‘Assassin’s Creed: Origins’ News: Ubisoft Denies Accusations That DRM Causes Full CPU Load

It seems Assassin’s Creed: Origins is under attack not by Templars but by cracking groups, as one of the most prominent and persistent PC game crackers has accused the game’s digital rights management (DRM) software of eating up as much as 40 percent processing power. This much consumption may add up with the game’s, leading to about 100 percent central processing unit (CPU) usage, which could cause stuttering issues and frame rate drops.

Some Steam users who purchased the game have also confirmed the matter, stating that the game does indeed use as much as 100 percent of their quad-core CPUs, regardless of which video card it is paired with.

Ubisoft, however, was quick to quell the negative allegations about Denuvo and VMProtect, the two DRMs they used for the game. A company spokesperson has issued a reply on Steam, claiming that the anti-tamper and anti-piracy solutions implemented for Assassin’s Creed: Origins on the PC have no significant and perceptible effect on the game’s performance.

In addition to that, the Ubisoft spokesperson said that the game simply maximizes the minimum and recommended system requirements of the game, which they have stated, are necessary to recreate the sprawling locale of Ancient Egypt with at least 30 frames per second (FPS) performance.

It is important to note that the recommended processor for the game is an Intel Core i7-3770 or later i7 processors, while the minimum processor required is a Core i5-2400, which is suggested for the lowest graphical preset of the game.

As such, the game company may be proposing that PC players simply follow the minimum and recommended system requirements of the game in order to avoid the stuttering and performance issues associated with the game’s 100 percent CPU usage. CPUs with six or eight cores have fewer problems, however.

The claims that the two DRMs used for Assassin’s Creed: Origins were causing full CPU load came from game cracker Voksi, who, after analyzing the code for the game, concluded that the VMProtect on top of the Denuvo DRM consumes 30-40 percent of the game’s CPU performance. Voksi even made a Reddit thread detailing how VMProtect’s activity in the game’s core control loop is being “called non-stop,” hence the massive CPU utilization.

The game cracker then went on to criticize Ubisoft for being anti-consumer since their extensive security measure for the game requires an excessively beefy and expensive CPU.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbUgMhX93JA

Despite Ubisoft’s explanation and denial of the claim from the cracking group, a lot of Steam users were still not convinced. Some users even demanded that Ubisoft release a report containing the workings of the game and how it uses the CPU, while others have expressed displeasure at Ubisoft’s marketing scheme.

Regardless, affected PC players might have to take Ubisoft’s advice, which is to make sure that their CPUs are up to par until further developments or announcements arise from the company.

[Featured Image by Ubisoft]