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Sonic Mania experiences with Denuvo

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Laughingcow, Aug 31, 2017.

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  1. Laughingcow

    Laughingcow

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    Going by Steam reviews, about a third of the Mania players on PC are pissed at the Denovo DRM. Fair enough but I personally haven't had any issues and would like to know what issues the residents of Retro have had. I don't want hearsay, I don't want links to websites/youtubers explaining why Denovo is evil, what I do want to hear is any problems YOU have personally had with the Denovo DRM in Sonic Mania and if possible, the specs on the PC you played on. I want to understand why I haven't had any problems (aside from the initial offline thing but it seems that was Steam DRM and not Denovo) while others are.

    My PC specs

    Windows 10 pro 64-bit
    Intel i7-4770
    NVidia GTX980
    32 GB DDR3 Ram

    Time played in Sonic Mania (as of this writing): About 6 hours
    Controller used: Xbox one connected via charger cable
     
  2. Cooljerk

    Cooljerk

    NotEqual Tech, Inc - VR & Game Dev Oldbie
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    No, that was custom Sonic Mania and/or Sega DRM. The standard DRM offered by Steam to developers (which is not a requirement, btw, you can release your game entirely DRM free on steam if you choose) only requires a one-time online activation per installation on computer. After that initial online activation, you can play those games indefinitely, both online and offline.
     
  3. Chibisteven

    Chibisteven

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    I'm glad I didn't pre-order it for starters and I won't be getting the game until SEGA removes Denuvo for good.


    DIRECTED AT SEGA:
    You fucking idiotic publishers, you just lost a sale, even the developers were opposed to it. No wonder why you corporate idiots almost went bankrupt and had to leave the console business. It's not rocket science. Who's fucking bright idea was it?

    DIRECTED AT THE DEVELOPMENT TEAM:
    Sorry you guys have to deal with this kind of corporate bullshit.
     
  4. 360

    360

    Light Vision Overdrive Oldbie
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    Posted in the no-spoilers thread but basically the game taxes the hell out of my machine and someone replied saying it isn't the game's fault but the Denuvo DRM. Basically my laptop fan goes in to overdrive and hits max speed then doesn't stop blaring at said speed until I exit the game. Made me worried my machine was overheating. I have a pretty ancient laptop currently: AMD A6 Dual Core with Radeon 7XXX series GPU. 8GB RAM. On an unrelated note I'm getting a new machine extremely soon.

    Cool idea for a thread. Allows us to vent our frustration. At Sega specifically. The developers are known to have been opposed to this shit.

    EDIT: Just checking the game's Steam page just now and the game is getting review-bombed with almost a thousand negative reviews primarily referencing Denuvo. Every review is basically "The game's awesome - but fuck Denuvo" and thus is negative. I think it's safe to say Sega fucked up here.
     
  5. Retroman

    Retroman

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    Make a petition - change.org and get signatures which would gain publicity and put more pressure on Sega to remove Denuvo from Sonic Mania - share with Steam users and other sites.
     
  6. Chibisteven

    Chibisteven

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    That could shorten the life of the fan and also require a lot more cleaning from all the dust that gets pulled in to prevent overheating. Not too sure about CPU life but I know that much CPU is bad if you're on battery a lot as that will also shorten it's life. That is absolutely fucking ridiculous for any game.
     
  7. biggestsonicfan

    biggestsonicfan

    Model2wannaB Tech Member
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    ALWAYS Sonic the Fighters
    Similar to the Sonic '06 on PC petitions? Those went... well... right?
     
  8. winterhell

    winterhell

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    Putting Denuvo in is fricking genius actually, and stirred controversy and so desired media attention.
    People threatening to boycott the game? Yeah right, 100 people not buying the game is going to ruin someone's day. Plus you know what's funny? Those that issued a refund on the purchase saved 2 bucks on the preorder. When they come back with the drm removed or when they finally cave in, they'll pay 2 bucks more.
    Win win for the publisher.

    Hitler might have been a bad guy, but he'll live on in the history books for quite some time. Just saying.

    That being said, I cant see how piracy would be an issue. If Steam's own protection is so weak, why aren't AAA publishers using denuvo...
     
  9. Android7

    Android7

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    From the Wikipedia page on Denuvo: "Some consumers have alleged that Denuvo Anti-Tamper shortens the lifetime of solid-state drives (SSDs) by writing an excessive amount of data to the drive. Denuvo Software Solutions claims that "Denuvo Anti-Tamper does not constantly read or write any data to storage media," calling it a "wrong rumor", since it doesn't perform read or write operations."

    That might have something to do with it.
     
  10. Deef

    Deef

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    I'm more disappointed that the leaderboards were rekt within hours of release. I guess that's not a DRM thing, but I can't say I'm against whatever software is needed to get that to work.

    But I suppose ultimately you can't cheat-proof an offline game. ... Though the times were cheated before it was playable offline.
     
  11. Chimera

    Chimera

    I'm not a furry. Tech Member
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    Castlevania prettyness
    Cant tell if you're trollin or equally mad and this is your way of coping but alright.

    Considering its Sonic, the "bad press is good press" addage flat doesn't work because Sonic's had that reputation for years. This game's supposed to be the trend breaker, and before the PC release it basically was just that. This throwing a wrench in the public eye of the series is an extreme negative.


    On the bright side, people see this more as a shame, and on the whole praise the developers for making such a good game and call out SoE for pulling such a boneheaded move.

    Too bad there's rhetoric flying left and right of people calling out Tax and Stealth for this. Surprising how the basic concept of "telling your boss no is a good way to get fired" doesn't resonate with people...
     
  12. Cooljerk

    Cooljerk

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    Modern SSDs are not really affected by reading and writing constantly like this (there are mitigating factors these days, but by and large that's no longer a real concern). But Denuvo would make someone's laptop run hot, because it runs on the CPU. Denuvo is a CPU hog. If your laptop's CPU is being constantly used at a high percentage, it'll run hot.
     
  13. winterhell

    winterhell

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    The only person to ever get away with it(telling the superiors what to do) and the best thing to happen to Sega was Tom Kalinske. Too bad even he got fed up with them around the Saturn launch.
     
  14. Lapper

    Lapper

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    Sonic Mania gives me no negative effects whatsoever.
    Takes up about 2% Cpu I'd say, according to task manager. It spikes when loading at 12% maybe, between 1% and 12% in general.

    Guess I'm just not in the 'ew I wont let that plague touch my PC' club. My PC is okay though, so I can't speak for laptops. I'm sure not everyone complaining about hating it or potential problems for themselves is on one though.
     
  15. My question is, if this game was being developed by PagodaWest, Taxman, and Stealth here in America, why did SoE suddenly pipe up that they wanted this SPECIFIC DRM, and what was SoA's response?
     
  16. Cooljerk

    Cooljerk

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    Doesn't Taxman live in Australia? Stealth sent me an autographed copy of the mania manual, and got everyone at SoA to sign it, which included slingerland, but Tax wasn't available to sign, so I don't think he actually is in America (but I could be wrong).
     
  17. redhotsonic

    redhotsonic

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    Battlefield 1, Fifa 17, Watch Dogs 2, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, the list goes on for titles with Denuvo :)


    As for the DRM in Sonic Mania, I'm a bit worried for my SSD, but otherwise, my PC runs flawlessly with it, and 99.99999% of the time my PC is on, the internet is on. I think most people are annoyed it got installed onto their PC when the descriptive page said nothing about DRM. And it's hard to remove even if you uninstall the game?

    As for my specs:

    - i7 6700k
    -Nvidia 1070GTX
    - 64GB RAM
    - 1TB Samsung Evo 850 SSD
    - 512GB Samsung Evo 850 SSD
    - and more high-end stuff that probably isn't important to the topic

    EDIT: Spellings.
     
  18. Lilly

    Lilly

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    You must have a beefy CPU fit to use in a server machine. I have a 3.7GHz quad-core AMD CPU in my desktop, and Mania uses 30-50% CPU on average. I'm afraid to voice chat with friends on Discord while playing Time Attack for fear that my crappy stock fan will screech like a squeaky washing machine belt again if I dare try pushing it to 70% CPU usage. (Gonna replace that when I can, though.)

    And before some people go "Eww, AMD": Non-Chowdren Freedom Planet never did that. Game Maker-based games I own on Steam hog less than 12% of my CPU on average. Risky's Revenge rarely goes above 2% CPU. (Whereas my laptop is pushed past 34%.) Compiling code is reasonably snappy. A VM of Windows 7 with Aero turned on runs fine. Not even Minecraft gets close to 50% on my machine, and we all know what that's made in.

    A 2D game lovingly written in C++ shouldn't be taxing nearly half the power of a decent CPU. I'm half-expecting communities of slower game making programs to laugh a lot harder about these performance problems than would be tasteful. Mania deserved so much better than this nonsense dragging it down.

    My Intel laptop is in a worse position. I'm upset that I can get games made in Unreal Engine, a bloated, inefficient hunk of junk compared to Source, to work well on my laptop with minimal INI fiddling, while Sonic Mania's most basic features in its INI or its GUI don't work.

    Mania's Vsync option is still acting buggy on me. I can't turn it off on my laptop at all, which might mitigate at least some of my cooling problems.
     
  19. Jay T.

    Jay T.

    It takes an idiot to do cool things... Member
    I have a AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition. The CPU bounces somewhere in the single digits up to maybe 30%. Even when it gets that high, it's only for a few seconds. So, no major problems here. Although I haven't received that update yet, I don't think. I put SonicMania.exe on my Antivirus' exception list anyway, just in case.

    I do wanna echo Ashram's question though. Seems like SoE is the only one of the three that does the whole DRM thing. Could be wrong though.
     
  20. Glaber

    Glaber

    Has Beaten Sonic Genesis for GBA Oldbie
    I have to wonder if this Denuvo disaster will badly affect Sonic Forces' PC release.
     
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