News Intel's Alder Lake CPUs May Not Work With Older Games

[Admin]

Denuvo and other DRM solutions will require ups to support Alder Lake's hybrid design.

Intel's Alder Lake CPUs May Not Work With Older Games : Read more

 

[Deleted member 2731765]

So now gamers will have more valid reason to boycott DENUVO games ? But anyway, that's a pretty interesting finding on Alder Lake's hybrid architecture. I'm pretty sure the DRM devs will patch their protection mechanism to support the hybrid arch. I'm just wondering how are modern games going to perform on the ADL CPU series. But what if the coding/patching can't be done properly ?

It would be nice if we get a performance comparison benchmark of any AAA denuvo-laden game when the series is launched next month, between Rocket Lake, and other older gen CPUs VS the new Alder Lake lineup.

Honestly speaking, any DENUVO DRM game only legitimately hurts the buyer/owner of the game, and not pirates who enjoy stutter free gaming, if any, which has been caused by the DRM. Some games are not affected in performance though, despite having Denuvo, but I always prefer a DRM-free game on my library. GOG is my preferred platform, but these denuvo games won't land up in this store, unless the drm protection has been removed.

And like you have also mentioned in the article, other protection mechanisms like VMProtect, SecuROM might be in the same boat as denuvo.

The problem arises for older titles that are a couple of years old that likely won't get any updates, meaning they'll be unplayable on Alder Lake chips. There are many gems out there that have high replay value so gamers will be annoyed that they can't play them on the shiny, new Alder Lake processor that they just bought.

Right on the Money !

 

[ezst036]

I bet there will be solutions offered to reduce the impact of this. Sooner or later.

Also, I wonder if using Proton/Steam on Linux circumvents the situation entirely. It would be fun to see.

 

[rgd1101]

maybe that why we haven't see much game benchmark.

 

[Sleepy_Hollowed]

Ooof, so that's a skip. Maybe next generation if they've fixed older games, but that's a big no from me boss.

This is a good time to say: those that have been buying your games on GoG do not have to worry about this due to their DRM-free policy.

 

[RodroX]

maybe that why we haven't see much game benchmark.

lol, I was about to write the same, you won!

Intel's Alder Lake CPUs May Not Work With Older Games

 

[Phaaze88]

Well, ain't this a load of malarkey. Most of what I do play would likely be considered old.

It's still early - it may get patched... ahh well, I don't have to worry about it until at least 13xxx, or whatever they'll call it.

 

[korekan]

probably next or the other gen will be more smooth? without changes

 

[TerryLaze]

Wasn't it basically confirmed that you can shut down the small cores from bios?
It's a mild inconvenience at best to turn alder into a normal CPU and it will still perform better then previous gens.

 

[hannibal]

You most likely can turn of these little cores from bios, but how often you would turn them on and off... so not very practical.
This was little surprising, the point of little cores should be that they are compatible with big cores, only much much slower. So hard to see, why older games would not work.... They should, just slower...

 

[TerryLaze]

You most likely can turn of these little cores from bios, but how often you would turn them on and off... so not very practical.
This was little surprising, the point of little cores should be that they are compatible with big cores, only much much slower. So hard to see, why older games would not work.... They should, just slower...

It's about Denuvo seeing the small cores as an attempt to mess with the CPU to circumvent the protection just because it's something that shouldn't be there.

 

[renz496]

So the likes of 12600K or 12400 should be fine then? Since i heard the mid tier part like 12600 does not have those "small" core.

 

[Dr3ams]

So, avoid Intel's discriminating CPUs and Windows 11...I think I got it.

 

[Chung Leong]

It's about Denuvo seeing the small cores as an attempt to mess with the CPU to circumvent the protection just because it's something that shouldn't be there.

I imagine the code for detecting the presence of a hypervisor is fragile as hell.

 

[TerryLaze]

So, avoid Intel's discriminating CPUs and Windows 11...I think I got it.

Yes, in fact avoid any technology at all, it's the only way to avoid getting any performance decreases.

 

[dalek1234]

The problem arises for older titles that are a couple of years old that likely won't get any updates, meaning they'll be unplayable on Alder Lake chips. There are many gems out there that have high replay value so gamers will be annoyed that they can't play them on the shiny, new Alder Lake processor that they just bought.

This is a Train Wreck in the making.

 

[Deleted member 2731765]

So the likes of 12600K or 12400 should be fine then? Since i heard the mid tier part like 12600 does not have those "small" core.

Yeah. I think only the non-K and T SKU version is lacking small/efficiency cores. The 12600K has 6 P cores, and 4 E cores, but the plain 12600 non-K lacks these "small" E cores, imo.

 

[Marvin Martian]

Great. Between Windows 11 and Intel Alder lake we are getting hammered.

 

[VforV]

Alder Lake needs Win11 to be the best version of itself,
Alder Lake needs DDR5 to be the best version of itself,
Alder Lake may not work with a lot of (older) games,
Alder Lake will also be (very) expensive if you want the best version it.

HARD PASS.

I can't wait for Zen3D to prove that all you need for that (Alder Lake's) gaming level of performance is actually a Zen3 CPU with V-Cache, nothing more, nothing fancy, no issues, no complications, no special Win11 design and not even DDR5.

If this turns to be true, I will really laugh my *** off.

 

[TerryLaze]

I can't wait for Zen3D to prove that all you need for that (Alder Lake's) gaming level of performance is actually a Zen3 CPU with V-Cache, nothing more, nothing fancy, no issues, no complications, no special Win11 design and not even DDR5.

If this turns to be true, I will really laugh my *** off.

After seeing how much of a mess it is to just port the normal cache configuration over to windows 11 it will be very interesting to see how long it will take to make v-cache work in any capacity in any version of windows...
AMD better hustle and make sure v-cache works before they release any CPU with it because if first day benches are released without support for v-cache in windows you definitely will not be laughing at all.

 

[-Fran-]

After seeing how much of a mess it is to just port the normal cache configuration over to windows 11 it will be very interesting to see how long it will take to make v-cache work in any capacity in any version of windows...
AMD better hustle and make sure v-cache works before they release any CPU with it because if first day benches are released without support for v-cache in windows you definitely will not be laughing at all.

I really hope you're getting paid at least

--

Well, this one goes to the top of the list of "quirks" for sure.

Regards.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

If the "little" cores can be switched off in BIOS, then it should be no more of an inconvenience than the people who adopted early generation AMD Zen CPUs which had to switch off half the cores and/or SMT to prevent a game crash or to prevent reduced performance because of the high core count, and why AMD implemented that function into Ryzen Master.

 

[Ogotai]

After seeing how much of a mess it is to just port the normal cache configuration over to windows 11 it will be very interesting to see how long it will take to make v-cache work in any capacity in any version of windows...
AMD better hustle and make sure v-cache works before they release any CPU with it because if first day benches are released without support for v-cache in windows you definitely will not be laughing at all.

the more this person posts, the more he sounds like an intel PR rep

 

[Conahl]

Yes, in fact avoid any technology at all, it's the only way to avoid getting any performance decreases.

or just avoid intels products for the time being and wait till this is actually out, and all the bugs and quirks are fixed.

 

[semitope]

If the denuvo games contact a server it might be possible to sort it out server-side.