Gigabyte has released the Gigabyte DRM Fix Tool that allows Gigabyte Z690 motherboard owners to easily and quickly park or unpark the E-cores (Gracemont) inside Alder Lake processors.
It was widely known even before Alder Lake's announcement that the 12th Generation Core processors weren't going to play nice with old games which use DRM. In a nutshell, Alder Lake's hybrid microarchitecture fools DRM solutions, such as Denuvo into thinking that two different systems are simultaneously running the same game with the same key.
Obviously, a simple update from the game developer's behalf is sufficient to fix the compatibility issues with Alder Lake. To be realistic, it's unlikely that developers will go through the hassle of updating all their titles for Alder Lake, especially those that are a couple years old.
Luckily, motherboard vendors have implemented an option to disable the Gracemont cores in Alder Lake. The problem is that the option resides inside the motherboard's BIOS, which could be an overwhelming place for less experience users. It's even a nuisance for veteran users since you have to manually restart the system, enable the option and restart again. It's a process that you have to do endure every time you want to play an old game with a DRM that doesn't like Alder Lake.
The Gigabyte DRM Fix Tool, which weights less than one megabyte and doesn't require installation, facilitates the task to park and unpark the E-cores. The bad news is that the software is exclusive to Gigabyte Z690 motherboards. The only requirement is that the motherboard must be running the latest firmware. You can find the DRM Fix Tool on Gigabyte's website.
Gigabyte Z690 Motherboards
| Motherboard | Firmware |
|---|---|
| Z690 Aorus Elite AX DDR4 | F6a |
| Z690 Aero D | F5a |
| Z690 Aero G | F4b |
| Z690 Aero G DDR4 | F6a |
| Z690 Aorus Elite | F4a |
| Z690 Aorus Elite AX | F5a |
| Z690 Aorus Elite DDR4 | F5a |
| Z690 Aorus Master | F6b |
| Z690 Aorus Pro | F6a |
| Z690 Aorus Pro DDR4 | F6a |
| Z690 Aorus Tachyon | F3a |
| Z690 Aorus Ultra | F5a |
| Z690 Aorus Xtreme | F5a |
| Z690 Aorus Xtreme WaterForce | F4a |
| Z690 Gaming X | F5a |
| Z690 Gaming X DDR4 | F6a |
| Z690I Aorus Ultra | F4a |
| Z690I Aorus Ultra DDR4 | F5a |
| Z690M Aorus Elite AX DDR4 | F5a |
| Z690M Aorus Elite DDR4 | F5a |
| Z690M DS3H DDR4 | F2a |
| Z690 UD | F5a |
| Z690 UD AC | F5a |
| Z690 UD AX | F5a |
| Z690 UD AX DDR4 | F5a |
| Z690 UD DDR4 | F5a |
