The cracked version of Ubisoft’s 2023 action adventure game, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, reportedly improves average performance by nearly 15% over the Denuvo DRM protected version.
The release, shared by cracking scene group RUNE (via ResetEra forums member Hiawatha), is described as a “Proof of Concept” build in which both Denuvo DRM and VMProtect have been completely stripped from the game’s executable. The process involved removing 34 virtualized function bodies protected by VMProtect and approximately 200 Denuvo virtual-machine bodies. The group also said it restored 261 obfuscated function bodies and relocated and reconstructed roughly 25,000 stolen function bodies.
The cracking scene group further stated that all required Portable Executable (PE) directories, including exports, imports, exceptions and TLS, were fully restored. The result is a substantially smaller executable, with the stripped version measuring 102 MB compared with 496 MB for the Denuvo-protected executable, representing a reduction of 386%.
A benchmark by content creator Kevin’s Tech Vids compared the two versions of Assassin’s Creed Mirage running at 1080p using the game’s default settings, showing that the cracked version improves average performance by more than 14% over the Denuvo DRM protected version. On a system equipped with an Intel Core i7-13700K, GeForce RTX 5080, 64 GB of RAM and a Samsung 990 Pro SSD, the cracked version averaged 186 fps, compared with 162 fps with Denuvo enabled.
With respect to minimum frame rates, the cracked version benchmarked a lowest of 90 fps versus 51 fps for the Denuvo version, representing a 76% improvement. The 1% lows also increased from 93 to 128 fps, while 0.1% lows rose from 74 to 105 fps. Maximum performance, however, was essentially unchanged, reaching 233 fps without Denuvo compared with 232 fps with it.
Back in July, 2023, during an interview, Denuvo creator Irdeto had stated that it had planned to distribute DRM-free versions of games that are otherwise sold with Denuvo to trusted media outlets in an effort to prove that the DRM itself doesn’t negatively impact performance. In October, 2024, however, the company backed out of conducting such performance comparisons. Read about it here.
