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Intel: PC Games Are Incompatible with 'Alder Lake' CPUs Due to DRM
- theandrewbailey 5y ago> To access the workaround, you’ll need to dig into your PC’s BIOS settings during the bootup sequence and then switch the “Legacy Game Compatibility Mode to ON (one-time only),” according to Intel’s instructions. The next time you launch the affected game, you would press the Scroll Lock key on your keyboard (sometimes shortened to “Scr Lk.") You then should be able to run the game with no crashes. Once you exit the title, you would tap the Scroll Lock key again, to toggle it off. So that's what scroll lock does. Mystery solved. \s
- perl4ever 5y agoSomebody needs to find a case with a turbo button and hook it up so that the game runs when it's off.
- zigzag312 5y agoLOL. I can imagine this procedure going well with an average user. Wouldn't be easier to set compatibility on an executable to only use P-cores? If I remember correctly, Windows can set compatibility settings for known programs automatically.
- humanwhosits 5y agoSeems like the games themselves should be fixed instead
- pfranz 5y agoSome may, but I doubt most will for the same reason a bunch of 32-bit games were never fixed for macOS even though there was like a decade of opportunity. I'm surprised the article didn't say if Denuvo had a fix yet. It also sounds like Microsoft may implement a fix in Windows. That sounds like the most likely solution if Intel or the BIOS couldn't address it.
- alophawen 5y agoThis is about Windows gaming. No gamers ran macOS a decade ago
- perl4ever 5y agoFounded in 1992: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrosia_Software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrosia_Software
- SahAssar 5y agoSome of these games are AAA games released less than a year ago. I'm pretty sure they will be fixed. Also Denuvo seems to get the most use from higher budget games, which gives some hope that the game studios have the resources to fix it. I think they will want to be able to get the long tail of sales that comes from steam sales etc. In contrast the macOS game market is (and even more so at the time) a lot smaller, the 32-bit switch mostly impacted older (at the time) games and impacted everyone equally.
- pfranz 5y agoRight, the newer games will likely get updated. I wonder if they'll just drop DRM? I know a lot of AAA games have it to get sales during the window of first release. I think I'm still just surprised how the 32-bit thing played out. Apple only sold 32-bit Intel processors in 2005-2006. Steam was ported to macOS in 2010--well after 64-bit was established. They started giving warnings in 2018 and dropped support in 2019. Just recently I was trying to figure out how to play vanilla Half Life 2 and ended up installing High Sierra because that was the best solution I had.
- karmakaze 5y agoYes exactly, it's a dumb headline: > The errors occur because Denuvo’s DRM software will mistakenly think the so-called "Performance-cores" and "Efficiency-cores" (P-cores and E-cores) on the chip belong to two separate PCs, when in reality the two types of processing cores are running on the same Alder Lake processor. (This P-core/E-core design is a new trait of Intel's chips with Alder Lake.) To me that's copy-protection employed by each game on it's own. They just happen to be using DRM library software from a vendor. It has nothing to do with Intel & DRM or specs of any kind, it's whatever the software vendor thought would work.
- nullsmack 5y agoDRM should be illegal.
- zamalek 5y agoI agree. Alternatively, DRM software (not just games), should have a perpetual refund period that covers "DRM or server obsolescence." This is something that I could really see EU passing. This would oblige a DRM removal patch.
- martinmakesgame 5y ago>perpetual refund period that covers "DRM or server obsolescence." This seems like it would still be an issue if the company providing the game goes out of business. I've bought games from both PlayFirst and AmbrosiaSW and even after buying the games, the servers that verify registration no longer exist or work. It's disappointing that awesome and fun games aren't able to be played because they can't phone home.
- josephh 5y agoWhat do you think should be the alternative? Forcing everyone to use cloud-based gaming services because the publishers will simply stop making personal copies available?
- MrWiffles 5y agoNo, because that's stupid. Online activation and tracking number of installs per license seems to work just fine. And there's something to be said for "risk" as a "cost of doing business". I mean, we certainly pay for imagined risk (insurance, healthcare, legal fees, warrantees, cost of customer support, etc. all factored into product cost).
- josephh 5y agoOnline activation by definition is a form of DRM.
- rlkf 5y ago> workaround ... by placing the efficiency cores on standby. ... you would press the Scroll Lock key This reminds me of the Turbo button on my old PC/AT machine, which would clock the processor down from 10MHz to 6MHz, to run PC/XT games.
- throwaway946513 5y agoFunny thing is - many keyboards don't include a scroll lock key. (My personal 'Keychron K4 doesn't) So what are these users expected to do, shell out another keyboard? Thank god for AMD, help us if they follow this obsolescence path.
- aidenn0 5y agoI'm not at my C2 right now, but IIRC Fn+(Button with the picture of a microphone) sends a scroll-lock event on it. Perhaps that works on a K4?