• 0 Posts
  • 7 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 6th, 2023

help-circle
  • Client side anti-cheat is inherently flawed. These games are asking an untrusted computer whether it is cheating. That’s like asking a known liar whether they’re lying at that moment. The one way to make it harder for the computer to “lie” is by increasing the permissions the AC has, which comes at the cost of privacy for people with the game, and security for every Windows user (not just the ones with a certain game installed).

    Client side anti-cheat can be poked and investigated locally, with no restrictions. All it takes a skilled enough cheater is time, and they will bypass it. The only way to test server side anti-cheat is by hopping in the game, trying to learn how it works, and trying to bypass it. That is a much more time consuming and expensive process.



  • On the Steam Deck, while using SteamOS (or other Linux distros), EAC (and a few others like Battleye) run in userspace, not as kernel level.

    The intention of Anti-Cheat and DRM is to hide what they’re doing, in an attempt to prevent people from cheating or pirating. Malware often uses similar techniques to hide what it’s doing.

    Kernel level Anti-Cheat runs with the highest level of permission on your system, meaning it has access to everything happening on your PC, and all your hardware.

    That means kernel level Anti-Cheat can do whatever it wants on your computer, and it’s intentionally hard to figure out what it’s doing. Even though it’s probably not harmful, it shares a lot of similarities with actual malware, and we can’t be fully sure whether it is harmful or not. This is why a lot of people are against kernel level Anti-Cheat.

    EAC, afaik, has acted as just an anti cheat, and is therefore likely not harmful to your system. However, like other Anti-Cheats, it is harmful with the standards being set.


  • That’s, very odd. Just watched the bit about TP2 in the video, and I’m getting nowhere near that on my Steam Deck (non-oled).

    Setting everything to low, and FSR performance, it looks awful. There’s very obvious upscaling artifacting, especially during motion. Performance is playable at about 30-40 fps, except in the “starting hub” of the game, where performance can dip to 10fps at times (although no real gameplay occurs there).

    With everything being set so low, LODs are clearly visible, even on the small screen. Gaps in signs, thin walls, and stairs are visible from ~5 in game meters away.

    On the settings they show in the video, with a fresh save, I get similar numbers in the first couple minutes of the game, but FPS tanks after that. On a save further into the game, I’m getting maybe 20fps (50 when staring at the floor).

    The game is still very playable on the lowest settings, and if you’re into puzzle games like The Talos Principle, it’s still a good experience. I’m not normally one to stream my games from my PC, but The Talos Principle 2 is just a better experience with more powerful hardware.