Resident Evil Village Runs Better Pirated On PC Than Official Version

[banglabhai420]

Poor PC game performance can be the fault of any number of technical issues, but in the case of Resident Evil Village, research has proven that a DRM-less pirated version of the game runs better than its official counterpart. Sometimes compromise is inevitable when it comes to game design, especially when cutting content or graphical fidelity for older hardware. But when targeting current-gen consoles - especially the PC market - that shouldn't be an issue, right? Unfortunately, in this instance, Capcom's anti-piracy measures are inhibiting a smooth gameplay experience.

The DRM in question is Denuvo. Denuvo Anti-cheat is recent and has been around since the PC release of Doom Eternal, but this isn't the first time Denuvo has come up regarding software impairment. In 2018, Overlord Gaming tested Denuvo Anti-tamper in multiple titles and found that it significantly deteriorated framerates across the board. On the other hand, Resident Evil Village is the eighth major installment in its long-running franchise, and the Resident Evil moniker is multi-media with Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness just releasing on Netflix. Though it's been out two months, RE Village is still a player favorite, and thousands have been playing the Steam version in the last 30 days.

Recently, Eurogamer's Digital Foundry has been following reports that a DRM-less version of Resident Evil Village showed performance improvements, and the rumors turned out to be true. As a bit of background, DRM is used as a toolset integrated into games to prevent cheating and piracy: it isn't meant to have any impact on gameplay from the player's perspective, it just makes sure the entailed game is being run the way its publisher intended. For Resident Evil Village, though, it seems like Capcom intended for framerates to stutter around enemy animations and during the scenes with Lady Dimitrescu's daughters. Digital Foundry specifically noted that those scenes had better performance on a version of the game without Denuvo DRM and Capcom's associated modifications.

In place of using the pirated version, Digital Foundry suggests that players attempting to improve these performance issues should try one of many Resident Evil Village mods called RE Framework. But the issues truthfully shouldn't have existed in Resident Evil Village's release at all. Especially considering that it only affects players who bought the game, DRM efforts like this one may have an opposite effect despite being intended to discourage game piracy.

Piracy and hacking can legitimately be harmful to the publishing companies who suffer the majority of the loss for it. Software akin to DRM helps those companies protect their properties, and Capcom's use of Denuvo is valid in that respect. But that protection should never come at the cost of gameplay quality. Capcom should take notes from CD Projekt Red's handling of Cyberpunk 2077 and work to improve Village with fixes and updates. There's a chance that an update alongside planned DLC for Resident Evil Village could patch out its issues, but players will have to wait until it releases to see.

[Silent Watcher]

Avoid unnecessary posts such as 'Thank you', 'Welcome', etc. Such posts will be deleted and user will be warned if it happens again. If caught spamming, the following actions are applicable -

• First time - Warning
• Second time - 5000 Points will be deducted
• Third time - Ban for 7 days
• Fourth time - Permanent Ban

If the post helped you, reward the user by reacting to the post like this -