Shadow of the Tomb Raider gets Denuvo removal boost

With Shadow of the Tomb Raider (SOTTR) already in development for a long time, it looks like Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics are going to get out of bed and release Denuvo. As Bit-Tech previously reported, Denuvo Anti-Tamper Technology has its priceand while this may be attractive at launch, the trade-off between game sales revenue and tamper-proof rental fees must now be at a critical juncture.

The dark side of gaming noticed Denuvo’s removal from SOTTR last week, and over the weekend decided to test the performance difference between the Denuvo-protected version and the recently released version with the anti-tamper technology removed. Many users complain about their CPU cycles being eaten up by apps like Denuvo, although publishers typically deny any significant impact, so it’s useful to A/B such releases to find the “truth.”

Please note that the updated non-Denuvo version of SOTTR has been “rolled back” on Steam but is still available in the beta builds section of the store. DSOG tested both versions of the game on the following PC system specs:

• Intel i9 9900K processor,
• GPU NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080,
• 16 GB DDR4 system RAM @ 3600 MHz,
• Windows 10 64-bit using GeForce 496.13 driver.

SOTTR tests were run at both 1080p/highest settings (no ray tracing or DLSS) and 1080p/lowest settings with a built-in test to find fidelity. DLSS was not used as the patch notes noted that it was improved between the Denuvo and non-Denuvo versions of the game. There are no other game optimizations noted for the version without tamper protection.

DSOG noted that the largest changes in framerate between versions of the game were observed when using lower settings. In this case, there was an average frame rate difference of 17 frames per second. Moreover, with HT disabled, a difference of 30 fps was observed.

The above indicates that yes, Denuvo will eat up your CPU cycles, affecting game performance, and those who can afford the hit (like an older CPU with fewer cores, no HT) will fare the worst. I’ve seen similar posts about GeForce driver overhead affecting low power PCs. Nvidia driver overhead It’s possible that this could also be a contributing factor to HT being turned off.