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Until Linux has an alternative to anticheat, gaming on Windows is still king. And until Linux implements similar abstractions in the Kernel akin to Filter Driv

Until Linux has an alternative to anticheat, gaming on Windows is still king. And until Linux implements similar abstractions in the Kernel akin to Filter Drivers in Windows, Linux will never have a proper anticheat.

bmandale 9mo ago
This is begging the question. Games on linux lack kernel anticheat because linux isn't very popular. Once linux is popular enough, then they will figure out a way to do anti cheat on it in a way that they consider acceptable. Valve already considers VAC good enough, because they want to support linux. Anti cheat on windows works the way it does because that's what's available on windows, on linux they'll figure out some other way.
singpolyma3 9mo ago
Anticheat is sloppy engineering
mjevans 9mo ago
Linux has working EAC. Any software not working on Linux is a Policy decision by the seller, not lacking features on the buyer. Oh and rootkit level EAC? Expect that to go away on Windows too when MS finally gets sick of Crowdstrike and that ilk causing self inflicted Denial of Service attacks on whole economic sectors.
- hedora 9mo ago
  They can’t kick Crowdstrike out without permission from the EU. It’s one of the bigger failures of antitrust enforcement I can think of (I can think of much larger screw ups involving lack of antitrust enforcement, to be clear.)
  - immibis 9mo ago
    Good. Microsoft should have absolutely no legal right to stop people from fixing, breaking, or otherwise modifying their own computers, including by installing buggy "security" placebos.
drnick1 9mo ago
The anticheat needs to be server-side to be credible, i.e. the game should be designed to only provide the information that client needs for fair play. I know this isn't easy, but it should be the goal.
- Dwedit 9mo ago
  Client still needs to know coordinates of opponents and other objects that could be in their view within the next 200ms, and once the client knows those, a cheating client can reveal opponent positions. You can't enforce that server side without adding huge mandatory lag to all clients.
  - abuob 9mo ago
    But you can detect serverside (at least probabilistically) if a user is abusing it to their advantage. Some Valve guy gave a great talk about their cheating detection a while back; I found it incredibly impressive: https://youtu.be/ObhK8lUfIlc https://youtu.be/ObhK8lUfIlc (can't comment on their effectiveness these days, haven't played CS in a long time)
    - Dwedit 9mo ago
      The problem with building a secret profile on players based on undisclosed metrics is that could be flagging legitimate programming tools as "risk". What if a programmer who likes to hack and mod other games decides to play a Valve game? You don't know how their "risk" score is calculated. For example, I've seen other programs refuse to run if you had Sysinternals Procmon running, or various standalone debuggers. Would you be deemed a "risky" user if you used tools like that?
      - drnick1 9mo ago
        Having watched that video, their newer ML-based anti-cheat does not seem to rely on inspecting running processes. It is based on data surrounding when a gun is fired in the game (a certain number of ticks before and after), and the classifier is initially trained on human-reviewed "killcams." But the classifier probably takes into account other data too, for example new Steam accounts with only CS in it would probably be classified as "high risk." On the other hand someone who has had their account for a long time and has paid games in it is far less likely too cheat.
haswell 9mo ago
I think “king” may be overstating it somewhat. While it’s true that there are some big titles with anticheat that won’t work on Linux, there are quite a few major titles that work fine, and in practice I’ve been able to use Linux as a gaming system for awhile now without issue. I primarily play Overwatch, The Finals, ARC Raiders, Rocket League and Age of Empires. I think the success of the Steam Deck has really helped the situation, and the titles that are broken because of anticheat are not important enough to me to keep a Windows system around.
- kranke155 9mo ago
  This is huge. I work in filmmaking and CG and a few apps still aren’t on Linux. I might just move anyway though. I’m so done with it.
  - ErroneousBosh 9mo ago
    If you use DaVinci Resolve and Blender, you'll be switching to the native versions and away from the rather half-assed Windows ports.
    - kranke155 9mo ago
      The industry is extremely reluctant to change to Blender. I do use it but we need other applications.
wolvoleo 9mo ago
Not all gaming is multiplayer. But I know what you mean. Another niche that really doesn't go well on Linux is VR.
- wlesieutre 9mo ago
  Steam Frame coming this year, I’m sure Valve is throwing money at the Linux VR situation
  - wolvoleo 9mo ago
    I wonder if it's still coming. With the extreme memory pricing, I don't know if they can still sell it for a reasonable price.
myko 9mo ago
> Until Linux has an alternative to anticheat, gaming on Windows is still king. I'm glad none of the games that require this really appeal to me these days
ErroneousBosh 9mo ago
> Until Linux has an alternative to anticheat, gaming on Windows is still king. Name one thing that needs it.
j1elo 9mo ago
Recent attacks on Ubisoft and Rainbow Six Siege have brought some interesting concern about the wisdom of having basically a kernel backdoor to the whole system installed and ready to be accessed in case of a company breach (not that this particular attack could allow that, but future scenarios might very well convert the user base into a botnet) Not sure how much gamers with a modicum of awareness (already a minority) will care, but the risk is there. We could paraphrase that famous line to say that "The 'S' in 'Kernel anticheat' stands for Security".
scotty79 9mo ago
To be honest, competitive online games are a small fraction of gaming and are more addictive than fun. I don't mind Windows being relegated to a niche of the stuff that runs CS while Linux based OS works for every other purpose.
immibis 9mo ago
Anticheat blocks Linux deliberately. Its whole point is to check if you're running an unmodified copy of Microsoft Windows. Linux is not one, so unless it gets really really good at deception, it won't pass those checks. It doesn't just check if a cheat process is running, because obviously cheats know not to let themselves be discoverable that way. Heck, there are hardware cheats now that simulate various PCIe devices but with extra sneaky DMA operations. (I bought one because it's a cheap way to have an FPGA in my computer) It's a political problem, though. They don't pass Linux because few people don't buy their games just because they refuse to run on Linux. If people did do that, they'd have to change the anticheat, no matter the consequences. Probably higher cheating, since there is no true official blessed unmodified Linux system to compare against.

bmandale 9mo ago

This is begging the question. Games on linux lack kernel anticheat because linux isn't very popular. Once linux is popular enough, then they will figure out a way to do anti cheat on it in a way that they consider acceptable. Valve already considers VAC good enough, because they want to support linux. Anti cheat on windows works the way it does because that's what's available on windows, on linux they'll figure out some other way.

singpolyma3 9mo ago

Anticheat is sloppy engineering

mjevans 9mo ago

Linux has working EAC. Any software not working on Linux is a Policy decision by the seller, not lacking features on the buyer. Oh and rootkit level EAC? Expect that to go away on Windows too when MS finally gets sick of Crowdstrike and that ilk causing self inflicted Denial of Service attacks on whole economic sectors.

hedora 9mo ago
They can’t kick Crowdstrike out without permission from the EU. It’s one of the bigger failures of antitrust enforcement I can think of (I can think of much larger screw ups involving lack of antitrust enforcement, to be clear.)
- immibis 9mo ago
  Good. Microsoft should have absolutely no legal right to stop people from fixing, breaking, or otherwise modifying their own computers, including by installing buggy "security" placebos.

drnick1 9mo ago

The anticheat needs to be server-side to be credible, i.e. the game should be designed to only provide the information that client needs for fair play. I know this isn't easy, but it should be the goal.

Dwedit 9mo ago
Client still needs to know coordinates of opponents and other objects that could be in their view within the next 200ms, and once the client knows those, a cheating client can reveal opponent positions. You can't enforce that server side without adding huge mandatory lag to all clients.
- abuob 9mo ago
  But you can detect serverside (at least probabilistically) if a user is abusing it to their advantage. Some Valve guy gave a great talk about their cheating detection a while back; I found it incredibly impressive: https://youtu.be/ObhK8lUfIlc https://youtu.be/ObhK8lUfIlc (can't comment on their effectiveness these days, haven't played CS in a long time)
  - Dwedit 9mo ago
    The problem with building a secret profile on players based on undisclosed metrics is that could be flagging legitimate programming tools as "risk". What if a programmer who likes to hack and mod other games decides to play a Valve game? You don't know how their "risk" score is calculated. For example, I've seen other programs refuse to run if you had Sysinternals Procmon running, or various standalone debuggers. Would you be deemed a "risky" user if you used tools like that?
    - drnick1 9mo ago
      Having watched that video, their newer ML-based anti-cheat does not seem to rely on inspecting running processes. It is based on data surrounding when a gun is fired in the game (a certain number of ticks before and after), and the classifier is initially trained on human-reviewed "killcams." But the classifier probably takes into account other data too, for example new Steam accounts with only CS in it would probably be classified as "high risk." On the other hand someone who has had their account for a long time and has paid games in it is far less likely too cheat.

haswell 9mo ago

I think “king” may be overstating it somewhat. While it’s true that there are some big titles with anticheat that won’t work on Linux, there are quite a few major titles that work fine, and in practice I’ve been able to use Linux as a gaming system for awhile now without issue. I primarily play Overwatch, The Finals, ARC Raiders, Rocket League and Age of Empires. I think the success of the Steam Deck has really helped the situation, and the titles that are broken because of anticheat are not important enough to me to keep a Windows system around.

kranke155 9mo ago
This is huge. I work in filmmaking and CG and a few apps still aren’t on Linux. I might just move anyway though. I’m so done with it.
- ErroneousBosh 9mo ago
  If you use DaVinci Resolve and Blender, you'll be switching to the native versions and away from the rather half-assed Windows ports.
  - kranke155 9mo ago
    The industry is extremely reluctant to change to Blender. I do use it but we need other applications.

wolvoleo 9mo ago

Not all gaming is multiplayer. But I know what you mean. Another niche that really doesn't go well on Linux is VR.

wlesieutre 9mo ago
Steam Frame coming this year, I’m sure Valve is throwing money at the Linux VR situation
- wolvoleo 9mo ago
  I wonder if it's still coming. With the extreme memory pricing, I don't know if they can still sell it for a reasonable price.

myko 9mo ago

> Until Linux has an alternative to anticheat, gaming on Windows is still king. I'm glad none of the games that require this really appeal to me these days

ErroneousBosh 9mo ago

> Until Linux has an alternative to anticheat, gaming on Windows is still king. Name one thing that needs it.

j1elo 9mo ago

Recent attacks on Ubisoft and Rainbow Six Siege have brought some interesting concern about the wisdom of having basically a kernel backdoor to the whole system installed and ready to be accessed in case of a company breach (not that this particular attack could allow that, but future scenarios might very well convert the user base into a botnet) Not sure how much gamers with a modicum of awareness (already a minority) will care, but the risk is there. We could paraphrase that famous line to say that "The 'S' in 'Kernel anticheat' stands for Security".

scotty79 9mo ago

To be honest, competitive online games are a small fraction of gaming and are more addictive than fun. I don't mind Windows being relegated to a niche of the stuff that runs CS while Linux based OS works for every other purpose.

immibis 9mo ago

Anticheat blocks Linux deliberately. Its whole point is to check if you're running an unmodified copy of Microsoft Windows. Linux is not one, so unless it gets really really good at deception, it won't pass those checks. It doesn't just check if a cheat process is running, because obviously cheats know not to let themselves be discoverable that way. Heck, there are hardware cheats now that simulate various PCIe devices but with extra sneaky DMA operations. (I bought one because it's a cheap way to have an FPGA in my computer) It's a political problem, though. They don't pass Linux because few people don't buy their games just because they refuse to run on Linux. If people did do that, they'd have to change the anticheat, no matter the consequences. Probably higher cheating, since there is no true official blessed unmodified Linux system to compare against.