zlacker

>>evolve+(OP)
> and modern multiplayer games with anti-cheat simply do not work through a translation layer, something Valve hopes will change in the future.

Although this is true for most games it is worth noting that it isn't universally true. Usermode anti-cheat does sometimes work verbatim in Wine, and some anti-cheat software has Proton support, though not all developers elect to enable it.

>>jchw+UO2
It works in the sense it allows you to run the game; but it does not prevent cheating. Obviously, Window's kernel anti-cheet is also only partially effective anyway, but the point of open-source is to give you control which includes cheating if you want to. Linux's profiling is just too good; full well documented sources for all libraries and kernel, even the graphics are running through easier to understand translation layers rather than signed blobs.

>>ZiiS+TR2
These things do not prevent cheating at all. They are merely a remote control system that they can send instructions to look for known cheats. Cheating still exists and will always exist in online games.

You can be clever and build a random memory allocator. You can get clever and watch for frozen struct members after a known set operation, what you can’t do is prevent all cheating. There’s device layer, driver layer, MITM, emulation, and even now AI mouse control.

The only thing you can do is watch for it and send the ban hammer. Valve has a wonderful write up about client-side prediction recording so as to verify killcam shots were indeed, kill shots, and not aim bots (but this method is great for seeing those in action as well!)

>>reacto+gZ2
> These things do not prevent cheating at all.

I feel like this is the same as saying "seatbelts don't prevent car accident deaths at all", just because people still die in car accidents while wearing seat belts.

Just because something isn't 100% effective doesn't mean it doesn't provide value. There is a LOT less cheating in games with good anti-cheat, and it is much more pleasant to play those games because of it. There is a benefit to making it harder to cheat, even if it doesn't make it impossible.

>>cortes+Lx3
I don't think that analogy holds because the environment isn't actively in an arms race against seatbelts.

The qualifier "good" for "good anti-cheat" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. What was once good enough is now laughably inadequate. We have followed that thread to its logical conclusion with the introduction of kernel-level anti-cheat. That has proven to be insufficient, unsurprisingly, and, given enough time, the act of bypassing kernel-level anti-cheat will become commoditized just like every other anti-cheat prior.

>>SeanAn+5O3
No. The same way piracy has been diminished in the mainstream by years of lawsuits and jailtime against the loudest most available sources, the strongest anti-cheats have suppressed the easiest and cheapest paths to cheating on AAA games. Piracy hasn't gone away, but the number of people doing it peaked last decade.

Anti-cheat makers doesn't need to eliminate cheating completely, they just need to capture enough cheating (and ban unpredictably) that average people are mostly discouraged. As long as cheat-creators have to scurry around in secrecy and guard their implementations until the implementation is caught, the "good" cheats will never be a commodity on mainstream well-funded games with good anti-cheat.

Cheat-creators have to do the hard hacking and put their livelihoods on the line, they make kids pay up for that.