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I would love it if somebody could verify Death Stranding for us. I've been playing it a lot recently on Steam, and I've been absolutely loving it, so if it really is DRM-free through the Epic Store, I would definitely double dip during a sale. I would especially love to know if you can actually load and save your data when you're not playing through the Epic client, since a lot of DRM-free games on there do work, but don't let you save or continue your progress.
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Gognarok: it's not really cracking if you execute a game with an additional commandline parameter (-epicportal for example) or put an textfile with an application id in it (steam_appid txt) within the game folder.
A community manager of Satisfactory also described the Epic version of the game as DRM-free and recommended using -epicportal to those wishing to use an earlier version of the game to preserve their factories after a large update to the functions of the buildings.
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Gognarok: it's not really cracking if you execute a game with an additional commandline parameter (-epicportal for example) or put an textfile with an application id in it (steam_appid txt) within the game folder.
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Roze: A community manager of Satisfactory also described the Epic version of the game as DRM-free and recommended using -epicportal to those wishing to use an earlier version of the game to preserve their factories after a large update to the functions of the buildings.
thanks for confirmation.
Post edited March 30, 2021 by Gognarok
I took a quick look into the EGS GalCiv 3. The game is possible to play without EGS and appears to come with five DLCs, two of which are listed as expansions. The Map Pack, Mega Events, and Builder's Kit are the smaller DLCs, the big two appear to be the Crusade and Retribution expansions.

So point of interest, I tested this by renaming the folder my EGS client was in, rather than renaming the EGS dll I mentioned in a prior post. The game functions like some Steam titles in our other list in this case. If the client is visible to the program to boot then it will do so, but if not it then doesn't concern itself. Touching the dll will force it to not boot however. The current EGS version as of this test is v4.1 for reference.


Also can we tag an update on Foregone? The game is in full release now and still drm-free as of v1.0..2.17. And lastly I second pedrovay2003's post, any solid confirmation on Death Stranding would be neat.
I just checked some games I bought and alien insolation can be played without epic games with the epic command while saints row the third remastered doesn't even start epic games launcher
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DosFreak: For Ark only the base game works with the switch
Is this true? I could have sworn I tried it and got the DLC to load without a problem. From what I've seen, if your Epic launcher library actually tells you how many DLCs you have for a game, then the DLC will work without the launcher running. If it's a game like 20XX, which has DLC but you're not explicitly told that on your library page, then it won't load without the launcher running.

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rojoredepcion: I just checked some games I bought and alien insolation can be played without epic games with the epic command while saints row the third remastered doesn't even start epic games launcher
Alien: Isolation was touched on earlier in the thread. It starts without the Epic launcher, but functionally, it has a lot of issues.
Post edited January 24, 2021 by pedrovay2003
Anyone know if Football Manager 2021 is drm free on Epic? . Only 2020 version is on spreadsheet
Does requires Epic launcher mean it has drm? (in this case Denuvo :( )
Post edited January 25, 2021 by Niggles
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DosFreak: For Ark only the base game works with the switch
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pedrovay2003: Is this true? I could have sworn I tried it and got the DLC to load without a problem. From what I've seen, if your Epic launcher library actually tells you how many DLCs you have for a game, then the DLC will work without the launcher running. If it's a game like 20XX, which has DLC but you're not explicitly told that on your library page, then it won't load without the launcher running.

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rojoredepcion: I just checked some games I bought and alien insolation can be played without epic games with the epic command while saints row the third remastered doesn't even start epic games launcher
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pedrovay2003: Alien: Isolation was touched on earlier in the thread. It starts without the Epic launcher, but functionally, it has a lot of issues.
Interesting, what functionality issues does it have?
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Truth007: Interesting, what functionality issues does it have?
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/epic_store_games_you_can_play_without_the_epic_launcher/post335
I have been archieving a few selected DRM free Epic games and while zipping (I actually used 7z format) some games compressed very well, savings lots of space while others do not, making a 30 minutes compression job pretty much wasted.
As an exemple, Cities Skylines went from 12.2 Gb to 6.2Gb, while most Batman games didn't compress in any meaningful way.

Is kinda unfair to sugest more work to AB2012 but my sugestion would be adding two columns with the both download size and compressed size (that would be dependent on type of file and compression, making things a little messy), or, more realistic, a simple extra column with a simple mention if it compresses or not.

What you guys/ gals think? Specialy our kind host AB2012?
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Dark_art_: What you guys/ gals think? Specialy our kind host AB2012?
I don't mind adding columns if people think that will be useful for backup purposes, though as you said it's going to be hard to maintain consistency given different people use .zip vs .rar vs .7z as well as half a dozen different settings within each method (compression level, word size, dictionary size, solid block vs non-solid, etc) and different people will inevitably measure it in different ways. Some may even use InnoSetup to create installers instead of zip files. It sounds like it would get very messy & time-consuming having to write a comment detailing how it was measured for every entry, then have to update it on every patch.

I know a lot of people prefer to zip everything up anyway (regardless of how well a game does / doesn't compress) as it's then easier to create an .md5 hash file of just that zip file rather than an entire directory tree of tens of thousands of files, making it much faster & easier to see if the backed up zip has changed / copied correctly, eg, when moving from an old backup drive to a new one. What does everyone else here think?
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AB2012:
Batman Arkham Knight is 67Gb and fully load the 12 thread CPU to compress to 7z with standard settings (just right click -> 7-zip -> add to "filename".7z), ETA 1h10min O.o
Zip seems to be faster, only load 1 core but is quite hard on the SSD.
This just depends on whether the game itself uses compressed resources. There can be performance (dis)advantages for both cases, so different companies handle it differently.

As far as file size goes, the download of a game will always be compressed. The game client already does that for you. But the install size on disk can be much larger, for above reason. If you compress the game install yourself, you can often save some room, but that will be close to the download size.

For me, an extra column will have no use. I compress it to have it saved as one file. Though having many files on disk is not nearly as slow as in the HDD days, it still has advantages. I don't care that much if it saves a lot of space. Spending 30 mins compressing is never a waste for me because I don't do it for the size. Of course, an extra column wouldn't bother me either, but I will not provide updates for the list about that.
I create installers for all my DRM free launcher games.
I checked Ark again and you can play the base game with -epicportal but for the DLC you'll need to use Nemirtingas Epic Emulator.

Who knows when the game dll will get updated so it breaks but as of 1/27/2021 it works with the emulator.
Post edited January 28, 2021 by DosFreak