Total war three kingdoms performance tests with and without rejection

Denuvo has been the subject of controversy over its implementation in games and whether or not it affects performance. This is one of the few performance tests of a major site (Eteknix) on a video game with Denuvo on and off.

Total War Three Kingdoms has the Denuvo version 6.0

A few days ago, Total War Three Kingdoms, which implements Denuvo 6.0, was created, so it is possible to make a comparison of the game at this time, before it is officially updated.

Test methodology and equipment

• AMD 1600XNvidia 980 Ti16GB 3200mhz RAM500GB NVMe

The internet was disconnected and Steam was running offline. Total War Three Kingdoms comes bundled with two benchmarking programs. One that simulates the battle mode and the other that simulates the campaign map. Once completed, these performance points provided results based on the average frames per second.

As such, both tests (in each version of the game) were run using the following graphical configurations.

• 1080p with Settings 'Medium'1440p with Settings' High'1440p with Settings 'Ultra'

1080 - Medium

Total War Three Kingdoms	Denuvo - Activated	Denuvo - Disabled
Battle Trial	103	103.1
Campaign Test	96.1	97

In this resolution we see practically identical results, only in the second test a difference of only 1 fps is seen with the Denuvo version disabled.

1440p - High

Total War Three Kingdoms	Denuvo - Activated	Denuvo - Disabled
Battle Trial	53	56.8
Campaign Test	57.3	60.7

Here is a curious result, but one worth noting. There is a difference of 3 fps between the version without and with Denuvo when we apply a high setting in the two Battle and Campaign tests. Curious about the results we found later when we uploaded the settings to Ultra.

1440p - Ultra

Total War Three Kingdoms	Denuvo - Activated	Denuvo - Disabled
Battle Trial	41.7	41.5
Campaign Test	44	43.8

In this resolution and applying the configuration in Ultra, we see again an absolute parity. The difference is a mere 0.2 fps.

conclusion

What we could conclude from these tests is that Denuvo has a practically zero impact on performance, at least in Total War Three Kingdoms. It would be very interesting to check this in other games in the future, to find out if it is just an exception or if this protection really does not affect performance as much as many players assure. We will keep you informed.

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