Dragon Age: Inquisition - Rumor of DRM breaking SDD drives

Myrthos

Myrthos

Cave Canem
Administrator
Supporter
Joined
August 30, 2006
Messages
11,223
You might have heard the rumor by now that the Denuvo anti-tamper technology on Dragon Age: Inquisition and also Lords of the Fallen is reducing the life expectency of SSDs by performing large amounts of writes to your hard disk. There are several threads on the topic. Here is one on Reddit. The source of this information appears to be Russian.

The company itself denies these rumors and states that: "Denuvo Anti-Tamper does not constantly read or write any data to storage media" and: "Denuvo Anti-Tamper does not continuously encrypt and decrypt any data on storage media. To do so would be of no benefit in terms of security or performance".

Unless there is some actual proof that can be reproduced and/or verified, this rumor is just what it is, a rumor.



More information.
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
11,223
Proof? Who needs proof? It's DRM! Wanders off to grab pitchfork and torch.

If this rumor is substantiated, then it would be bad news for SSD owners. I have my doubts though. Encryption is often CPU intensive, and that isn't something a gaming company would want, in effect slowing down your game. Also I would expect the encryption to occur on memory contents to thwart debuggers and such, not being written to disk.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2010
Messages
586
Location
Tennessee, United States
This seems like ravings of the people who couldn't pirate the games and try to find a way to blame the DRM. I think pirates run into a solid wall this time. I don't like DRM systems as a gamer, but also as a man who works in this industry I think such innovative DRM systems are necessary to stop piracy. I don't think Blizzard couldn't sold 11 million copies of Diablo 3 if there weren't this annoying always online system. I know a lot of people who are playing pirate copies of games that bought Diablo 3 just because they couldn't pirate it.

Anyway it will be interesting to watch the developments at this Denuvo war.
 
Joined
Oct 30, 2006
Messages
1,181
Location
Sigil
And you also know a person who is not interested in Diablo 3 at all, real or pirated.
Me. ;)

I won't dare to say that Denuvo will remain uncrackable for eternity, but players of Sims 4 (me included) need it on that game as soon as possible. Pirated version of Sims 4 can upload stuff in the gallery and now it's under siege with vulgar stuff like naked pregnant children. Yes someone on EA side is deleting them, but more deleted, double new ones appear.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
I fear Denuvo won't be a silver bullet, though. The problem with all attempts to encrypt software and other media, is that sooner or later it has to be decrypted and passed to the CPU and memory, which cannot be encrypted (the computer can't hide computations from itself). Hackers will always get in eventually, it's just a question of how much work you can force them to do, to figure out how you've obfuscated things.

The hackers always take a while when new measures come along, but as they crack it, they develop software tools to make it easier for them in future. It's perpetual cat and mouse.
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
12,085
Shouldn't this be extremely easy to verify?

1) Anyone playing the game: Just check your HDD LED for activity. Is it flashing up all of the time?

2) SSDs are silent but HDDs are not. So is everyone who is playing the game with a HDD getting constant hard drive thrashing?

3) SSD owners should be able to use tools like Samsung Magician to check writes before and after one or several DAI sessions. I have attached a screenshot from my Magician as an example. Does the "Total Bytes Written" value go up considerably after an extended DAI session?


 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
3,201
I agree - anyone that has a copy please do so. I think we should try to get to a position to refute this, rather than only stating it's unproven. It really is extremely unlikely, and makes no sense at all.
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
12,085
Moriendor said:
Shouldn't this be extremely easy to verify?

1) Anyone playing the game: Just check your HDD LED for activity. Is it flashing up all of the time?

2) SSDs are silent but HDDs are not. So is everyone who is playing the game with a HDD getting constant hard drive thrashing?

3) SSD owners should be able to use tools like Samsung Magician to check writes before and after one or several DAI sessions. I have attached a screenshot from my Magician as an example. Does the "Total Bytes Written" value go up considerably after an extended DAI session?


Click to expand...

How can you tell it is not the actual DA:I program (rather than the DRM) that is doing all the heavy HDD access (due to poor optimisation/memory management, frequent swapping etc.)?
 
Joined
Feb 2, 2011
Messages
2,818
Location
United Kingdom
SpoonFULL said:
How can you tell it is not the actual DA:I program (rather than the DRM) that is doing all the heavy HDD access (due to poor optimisation/memory management, frequent swapping etc.)?
Click to expand...

That would be mostly reads then and not writes. The problem (i.e. theoretically, if really extremely excessive) for SSDs lies only in writes and not reads.
The game would only need to write data to HDD/SSD when caching data or storing saves. Both very unlikely scenarios to cause massive writing activity.

EDIT for clarification: My earlier post above was meant to be like a three steps program. So if someone's HDD LED is constantly lighting up and if someone has a HDD and can hear it thrashing all the time and if you use a tool to monitor writes (for HDD you could use any tool that gives you access to the S.M.A.R.T data and compare before/after) then it should be very easy to tell if the rumors of excessive writes are true.
I'd test it myself in a heartbeat but not going to buy DAI until there is a discounted bundle with all DLC included in a couple years time.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
3,201
SpoonFULL said:
How can you tell it is not the actual DA:I program (rather than the DRM) that is doing all the heavy HDD access (due to poor optimisation/memory management, frequent swapping etc.)?
Click to expand...

If the result were positive for massive disk writes, that would be a problem. But if the result is very little disk writing, or none at all, we disprove the claim. And I'd bet the farm that it will be disproved.
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
12,085
Thrasher said:
haha. so true!

EDIT: Don't mind me fixing your English. ;)

Maybe it's booby trapped to destroy SSD drives if it's messed with? That would be funny. :)
Click to expand...

No problem, Sometimes I will go back and fix them myself but it's good to know you have my back.;)

Hope you don't mind but I also took liberties with your grammar.

Booby trapped is 2 words, not one.:p
 
If my booby gets trapped it's a multiplicated boobytrappedboobytrappedboobytrapped! Getitoutgetitoutgetitout nownownow!

Yes, I know I'm male and really don't have boobies, but it's the idea ;)
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
8,836
if it is a rumor why is it news?
 
Joined
Apr 17, 2007
Messages
5,749
rune_74 said:
if it is a rumor why is it news?
Click to expand...

I suggested putting something up, but I had in mind making a slightly stronger statement that this is fud. The reason being that people were expressing concern about installing these RPGs on their Ssds - so more a sort of public service announcement to allay concerns.
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
12,085
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom