Denuvo Issues on Intel's New CPUs Almost Fixed
The problems of Intel Alder Lake processors with the Denuvo DRM have almost been solved. Only three games - including Assassin's Creed: Valhalla - are still experiencing trouble.
Intel Alder Lake CPUs did not have an easy launch. It turned out that these otherwise very good chips are not compatible with dozens of games (the infamous list includes titles such as Assassin's Creed: Odyssey and Origins, Far Cry Primal, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered, Mortal Kombat 11 or Immortals: Fenyx Rising).
The cause of the problems with running these games on Windows 10 and 11 has been pointed out as the Denuvo DRM solution. It was supposed to flag and shut down the process of a given game, wrongly assuming that the hybrid design of Alder Lake processors - which have two types of cores: Efficient (aka E-Core, based on the Gracemont architecture) and Performance (aka P-Core, based on the Golden Cove architecture) - were actually two separate computers trying to run the same title simultaneously.
The problems began to be fixed rather quickly and efficiently, removing individual games from the list one by one. What's more, Intel came up with a temporary solution, which involved enabling compatibility mode with older versions of these games in the motherboard's BIOS. After that, all we had to do was press the Scroll Lock key while the selected title was booting up, and we were good to go. Interestingly, some motherboard manufacturers, such as MSI and Gigabyte, came out with an even simpler solution, providing a tool to control the status of individual CPU cores, without having to dig around in the BIOS (the latest version was required, however).
However, it looks like such combinations will not be needed any time soon. Intel has updated the list of problematic games. Currently there are only three titles on it: Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, Bus Simulator and Maden NFL 22. It seems that it is only a matter of time before also these are adjusted to the new chips.
