Intel Confirms DRM Incompatibility Impacts Over 50 Games on 12th Gen Core ‘Alder Lake’ CPUs

Intel has confirmed that over 50 games are facing issues on PCs based on its 12th-generation Core processors due to incompatibility with certain Digital Rights Management (DRM) software. The list of games that are being affected as a result of the DRM problem includes Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Far Cry Primal, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered, and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, among others. Intel said that a software fix of the affected DRM software is being rolled out. But in the meantime, the chipmaker has also provided a workaround to manually allow players to launch and play the impacted games.

Unlike the previous-generation models, Intel's 12th-generation Core processors (codenamed Alder Lake) split the CPU workload into high-powered “performance” cores and low-powered “efficiency” cores. Intel said that some third-party gaming DRM software incorrectly recognises the efficiency cores as another system. “This prevents games implementing that DRM software from running successfully,” the company said in a support page.

Intel said that due to the issue with the DRM software, some games are crashing during launch or even unexpectedly shutting down.

“A software fix has been identified by the vendor of the affected DRM software and is being rolled out,” the company said.

The initial patch is expected to reach 11 games sometime in the middle of November, through the upcoming Windows 11 update. These games include titles like Anthem, Bravely Default 2, Fishing Sim World, Football Manager 2019, Football Manager Touch 2019, Football Manager 2020, Football Manager Touch 2020, Legend of Mana, Mortal Kombat 11, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2, and Warhammer I.

In addition to the first batch of the games receiving the patch, Intel is working with developers to resolve DRM issues with the rest of the games. These are namely Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Far Cry Primal, Fernbus Coach Simulator, For Honor, Lost in Random, Madden 22, Maneater, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered, Sea of Solitude, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and Tourist Bus Simulator.

All these games are impacted by the DRM software issue with Windows 11 and Windows 10.

Intel also provided a list of 29 additional games that are facing hiccups on Windows 10. The company recommends users to resolve the issues after updating their systems to Windows 11.

These games are: Ace Combat 7, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Assassin's Creed Origins, Code Vein, eFootball 2021, F1 2019, Far Cry New Dawn, FIFA 19, FIFA 20, Football Manager 2021, Football Manager Touch 2021, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Ghost Recon Wildlands, Immortals Fenyx Rising, Just Cause 4, Life is Strange 2, Madden 21, Monopoly Plus, Need For Speed Heat, Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Shinobi Striker, Soulcalibur VI, Starlink, Team Sonic Racing, Total War Saga: Three Kingdoms, Train Sim World, Train Sim World 2, and Wolfenstein: Youngblood.

Intel said that the list of games facing issues will be updated as they will get patched. Meanwhile, it has recommended users to enable Legacy Game Compatibility Mode to manually fix problems. The mode is available in the BIOS setup.

Last month, Intel suggested the potential problems due to the incompatible DRM software in a developer guide. The issues were also noticed in early reviews of Intel's Core i9-12900K and other 12th-generation processors.

The Alder Lake processor lineup by Intel was ​​launched in late October to take on AMD. It brings up to 16 heterogeneous cores to deliver improved performance experiences.