Resident Evil Village DRM found to be causing performance problems on PC

For years now, there has been more scrutiny over DRM in PC games and the performance impact that these protections can have. Resident Evil Village is the latest game to enter this conversation, as it has now been proven that the cracked, pirated version of the game runs better than the Steam version. 

Early reports of this began popping up across social media over the weekend and it didn't take long for Digital Foundry to verify these claims. In tests, it was found that removing DRM from Resident Evil Village results in smoother frame times and reduces the number of 0.1% lows. So while the overall frame rates aren't necessarily higher, there are fewer dips and less stutter thanks to better frame pacing.

These performance issues have been prevalent in Resident Evil Village since launch, but it has not been a high priority fix for the developers. Part of the cause could be multiple levels of DRM, as the game ships with Denuvo in place as well as Capcom's own anti-piracy tech.

In a statement given to PCGamer, Capcom confirmed that it is “currently looking into the reported PC performance issues”. Since the game has already been cracked, the quickest fix for Capcom would be to remove the DRM, but we'll have to wait and see.

KitGuru Says: Have many of you played Resident Evil Village on PC since launch? Have you encountered stuttering or frame spikes on the Steam version?

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