“PC Master Race” arguments are certainly products of a bygone era, especially now with the advent of Game Pass and other lines being blurred between PCs and console gaming. That being said, there are some underlying technical perks that come with console gaming that PC gamers just don’t get to ignore. One of which is anti-cheat software, which is on consoles too, but anti-cheat software on a Windows machine can be a very different beast when compared to console hardware. One name that comes up often in PC gaming is Denuvo.
Denuvo anti-tamper and anti-cheat software have been the subject of controversy basically since the beginning of the software’s existence and implementation in games. Whether it’s performance issues or performance degradation of PC storage, or even privacy issues of players’ accounts, Denuvo anti-tamper/anti-cheat software (for the sake of simplicity, will be colloquially referred to as “anti-cheat”) has become notorious for its level of access on players’ systems, and the potential harm it can wreak on them.
Plenty of stories are frequently reported throughout the gaming industry about Denuvo anti-cheat; whether a game utilizes Denuvo anti-cheat, if Denuvo anti-cheat causes performance degradation, and if a developer has made the decision to remove Denuvo in the wake of backlash. For something so ubiquitous and also potentially harmful, some may be wondering what could possibly cause this much controversy. Denuvo anti-cheat software is allegedly capable of all of these effects, despite repeated refutations by Denuvo Software Solutions who designed it.
Denuvo anti-cheat has evolved and changed over time, but the purpose has remained the same. The Denuvo anti-cheat software is designed and implemented for a variety of security reasons. Games continue to employ (and sometimes remove) Denuvo anti-cheat as a method of preventing game piracy and illegal downloads/activations. For PCs, the software has been installed at both a user-level and kernel-level security permission, designed to consistently read a computer’s system information as well as check the game client for any modifications/abuses. Assuming there were no side effects, there’d theoretically be nothing wrong with installing Denuvo anti-cheat.
However, that’s where the potential caveats lie, as there’s plenty of rumored and confirmed side effects from Denuvo activity on PCs. The main concern with Denuvo anti-cheat has to do with its processes, and how the software utilizes an unnecessary amount of processes and checks to function. This lead to multiple reports from players and media outlets that the excessive processing on Denuvo anti-cheat’s behalf had led to unusually high CPU usage on PCs, and some even reported possible degradation to SSD storage due to excessive reading/writing.
At every turn, Denuvo has refuted all of these claims according to first and third-party testing. Much of the claims and allegations in the past have recorded high CPU usage, although none have really been confirmed in any major capacity. Tekken 7‘s producer Katsuhiro Harada mentioned that certain moves would graphically tank PC framerates because of issues with the Denuvo anti-cheat encryption. There was also an issue with Sonic Mania on PC requiring a persistent online connection, despite being a singleplayer offline game. Unfortunately, there’s no concrete way to prove Denuvo’s negative effects, since every PC is different, but the sheer number of claims is certainly concerning.
Of course, Denuvo anti-cheat is not the only player on the market in terms of game tampering security. There are plenty of other first and third-party piracy and tamper protection software services out there, each functioning to various degrees of success. Riot in particular has also been the subject of controversy with its kernel-based “Vanguard” anti-cheat software, used for Valorant, which brought up valid concerns of privacy from players. Even Genshin Impact had an issue with DRM and anti-cheat persisting after the game was closed on PC, which was quickly resolved. Denuvo just happens to be used most often because it’s been incredibly hard to crack or bypass.
Despite claims not being proven, several already released games have sent out post-launch updates to remove the software. For the developers and publishers, it’s very possible that the anti-cheat software is just not worth the risk of sidelining any players on PCs. Some fans on lower-end machines have reported better game performance, although high-end PCs will likely see a negligible impact on game performance. Either way, the situation is a bit hard to prove, so Denuvo anti-cheat will likely continue to be implemented in new games until more developers refuse to use the service.
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