Old Rockstar Games Might Be Broken Because Of Anti-Piracy Measures

thegamer.com:

If you've ever felt that old Rockstar games perform poorly on PC, you're not alone. Many fans have long complained of performance issues, but it had largely been put down to their age, and the fact that they're having to run on operating systems that didn't exist when they were released. That, however, might not be the reason at all.

Fans online have found evidence of what appears to be cracked game files in the official releases of Max Payne 2, Midnight Club 2, and Manhunt. According to dataminers, this means that the game contains files from a pirated version of the game, cracked by third parties trying to get around anti-piracy measures. However, because these files exist in the game, this might be triggering Rockstar's own anti-piracy features, even though it's a legitimately purchased copy of the game.

Related: Why Is Rockstar So Committed To Doing The Bare Minimum For Its Old Games?

According to Twitter user, game developer and modder Silent, this all stems from files found in the code. In the example below, they show a file found in Midnight Club 2 reading "Razor 1911" - the name of a software cracking group. Presumably, this means that the Steam port isn't based on the legitimate release of the game, but rather a pirated version available online. This may be due to Rockstar losing the necessary files to release it officially.

The same issue is apparently present in Manhunt, as documented towards the end of a video from YouTuber Vadim M. Here, it becomes clear that there are a lot of similarities between the Steam release of Manhunt and a pirated version from Razor 1911 released in 2004. Issues are nearly identical, including the fact that they didn't work on Vista - which was released after the cracked version.