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Resident Evil Village crack completely fixes its stuttering issues
- daenz 5y ago>All in-game shutters like the one from when you kill a zombie are fixed because Capcom DRM’s entry points are patched out so most of their functions are never executed anymore. Can someone knowledgeable explain why DRM functions would be called on every zombie kill? I guess I don't have a good understanding on how these DRM checks are implemented in games in general.
- alabamacadabra 5y agoProbably a possible “checkpoint” from Denuvo or similar DRM manufacturers. One would define an “event” for the DRM to trigger. Sometimes it’s starting the game, starting a New Game, loading game/saving game, and so on. Perhaps Capcom thought to (perhaps aptly?) make the check that if you kill a zombie in the zombie game, it checks if you bought the rights to do so.
- birdyrooster 5y agoMy guess is they want intermittent checks, but don't trust the system clock to advance, but a zombie kill is evidence that time has advanced for the player. Seems like it shouldn't block the main game thread and there should be a longer time to live for that check, and maybe those are the bugs.
- daenz 5y agoDo some cracks rely on preventing the system clock from advancing?
- ip26 5y agoI’m not a cracker but messing with the system clock is a classic exploit for all kinds of things.
- tehbeard 5y agoMore that the function calls for the system clock are fairly easy to trace back to find these DRM hooks.
- arcticbull 5y agoGenerally in a software system you can't count on a time source to move forward, to move in consistent intervals, or to move at all. In a system that is designed to be resistant to attack, it actually makes a lot of sense to instead rely on a desirable event critical to progression. Especially one that occurs relatively infrequently and is likely associated with a lot of other complex calculations. I think this is pretty smart.
- daenz 5y agoI think I understand the theory. If I was a cracker though, I would think that patching out the system clock calls (in order to prevent DRM checks) would have a lot of game-breaking unintended side-effects (animations, other time-based mechanics, etc). And if that was the case, it would be a perfect place to trigger the DRM calls, since a cracker couldn't patch the system time calls without breaking the game. tehbeard (another comment in this thread) makes a point that maybe not attaching the DRM calls to the clock makes it easier to hide them, since a cracker would probably be looking for a time-based trigger.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dognotdog 5y agoA game’s animation and other in-game timing functions are very unlikely to be based on wall-time, instead typically relying on monotonic counters that are higher resolution, less overhead, and not potentially adjusted backwards or forwards while the game is running. Thus, disabling wall-time accesses for a crack should have little influence on game timing and animations.
- daenz 5y agoThat makes sense to use monotonic counters for game mechanics. I think the point still stands in that case though: if the DRM calls were tied to the same time source as the animation system, you couldn't patch one without breaking the other.
- neom 5y agoIn the late 90s early 2000s for some stuff you didn't need cracks, you could often literally just set the system clock back to 1990.
- Scoundreller 5y agoIf there was a free trial, yes.
- NickNameNick 5y agoIf the DRM code was cleanly separated from the normal flow of the game code, it would be trivial for crackers to patch it out.
- briga 5y agoEvidently it's still trivial for crackers to patch it out
- 22c 5y agoI wouldn't say it's trivial. EMPRESS is one of the most talented crackers on the scene at the moment and it took ~2 months for this release. Arguably, without EMPRESS, the crack would have taken a lot longer.
- skhr0680 5y agoI think publishers should be happy with that. Every day a crack doesn’t come out is one more teenager who is hyped about latest game who will buy it.
- paxys 5y agoYeah, a lot of publishers voluntarily remove DRM from their games after a few months because most of the profit is made right at launch. Once the first round of discounts start to hit DRM serves no purpose anymore.
- haswell 5y agoI have never heard of this. Do you have any examples?
- paxys 5y agoSearch for "Denuvo removed" on Google. Lots of recent examples. Doom Eternal & Metro Exodus – https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-05-29-denuvo-security-software-removed-from-doom-eternal-and-metro-exodus https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-05-29-denuvo-sec... Monster Hunter World – https://www.vg247.com/2021/06/03/monster-hunter-world-denuvo-removed-pc/ https://www.vg247.com/2021/06/03/monster-hunter-world-denuvo... Mass Effect Legendary Edition – https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/mass-effect-legendary-edition-removes-denuvo-2964344 https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/mass-effect-legendary-e... Nier Automata – https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/nier-automata-update-removes-denuvo-anti-tamper-software-2974400 https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/nier-automata-update-re...
- GuB-42 5y agoDRM calls are sprinkled everywhere inside the code, usually statically linked or even inlined. This is to make it harder for crackers to identify them. Here they put some in the zombie kill routine, but I don't think there is anything special about zombie kills. It could have been anything: picked up ammo, loading a map, pass a certain event, on a timer, during a save, all of the above, etc... I don't have a deep knowledge about the technology involved but from what I've seen modern DRM like Denuvo are based on virtual machines and are very flexible, allowing all sorts of checks at many points. Done well, there is little overhead, but some overzealous publishers do frequent lengthy checks, killing performance.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago> Done well, there is little overhead, but some overzealous publishers do frequent lengthy checks, killing performance. I can imagine disaster if someone inlines the wrong function here. Definitely something that shouldn’t make it out the door, but amazing the difference 6 letters could make.
- wallscratch 5y agoWhy can inlining functions cause disasters? Just instruction cache misses, or other things as well?
- unnouinceput 5y agoQuote:"...but some overzealous publishers do frequent lengthy checks..." Since when do publishers have access to source code to do those checks themselves? Developers do that. And yes, I am aware that in this particular case, for RE:Village, the developer and publisher are the same.
- feoren 5y agoI would think it very odd if publishers were not given the source code. If you were a publisher, would you want some small shop to be able to disappear off the face of the Earth, preventing you from ever doing even simple ports and patches?
- asgeir 5y agoIt can be useful to break the game in subtle ways so that the crackers have a harder time knowing when the crack is fully done. https://www.nag.co.za/2013/10/23/the-5-biggest-and-most-awesome-anti-piracy-trolls/ https://www.nag.co.za/2013/10/23/the-5-biggest-and-most-awes...
- ot 5y agoI bet that all development and testing was done using stubs for those DRM hooks, which were probably developed by a different team closer to the shipping date, and once they were integrated it was too late to do anything about them.
- esturk 5y agoThis is pretty good for how fast the game got cracked. For context, this is Denuvo 11, the latest version, and the game came out on May 7, 2021. So a little over 2 months.
- viktorcode 5y agoPublishers want to protect first month of sales, which is the biggest one for projects like RE (heavily advertised offline games). So, I would consider it a success
- tsujp 5y agoThis sounds about right given RE Village is now on sale on Steam etc. I don’t think new release multiplayer games go on sale so early (happy to be wrong here).
- afroboy 5y agoBut she didn't work on the crack for two month, she started about two weeks ago and even that didn't work full time on it due to her personal life.
- Ygg2 5y agoOne day, companies will realize releasing subpar product and charging for it is not the sanest business model.
- Scoundreller 5y agoTook the music industry a few decades to learn that suing your fans is bad for business. Now they have to deal with Spotify and Apple/Google/Amazon Music. Like, you're pretty awful when you end up a target by the biggest companies of the world and even the scrappy upstart is double the market cap of your biggest member (Spotify is double Universal Music Group: https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/9529823/spotify-stock-new-high-stream-on-valuation https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/9529823/spotify-... )
- supertrope 5y agoThe music industry continues to blame illegal downloading and Apple strong arm tactics for its perceived profit loss. Hollywood has taken the music industry example to heart and is stonewalling Netflix to make sure it continues to maintain the upper hand over streaming services.
- lelanthran 5y ago> Hollywood has taken the music industry example to heart and is stonewalling Netflix to make sure it continues to maintain the upper hand over streaming services. Good luck with that - people aren't that fussy about the content when they want to veg out in front of the TV, and recently I've been watching netflix exclusives almost exclusively.
- gentleman11 5y agoI don’t really trust capcom on pc. I can’t run re:2 remake without using video drivers from years ago. DMC 3 never worked and you had to mod it to make your controller work properly. Re:4 on pc gives people migraines from frame pacing issues, my family members can’t play it without nausea, so I’ve never been able to show them the game (on consoles it’s fine). I heard street fighter on pc has an issue too but I’m not familiar. Edit: dmc5 on of apparently has issues where save games get deleted, so I’m told that the community uses a cheat program or shares save files to get around it
- jbluepolarbear 5y agoI have never played Lost Planet 3. I bought Lost Planet 3, but I was unable to get it to work on my Radeon RX 470. I’m sure I’d work on my 2070 RTX but I’m wouldn’t be surprised if it still didn’t work.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago> I don’t really trust capcom on pc. Wait until you read about capcom.sys: https://www.theregister.com/2016/09/23/capcom_street_fighter_v/ https://www.theregister.com/2016/09/23/capcom_street_fighter... I don't trust any japanese company to make good PC games.
- matheusmoreira 5y agoNice. Yet another example of a "pirate" product being superior to the "genuine" version.
- WmyEE0UsWAwC2i 5y agoDRM: make your product worse for your paying customers.
- devoutsalsa 5y agoYounger, poorer me would not hesitate to pirate a game if that meant it’d be free. I do not blame a company for trying to protect their investment. I’d do that, too, if I was dropping 10s of millions of USD into developing a game.
- lostgame 5y agoThat’s not the commenter’s point. Their point is that literally all broken DRM like this does is punish paying customers and encourage piracy. Nothing to do with the ethics of piracy - which - btw - if you don’t want me to pirate your game - don’t use DRM. ;)
- everyone 5y agoI vote with my wallet. I don't support DRM: I don't ever buy anything with DRM. I go out of my way to buy DRM-free stuff. (sometimes I buy a couple of copies)
- azalemeth 5y agoHere here. I haven't bought Sony since their rootkit fiasco; and I basically only buy games from gog.com or indie studios directly.
- unishark 5y agoBy the same logic a broken lock on a store's door does literally nothing except prevent customers from entering the store to buy stuff. Sure, but this is just a risk of having security. The solution is to fix the problem, not discard locks and security. Also one might argue there are second-order benefits to the paying customers, like lower prices and more products being offered since the seller can make more money.
- joshschreuder 5y agoLet me preface this by saying that different publishers likely have different implementations of Denuvo checks, and also there are lots of different iterations of Denuvo. But from what I've seen there are quite a number of titles with performance impacts out of using Denuvo. Overlord Gaming [1] has some videos with before and after comparisons for games where Denuvo got removed by the publisher. Of course, there could potentially be differences in test methodology or other stuff in the Denuvo removal patches, but there is some pretty interesting findings, eg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKsesO3bdv4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKsesO3bdv4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08zW_1-AEng https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08zW_1-AEng https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnSavmI3knQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnSavmI3knQ [1] https://www.youtube.com/c/OverlordGaming/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/OverlordGaming/videos
- speeder 5y agoAlso a notorious case: Final Fantasy XV famously could run the full game using the demo binary, this is how it was "cracked" before launch, when players realized the demo binary could run the preloaded content before release. Only AFTER the official launch, performance complaints started, then people realized the official launch binary, that has Denuvo, has performance issues, while the demo binary, that has no DRM, runs perfectly fine, using the exact same data.
- marcodiego 5y agoSo this crack disables DRM... does it means it is more likely to run under wine now?
- unnouinceput 5y agoyes
- sudosysgen 5y agoIn general cracks are more like to run in WINE, yes.
- ed25519FUUU 5y agoI could barely even watch the demo. I don’t know what it is about scary games but I simply can’t play them. Never could even since I was a kid.
- asddubs 5y agois it maybe the fact that they're scary?
- tw04 5y agoI know I might be in the minority, but I just wish we could stop at semi-difficult license keys. When I was poor in college, either I would pirate a game or just not play it because there was just no way I could ever afford it. Now as a grown up I'd much rather pay for the game both to support the creator as well as not roll the dice on a backdoored keygen. I HAVE to believe that the number of folks that can both afford to buy the game and would buy the game, but would try to pirate first, is a fraction of a percent of the market. Please stop punishing your fans :/
- sundvor 5y agoThere's proof you're right, from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27798879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27798879
- johnchristopher 5y agoHardly. Except from this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27799795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27799795 and maybe another I miss the whole thread is about people growing up in poor countries stating piracy was the only way to watch content.
- sundvor 5y agoContext here is computer games?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- johnchristopher 5y agoIf you had read the article from the thread you cited and proposed as proof you'd know the study dealt with music, books, movies and games.
- 5y ago
- ChuckMcM 5y agoThis is typical. DRM doesn't deter or hurt pirates, and according to the EU[1] piracy doesn't hurt sales either, all that DRM does is to create support problems and hurt legitimate paying customers. [1] https://www.engadget.com/2017-09-22-eu-suppressed-study-piracy-no-sales-impact.html https://www.engadget.com/2017-09-22-eu-suppressed-study-pira... FIX: disambiguate 'it'
- josephcsible 5y agoYour "it" is ambiguous. Piracy doesn't hurt sales, but DRM certainly does.
- ChuckMcM 5y agoFixed, thanks!
- rocqua 5y agoThe typical story of DRM is that roughly the first month of launch, where the DRM still isn't cracked, is responsible for a lot of sales. It's where people who _would_ pirate but also want the game _now_ because of the hype. Those people become sales because of DRM. Where not having DRM would have lost the sale to piracy. The nice part of this story for DRM vendors is that it works even if DRM is eventually cracked. It means you can win without being water-tight. Because most people admit that DRM will eventually be cracked.
- ChuckMcM 5y agoYou read the EU report right? People who buy cracked copies of software do not, in general, ever pay for that software (certainly not retail anyway). There was also a great study on the impact to piracy by Netflix which showed a huge decrease in piracy of DVDs when the cost to view them was reduced to something people were willing to pay. The economics have been demonstrated many many times that the market segments into what people are willing to pay for a product, and if your retail price is higher than the bulk of the market's willingness to pay, then you get either piracy (copies which generate no revenue) of if you could have perfect DRM, no revenue. The only difference between the two scenarios is how many copies are in circulation, not the amount of revenue that was made on selling the product. The non-intuitive result is the for creative works (books, movies, video games) having more copies in circulation enhances revenue because subjective reviews heavily influence buying decisions in the market. This was starkly demonstrated in the London publisher's conference where publishers have all experienced that highly pirated books are more likely to be best sellers than non-pirated books. That works because more people who actually buy the book will have a better chance of having heard something positive about it before they buy it. The markets have been dealing with DRM and non-DRM digital products for over 30 years now, there is a LOT of data that shows two things; DRM causes more problems for legitimate users than prevent piracy, and piracy has zero impact on the total revenue received from the digital products.
- twirlock 5y agoIf you release software that runs better pirated, you are objectively stupid.
- alkonaut 5y agoThis is why I’d always have an always online DRM. I don’t mind not being able to play when my internet is down. Yes I know some people are on metered connections or don’t have internet at all. Even so, it’s better than this if you absolutely must have DRM.
- extrememacaroni 5y agoDunno if you realized this, but once online-only games become unprofitable, the servers are down for good and the games become useless. If all games up to this point were like this, we wouldn't be able to play childhood games anymore. Gog.com wouldn't exist without all developers going back to patch their online only games etc.
- alkonaut 5y agoThat’s another drawback. And it’s one I’d rather have than stutter too (of course I’d rather have neither but let’s assume that’s not on the table). Games these days are often not even ready until a year or so after release meaning if you don’t trust the patch distribution to continue for a long time one shouldn’t even buy the games. An online requirement is pretty easy to patch out after a while. Obviously you trust the developer to actually do it, and I wish more would. A good distributor could prove that they are reliable and patch away the online requirement after a year or so. After all DRM is usually about protecting a first crucial period of sales. I haven’t really played a game that doesn’t use another online resource (data, opponents, DLCs…) in a very long time so perhaps I’m underestimating the problem of online requirements compared to someone who would e.g ever play an older offline game. Importantly, when I “buy” (I use that term lightly for software) a game, I don’t expect it to be a perpetual functioning license that lets me show it to my kids in 15 years. I see it more as a movie ticket for brief entertainment. It's an unfortunate state of affairs - but I'd rather have 1 year of non-stuttering gameplay than a perpetual re-playable but flawed game if I'm forced to choose.
- gjs278 5y agoyou’re just a stupid jackass if you think this. thank god you don’t make games.
- marvinblum 5y agoWhy even bother implementing DRM if it gets cracked anyways? People who cannot afford the game won't buy it even if DRM was perfect. This is also supported by the EU study that was here on HN recently.
- pja 5y agoMost of the money made by an AAA game is made in the first week or two of sales; DRM that takes a week or two to crack is “good enough” from the POV of the publisher.
- Ciantic 5y agoGood point. I think there might be a win-win solution: If DRM degrades the experience so much, they should release a patch e.g. after two weeks (maybe a month?) from release which removes the DRM.
- pja 5y agoMany publishers do exactly this, although usually the timescales are a bit longer & it’s not announced as any kind of formal promise.
- Qub3d 5y agoTo add to the other comments, 3rd-party DRM providers such as Denuvo are very careful to avoid claiming totally invulnerability to cracks; the cutting edge is all about covering the initial post release that will represent 99% of the volume of the sales curve. Now whether this actually helps sales is still out for debate -- some data points to piracy ultimately increasing lifetime sales of a product (see: Microsoft Windows)
- mtrycz2 5y agoJust imagine if you could simply prove the ownership of a game using well-understood multidecade-old cryptography (in a new way). That's what I hope GameStop[0] can become. Or whoever else. Additeddly it would only prevent piracy and not cheating, but hey! [0]https://nft.gamestop.com/ https://nft.gamestop.com/
- TameAntelope 5y agoWhat expertise does GameStop suddenly have? I'm aware of their recent flood of cash, but isn't their expertise in retail brick-and-mortar? Or is the expectation that they'll somehow pivot from that to... I guess crypto? Aren't there dozens, hundreds, of companies in the crypto space already? Did they buy one of them at least, or are they legitimately trying to build a crypto company from the ground up, with no stated innovation or insight into crypto?
- mtrycz2 5y agoFrom the best I can gather, the new CEO is trying to pivot GameStop from a brick-and-mortar company with online presence, to a tech company with a brick-and-mortar presence. Cryptographically proven digital ownership of content has been (games or in-game content), with freedom of resale, had been a long discussed topic in crypto communities for years. They have not given any details yet, but I do hope that it can be it. Scaling is still an issue, tho.
- mywittyname 5y ago"Cryptography" doesn't solve any problems not already solved by licensing servers. And DRM will still be required on games to prevent the software from being modified in such a manner as to ignore licensing / proof of ownership.
- skocznymroczny 5y agoThere is certainly fewer reasons to pirate games today than in the past. Three major things have changed since the '90s. First is the advent of free to play games. While some are filled with dark patterns, many are very much playable for "freeloaders". Call of Duty Warzone, Starcraft 2, League of Legends, Valorant, CS:GO, even more casual games like Team Fortress 2, there's plenty of gaming for everyone without paying a dime. Second is the sales. It was unusual in the past to have games for few dollars. Nowadays it's the norm. With Steam Sales and similar sales on other platforms, you can buy many AAA quality games for just a few dollars. Recent releases can be had for reduced prices too. Third is the giveaways. Especially with Epic, but to some extent with GOG and Steam, it's very easy to have "games to play" these days. I have over 100 games on Epic and I didn't pay anything for them. About 20% of them are indie games that I probably won't ever play, but the remaining 80% are big games such as GTA 5 or Borderlands.