Resident Evil 4 PC Remake DRM update tanks FPS, hogs VRAM and sparks bad reviews

The crux of the anti-DRM argument is that DRM punishes paying customers more than pirates—and for a long-cracked game like Resident Evil 4 Remake, these words ring especially true when a DRM replacement tanks performance by as much as 20-50%. Basically, Capcom replaced the DRM copy protection software Denuvo with a cheaper alternative, Enigma Protector—which was also used in the Resident Evil 4 Remake demo and retrofitted into Resident Evil Revelations after its Denuvo expired. Sadly, this is far from the first time a Capcom game has had DRM-related performance issues.

Some players are also decrying this update as a move against mods, but as prominent mod developer FluffyQuack points out, that isn't really a factor for the overwhelming majority of mods for the game. REFramework still works perfectly fine, as do the majority of cosmetic-only mods installed via FluffyQuack's Fluffy Mod Manager—only the minority of mods are impacted by an update like this, and should work fine after being updated themselves.

As far as performance impact goes, though, users are reporting far more severe drawbacks. The game's lost performance on low-power platforms like Steam Deck seem highest, with up to ~30% drops in FPS reported there. It's bad news for those users, considering that Medium settings used to run at a stable 40-50 FPS on that class of hardware. Now, though, the game's CPU or GPU VRAM demands are simply too high for the previous entry-level players to enjoy locked above 30 FPS. FluffyQuack's testing on a higher-end PC showed more variability, but still saw an up to 20% performance boost on Denuvo versus Enigma, which is in line (if not somewhat lower than) other reports.

Hopefully, Capcom reconsiders this approach, or outright removes DRM as it did with Resident Evil 2 Remake and Resident Evil 3 Remake. Seeing as the game is already cracked, this move so far only serves to punish paying customers and mildly inconvenience modders and pirates—and that's never a good thing. No need to ruin a good PC port when you're still fixing Monster Hunter Wilds.