Denuvo DRM (Dragon Age, FIFA 15) possibly damaging to SSDs

This is true and an excellent point; however, regardless of the quality of an argument presented; ultimately the simple inherent truth is all that is required. Being factually correct, I actually don't need to do anything. Reality reacts in such a way that it's evident.

It is called fear of communication.

Dont be afraid to answer my question.

You wont be harmed in any way.

Try it.

Having one's wallet stolen is the same as having one's wallet pirated?

IS IT THE SAME? Yes or no?

I know that you are afraid. So even if fear does not let you answer I wont mind the other forumites are reading and can judge.

But I'm right.

So true. Whatever he said was pure verbal diarrhea. Reminds me of the scene in Pirates of the Carribean where Barbossa says, "I'm disinclined to acquiesce to your request. *pause* Means, 'no'."

I've teamed up with him on occasion to take down John Doe-s (one particular user was clearly a developer of ZombiU who tried to defend that mess right after GS posted a review of it).

I've no idea where he is. Maybe the GS overhaul made him switch to some other website. Maybe he's still around. Who knows? I hope he's not around. GS has its share of idiots; the last thing it needs is an educated one.

@Kjranu: I play it on PC.

its not installed on my ssd drive so I cant comment on this

Uh no. You can't just say "I'm right because I'm right" and then declare you have won the argument. Who are you trying to be, AmazonAngry? GTFO.

I'll wait until some trustworthy source tests this out. If this were true many people's SSD's would have died already with FIFA 15 and maybe even FIFA 14.

But I just did.

Yeah, that does'nt sound like something I'd like to do to my SSD. I suppose Samsung Magician could mitigate it with it's RAMDisk feature, but.... No thanks.

I just saw a monkey riding down the street on a sportbike while wearing a sombrero and singing Sweet Child Of Mine.

I'm right, lol, discussion over. OWNED NOOB.

I still can't decide whether you are the most masterful troll to ever grace the internet or you're just fucking dumb and annoying. I'm leaning towards the latter.

Looking around the internet, it doesn't seem there's any substantial evidence that this is true

Sorry about the late reply, notifications are broken and I hadn't realized you'd responded. And also, thank you for the very detailed reply.

The way I am understanding this is, for a smaller game, or one that wasn't so vast (and thus required constant search/read/access of data), installing to an external HDD might even make sense, but as it currently stands, for a game like Inquisition, that's not a feasible option.

This, of course, raises the interesting question as to why EA are even using DRM for their PC games- doesn't Origin itself act like a layer of DRM?

@charizard1605: Yes you're right on everything. (Including broken notifications...again.)

It's two layers of copy protection, sort of. In this case Origin is more like DRM and the Denuvo is copy protection where it actively checks for modification against the encrypted hash of the original executable. In my opinion EA just licensed Denuvo because their Origin DRM scheme was cracked years ago. A lot of people use the terms DRM and Copy Protection interchangeably, but they are a bit different.

As an aside, using symlinks you could even split a single game installation across multiple drives if you really wanted to for some reason. Symlinks are also handy for doing things like syncing files or folders two ways across multiple machines. I do this to sync my save games for titles that don't have a built in cloud solution. Example:

Save Game Folder on Machine 1 <---> Symlink <---> Google Drive Folder on Machine 1

(Google Drive / Dropbox Auto Syncs across platforms)

Google Drive Folder on Machine 2 <---> Symlink <---> Save Game Folder on Machine 2

Using this technique, my most recent save is always on both of my gaming PCs for every game I play. As long as they're online, that is. You can't simply put a shortcut to a folder in your Google Drive directory, on any other machine the shortcut will be broken. Symlinks are preserved across networks and even if the target files are moved or modified.

This DRM is the future on PC

Wow... I use an SSD for caching.... I wonder if my drive is going to explode. Just installed Inquisition last night.

ikr. it seems that this industry is TRYING to make me pirate the games I want to play. From ubisoft's shit, to intrusive DRM....

I smell fear...

Fear of answering the question....

Fear...

good thing that ive decided to buy the Superior PS4 Version

I think the rumors isn't accurate here a picture of someone process explorer the amount of data written is only 20 MB

@deathlordcrime said:

I think the rumors isn't accurate here a picture of someone process explorer the amount of data written is only 20 MB

And I assume those writes are for the save file. I knew it had to be a lie, I don't understand why copy protection would write to anything,

@ten_pints said:

@deathlordcrime said:

I think the rumors isn't accurate here a picture of someone process explorer the amount of data written is only 20 MB

And I assume those writes are for the save file. I knew it had to be a lie, I don't understand why copy protection would write to anything,

Going call this rumor bullshit

http://imgur.com/a/aJjZr

Here from another user with lord of the fallen. If Denuvo was constantly write stuff we would see something significant.

Thank you EA for proving to me with certainty that I made the right decision by NOT buying your games. Your idiotic DRM schemes are costing you sales, I am proof of that.

lol drm

This is false and it has been proven multiple times.It doesn't damage your ssd/hdd.

yeah, thats pretty major if true.

This has been confirmed false. Actual testing from other users and myself have shown that DAI uses reads/writes only around 2GB (very normal) over an hour of play.

This is a false and viral "source". It's practically just one Russian site making unsubstantiated claims, yet everyone on the internet is eating it up.

Denuvo does constantly rewrite the .exe file. However, that's done in the RAM. And reading and writing into RAM is just what... programs do. RAMs also don't just break like that. They are probably the most stubborn component in a computer. I haven't seen any RAM being sold without life warranty.

I hope this ain't true. This has to be investigated.

@ten_pints:

Well a friend of mine bought it (note: i haven't SEEN what he told me myself), but he said loading times AND frame rates have serious variations depending on what the DRM is doing at that moment. Still i cannot confirm it, just reporting it.

What is your take on this?

Would you feel the same if someone pirated or stole your wallet?

I'll bite:

How would you feel if I "pirated" your Social Security card?
Your driver's license?
Your employee number?
Your "My Documents" folder?
I imagine you'd be pretty uncomfortable in any of those situations.

I'm not sure why you're clinging to this dumb hypothetical question like you've just won the internet.

Piracy and stealing aren't the same, but it's definitely a grey area. In the case of DA:I there ARE people who have broken down and bought the game because there was no crack. There are also people who would pirate the game and wouldn't have bought it anyway because they're cheap, don't have retail access, or can't afford it, but who cares about them?

Let's be honest: In a perfect world, DRM stops piracy and increases sales without the consumer being aware it's there. I've been keeping an eye on this "controversial" Denuvo and from the look of things, it is stopping piracy without any affect on the end-user.

There are those, however, with a vested interest in bad mouthing DRM mechanisms used by companies such as EA. Most of these individuals seem to come from Russia (Coincidence?). There also seem to be these kinds of posts from this topic:

Well a friend of mine bought it (note: i haven't SEEN what he told me myself), but he said loading times AND frame rates have serious variations depending on what the DRM is doing at that moment. Still i cannot confirm it, just reporting it.

And, as a computer scientist, I'm genuinely curious how this individual was able to discern the activities of Denuvo from the game executable's instructions since something like this would be incredibly difficult to determine.

There you go!!! Thats my whole point!!!

Piracy and theft cannot be the same because the consequences of theft are MUCH MUCH harsher....

Thats the ONLY point I make.

In any case the drm will just shift the cash flow from hardware to software.

Using piracy as an "argument" one can convince many people that a €1000 PC comes cheaper than a €400 console.

That has been one of the secret "advantages" of PC gaming for years....

And as ID put it 6 years ago:

http://gizmodo.com/5040319/pc-manufacturers-see-piracy-as-a-hidden-benefit-says-id-software

The hardware industry got fat on the food that the software industry was deprived with....

Before anyone starts shouting "BUH BUH BUH teh peepz that can afford hardware afford games too!!!"

This might be true in many but NOT in all cases...It is a huge psychological advantage that ANY expenses STOP at the €1000 upfront investment...

Anyway it is left to be seen how this new DRM trend will fare. If it makes it to summer we have a deal changer ( and breaker for some ;) ) and landscape shaper in our hands..

I agree with you 100%....

It is. None of the games cracked yet, and even more pirated on consoles because of that.

And its not really DRM, it's mostly non-intrusive anti-tampering software and neither does it cause any negative side-effect on the system.

So PC now trumps consoles in every facet, even anti-piracy!

I'll boycott anything with DRM in it. Rationale:

- I do not lather to being treated like a criminal when I've paid for a game

- Most who pirate do it because they cannot afford the games (no sales lost) or to try before they buy ( perfectly reasonable exercising of consumer rights and sales are only lost if the game is a dud, deservedly so)

- If do not have the opportunity to 'try before I buy', I won't risk throwing down coin for products that are more and more becoming beta tester versions that need to be patched myriad times before they work... if they ever work *coughDeadRising3cough*

- Hackers crack because it's a challenge and because they can -- no level of DRM will stop them, effectively making DRM a punishment for paying consumers. Do these game developer dopes who can't make a 2D pixel art game run without crashing on every second rig set-up think they can defeat Ruski and Sino hackers? Really?!

- "DLC" (read: stripped content) racketeering has gotten to such an unashamed level that even if 50% all games player were pirated, games companies would still be in the black. Video gaming is the literal 'Wild West' of retail, with so few recourses for consumers who feel they've been had. If games companies can ride shotgun all the way to the bank with the money they fleece off of hapless customers, so too can gamers hold up the stagecoach from time to time get something back.

- People will pay for good games; period. If you make a garbage game and try to pass it off as something it's not in order to essentailly rip people off, you deserve to have your games pirated / your business fail / have to line up for food stamps.

- These are video games, not the Pentagon. To have to get a veritable retina scan before one can fritter some time away with stupid video game is far more of an insult any self-respecting person should be able to brook.

For me this would be pretty bad cause i run my ssds in raid, and i don't think the trim command works while in my current raid setup. Also if your ssds are encrypted trim doesn't work either according to the intel ssd toolbox (could actually cause data loss by forcing it to run).

Having said that, with trim not being performed, a crap game that is constantly writing data to the same sectors on my ssd 1000's of times more then normal will cause some bad degradding of the ssd and maybe even damage. If even some of this is true, this company is in line for some very big lawsuits and so is any company using this in their software.

I like how EA was trying to make a new image by saying "Gamers first"... ya how the **** do they figure? by breaking and degradding our hardware? thanks EA.

Just pirate any game with drm like this or don't buy it. EA is in line for worst company of the year again in 2015.

Again this has been proven FALSE.

Windows does NOT allow the modification of an .exe while it's running.The .exe is modified while it's loaded i in the RAM.

This does not degrade your HDD/SSD more than any other game.

@uninspiredcup: Lol you call the police on people that smoke drugs because you are scared of them. Unless they were harming you or others what the **** right do you have to say anything? We should all have the right to whatever we like to our own body's. This is the problem with society and the government, we are not even allowed to put substances in our own body due to ignorance and puny people like you. Shame on you and the other assholes on your street. Go **** yourself. :)

It's absolutely hilarious that a debunked topic about a piece of potentially harmful DRM has become about insecure petty criminals mad that *SHOCK* most of society doesn't approve of criminal activity.

Personally, I could give a rat's ass what you do in your home. But I'm certainly not going to feel bad for you if you get criticized after bragging about illicit behavior in public. If you can't take the admonishment, STFU. Because if you thought you were making yourself look cool, you're an idiot.

Society is damaged. Take a trip to Philadelphia and see what the drugs does to people.

The wire was based on an IRL event.

We can see it right here

Wiiu doesn't have this problem. 32gigs and when I need to write I just do so directly on the gamepad and not the hard drive.

I have a friend who owns Lords of the Fallen, and has it installed on a regular old spinning platter drive. For the entire duration of the game running, his hard drive is seeking non-stop. It also takes about four minutes for the game to start up.

Of course, it could just be that he has a machine that's a tad old.

Necroed?!?!

Neeeeeeecroed!!!

No more.