Pirated version of ‘Resident Evil Village’ reportedly has better performance
Tech reporters from Digital Foundry proved a rumor true recently as they conducted a side-by-side comparison of the retail and pirated PC versions of Resident Evil Village, and have found that the frame jitters that the retail version experiences do not happen in the pirated version.
The frame stutters have been present in the retail version since launch and were more consistently experienced when Ethan fights Lady Dimitrescu’s three daughters, Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela.
Richard Leadbetter from Digital Foundry has connected the frame stutters with Capcom's Digital Rights Management (DRM) features present in the game, but there is still no hard evidence to prove it.
However, given that the cracked version patches out the DRM features in the game and has not been experiencing the frame stutters that were present in retail, there could be a possibility that it is indeed the culprit.
Capcom also has a history of removing Denuvo—an anti-tamper and digital rights management scheme—from their games, specifically Devil May Cry and Resident Evil 7 a year and two respectively after release.
Capcom has not yet issued a hotfix for the graphics issue as of this writing, but a Capcom representative has told PC Gamer that they are “currently looking into the reported PC performance issues.”
“At this point, the ball is in Capcom's court and I'd hope to see some kind of response and positive action soon—and we'll update you if and when it does,” said Leadbetter.
Resident Evil Village is available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Google Stadia, and PC.
(Images from Capcom)