It may have taken some illegal (in some places) practices to achieve the desired outcome, but Capcom is now fully alert and responsive with regard to Resident Evil Village‘s performance issues on PC.
For those not aware of what all the kerfuffle is about, this year’s latest installment in the survival horror series has noticeably struggled to maintain the same level of smoothness on desktop compared to Microsoft and Sony’s next-gen hardware, even in instances where rigs far surpass the former in power. That being the case, many have suggested other software integrated into the PC version (i.e. DRM) is responsible for stuttering, not a faulty or outdated GPU.
Lo and behold, that appears to be the exact cause. As reported by DSOGaming earlier this week, a hacker going by the name of Empress confirmed they had managed to crack the game’s digital rights management protection, removal of which resulted in stuttering disappearing completely.
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Having caught wind of this, YouTube channel Digital Foundry has since conducted its own tests (H/T, VG247) and reached the same conclusion: that DRM is the root cause. Since publishing its video, Capcom has reached out to the channel to confirm it’s currently working on a patch aimed at addressing PC performance, though makes no specific mention of stuttering or, for that matter, recent workarounds provided by hackers.
How exactly the developer intends to resolve the problem once and for all remains to be seen, though it’s worth noting that it has wholesale removed DRM from other titles in the past, so we wouldn’t at all be surprised to learn that a similar deal will turn out to be true here, especially as the software has already been proven redundant in Resident Evil Village‘s case.
We’ll be sure to keep you posted on the situation as and when things change, so stay tuned.
