If you own an Intel 12th generation Core “Alder Lake” CPU, there’s good news: The company says it’s mostly fixed a problem that can prevent the chips from playing dozens of DRM-protected games.
The incompatibility issues originally affected over 50 PC games protected with Denuvo’s Digital Rights Management software. But now Intel says the problem only hits three games: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, Fernbus Simulator, and Madden NFL 22.
“Please run the latest version of Windows Update to resolve the issue, as the most recent updates for Windows 11 and Windows 10 has resolved a majority of the DRM issues,” the company added.
The chip maker disclosed the progress in a support page it quietly updated last week. The problem can be blamed on Denuvo’s DRM software. The anti-piracy technology will sometimes misread the nature of Intel’s Alder Lake chips and how they use a hybrid CPU architecture involving “Efficiency” cores and “Performance” cores.
To Denuvo’s DRM software, the hybrid architecture can seem like two PCs attempting to run the game when in reality it’s just one. This can trigger the game to crash or fail to load.
Intel has been working with game developers to fix the problem ever since the Alder Lake CPUs launched last month. The company didn’t say how it exactly fixed the incompatibility issues, or if Denuvo’s DRM was dropped from certain games. We’ve reached out to Intel for comment, and will update the story if we hear back.
In the meantime, Intel’s support page says the remaining three DRM-protected PC games can experience incompatibility problems while running on either Windows 10 or Windows 11.
If you must play the games, Intel has developed a workaround with motherboard makers that involves placing the Alder Lake Efficiency cores on standby. However, to run the workaround, you’ll need to update the BIOS version on your motherboard.
The other problem is that the temporary fix may not be available for every motherboard model. So far, both Gigabyte and Asus have released the new BIOS updates that contain the “Legacy Game Compatibility Mode” workaround. In Asus’s case, users can download the new BIOS versions by going to the support page for the specific motherboard model. Gigabyte users will have to do the same, and also download a separate tool from the company’s website.
MSI, meanwhile, has said the Legacy Game Compatibility Mode is only available on the Beta builds for its motherboards. “We’re preparing for the public release. But it will take some time to verify the BIOS and release to the website,” the company told PCMag last month.
