and early adopters played. From that perspective alone, this retrofitted downgrade is difficult to defend.

Tested: Resident Evil 4 Remake's New PC DRM Impacts CPU Performance

The game doesn't run as well as it used to - and that's not acceptable.

www.digitalfoundry.net

 

[Durin]

I likely have the horsepower to still play the game at a better than 60fps experience, but it's still fucking stupid to do this vs just using Steam's DRM. It's already been cracked, Capcom lost to piracy already, and are just hurting the consumer with this.

 

[joeygreco1985]

I likely have the horsepower to still play the game at a better than 60fps experience, but it's still fucking stupid to do this vs just using Steam's DRM. It's already been cracked, Capcom lost to piracy already, and are just hurting the consumer with this.

I suspect this is a test of the DRM in production before its implemented into Requiem

 

[clintar]

I guess everyone has to pirate to get good performance out of their game?

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

what's with the OG RE4 in the thumbnail is this is about remake?

Also it's suddenly ok here to recommend pirating games?

 

[BennyBlanco]

If I ever feel like playing this again it's gonna be the FatGuy version. Pirate bros just keep winning. The game is already cracked so what's the point? Should've just removed Denuvo and been done with it.

 

[winjer]

Monster Hunter Wilds and now Resident Evil 4, Capcom sure has a talent to screw up performance of their games.
What kind of stupid idiot thought this was a good idea....

 

[DeepEnigma]

Is it impacting IQ as well?

 

[Soodanim]

Capcom have this uncanny ability to be one of the best and worst in the business at the same time. They have been pulling shit like this for years, and it wasn't too long ago they randomly decided to mess with Rev 1. It caused less of an issue because it isn't as current, but it's still fucking with people's purchased products and that just isn't right.

Capcom as a dev: medium to great
Capcpom as a pub: utter arseholes with total disdain for their customers

 

[Durin]

I suspect this is a test of the DRM in production before its implemented into Requiem

Maybe should've kept those tests internal than nerf the purchases of an older game.

 

[xenosys]

Capcom really are braindead. I'm not sure who are more anti-consumer right now, them or Sega.

 

[lh032]

Seems like these drm thing is going to stay and getting more popular on PC gaming.

In the future at least a mid end cpu is required to run games properly thanks to drm

 

[Lokaum D+]

 

[Hadoukens]

This affects me directly having an older CPU.
Guess I'll wait for older CPU benchmarks for Requiem now.

I guess everyone has to pirate to get good performance out of their game?

It's always pirates who get the best versions of games, isn't it?

 

[Closer]

I guess everyone has to pirate to get good performance out of their game?

No? You just need a .exe mod.

 

[Jesb]

When you start penalizing your paying customer that's pretty wild.

 

[Bitstream]

Clearly doing some tests before rolling it out in RE9. Wonder how much it will kill the performance when running path tracing. Something tells me it's going to be a fucktonne

 

[Windom Earle]

Fuck Capcom.

 

[CliffBronger]

Crazy situation, especially since its been cracked already.
Why not just remove all the DRM completely and sell it on GOG.
They would sell more copies doing this.

 

[clintar]

No? You just need a .exe mod.

I'm sure Capcom would be just fine with you doing that? And if so, why don't they ship their executable that way? Hmmmmm

 

[Closer]

I'm sure Capcom would be just fine with you doing that? And if so, why don't they ship their executable that way? Hmmmmm

Why would you need to pirate the game to play without DRM? Are you really that tech illiterate?