The Anti-Cheat Dilemma: A New Hope for Linux Gamers?

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2w ago

The Anti-Cheat Dilemma: A New Hope for Linux Gamers?

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27 comments

No game needs access to my kernel. The games that require it are usually mtx farms and not worth playing in the first place.
There is no "dilemma" here. There is no solution or compromise to be found here. Kernel level anti-cheat systems are simply not needed. While the games the tout them figure that out I'll simply play all the other ones that already have figured it out.
- Exactly. It's a "cheap", hands-off system (with the added benefit of being able to collect massive amounts of data to be sold - surely no one would ever do that clutches pearls) that makes people think the game doesn't have cheaters because "it's impossible" (it isn't). You give deep access to your system and the only thing you get in return is people complaining about smurfs instead of cheaters when they get absolutely wrecked.
- This is the truth right here.
- Which games are those ?
  
  Off the top of my head: Anything Valve (CS2, Dota 2, Deadlock, TF2), the entire Civilization series and Arma 3. Last time I played them Starcraft, Overwatch 2 and Valorant worked fine as well, though it has been a while and I don't know if they've gone the way of Apex Legends since then.
  
  tetrio and osu are competitive games that don't have kernel anticheat
Fuck off with kernel level anti cheat, its just spyware anyway.
There has never been a game I wanted to play so much that I would allow this. I did play SW:TOR for a while (on windows) when I had the UAC disabled. One I reenabled it I realized it was selling C admin level privileges each time it launched. I uninstalled it that day.
I absolutely would use a "trusted gaming mode," even if that meant a separate partition just for those few games that need it.
I'm not familiar enough with the technical aspects of how kernels and bootloaders handle the various launch procedures to ensure they haven't or aren't being tampered with, but I think your idea sounds like a good compromise between, "It's my Linux to modify," and, "It's my Linux to use." There's not exactly a ton of games that require anti-cheat, so I think giving up a little freedom for those few games (which you would be anyway, due to anti-cheat) with a separate mode/system is justifiable.
- its all one kernel having a seperate partition wont work i think itd just be game files that are seperate but its loading drivers into your kernel its the same kernel everywhere
  
  I think they might have meant a separate partition with it's own install
I think what they're suggesting is literally just kernel anti-cheat itself. Am I missing something?
- I think the only part missing is the proposal to limit it to a specialised, isolated distribution, that people would dual-boot specifically just for those titles. That's how I understood the idea.
  
  If I wanted to reboot to play a particular game, I can do that now without anyone bringing KAC to Linux. I have found that I won't reboot just to do a single activity, I will avoid that activity.
  Which in this case is fine, because I avoid kernal level anti-cheat like the plague in principle. It doesn't actually work and gives far more access to my system than I am willing to some random game dev/publisher just so they can claim the game doesn't have cheaters (and the playerbase complains about smurfs instead of hackers because they drink the KAC koolaid).
  
  You can always do that though since you can dualboot to whatever other system you want. I thought their idea was to have a mode you turn on and off in your main system, but I think that's just how kernel anti-cheat would already work.
I just don't play the that won't work on Linux + they are most of the time made by greedy companies
I have hope for running games on Linux that are currently blocked by anti-cheat.. but zero hope for client-side anti-cheat to stop cheating. It's not as if Windows has stopped cheating. A win eventually becomes a loss as the cheat-makers adapt.
I am so fucking tired of this discussion.
https://areweanticheatyet.com/
Go, go, look through this list.
With the exception of a few proprietary ACs, or just ancient ones...
Nearly every single AC has at least one, if not multiple, or even many instances of properly working on a game that runs on linux.
EAC and BattlEye have supported linux for 3 years now.
3 years.
Gonna be 4 in a couple months.
Its part of the liscensing that game studios pay for, they offer and support making builds that work on linux via Proton, offer to help game devs with any tweaks they may need to make.
This is, and has for years, just been as simple as management is telling devs not to bother with the fairly minor effort it would take to do this, at least with EAC and BattleEye.
AC works on linux, it doesn't need to finger fuck your kernel to do so.
Its just that most game developers (lets be real, their upper management / C Suite), only want to fully go in raw, or not at all, and Windows is giving it up on the reg.

27 comments