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Thanks! That is more than I expected. FWIW I tried to install Valorant in a VM recently (because I'm tired of installing the root-kit anti-cheat on my main PC

by cdata 5y ago

Thanks! That is more than I expected. FWIW I tried to install Valorant in a VM recently (because I'm tired of installing the root-kit anti-cheat on my main PC in order to play it). It simply fails to launch the anti-cheat, and so doesn't launch the game.

gnif 5y ago
Yes, unfortunately Valorant is one that blocks VM usage... not that it has helped them any.
- egeozcan 5y ago
  Anti-cheat measures end up blocking mostly the well-meaning players. I know it's sometimes too costly, but game studios should invest more on server-side security measures and mostly distrust the clients.
  - Cloudef 5y ago
    The anti-cheat systems end up really just being more menance than use. Tons of money burned on something that cheaters will get around anyways.
    - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
      It's one of those 'keeping honest people honest' things, of it were even easier I think even more people would do it?
      - Cloudef 5y ago
        They keep honest people from playing the game, unless you have clean install of windows with no blacklisted drivers or software installed. Not to mention how these things basically hook themselves to critical system APIs, acting more like a malware. Valorant is probably worst example of this. Community run servers are the best form of "anti-cheat". The problem is that developers treat PC like a locked console. This is just a completely fruitless uphill battle. PC gives power to its users, while consoles give power to the developers. PCs are designed to not sandbox or lock you, you can do anything with them without having to break its sandbox first. The mindset with the developers that deploy intrusive anti-cheat is to have the users locked in so they can ship their centralized server model and hope they can deal with the hopefully lesser amount of cheaters themselves, instead of giving the moderation power to the users themselves.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    But distrusting the client doesn’t solve the problem. If a user can see through a wall locally how can ‘distrusting’ anything fix that? What is there to distrust? All inputs are genuine.
    - Sebb767 5y ago
      > If a user can see through a wall locally how can ‘distrusting’ anything fix that? The fact that the client can remove the wall and see something behind it is due to the fact that the client is trusted to do the hiding. An untrusted client would not receive the enemy position until the enemy is visible. This, however, comes with the drawback that the server needs to do the culling - That's why pretty much nobody does it right now. Aimhacks would still be possible, of course, but client-side anti-cheat can't prevent those either.
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        Right it’s not a realistic suggestion as not even the client does it in software!
        CyberDildonics 5y ago
        Why do you think that? The server needs to at the very least trace a line for a shot. There is nothing difficult or slow about that. Before you say that it is done with a z-buffer or something similar, think about third person camera angles or how older games did the same thing. You might want to pull back on being so certain if you don't have experience with game engines or graphics.
        chrisseaton 5y ago
        > Why do you think that? The server needs to at the very least trace a line for a shot. There is nothing difficult or slow about that. Before you say that it is done with a z-buffer or something similar, think about third person camera angles or how older games did the same thing. You might want to pull back on being so certain if you don't have experience with game engines or graphics. But... it is done with a z-buffer. If an opponent is obscured behind a nearby pillar or something, that's not going to be culled in software - that's done by the hardware z-buffer as part of the render process. You can see this for yourself if you look at a game being run with wireframe rendering. You'll see it's in the same render node so it's still rendered - it's just obscured by closer geometry. And it's how some cheats actually work - they basically turn the wireframe back on! 'Tracing a shot' is casting one single ray. For example read this article someone else linked https://technology.riotgames.com/news/demolishing-wallhacks-valorants-fog-war https://technology.riotgames.com/news/demolishing-wallhacks-... and look at the last animation.
ShinyRice 5y ago
If you enable nested virtualization in your host and shove Valorant in a VM with Hyper-V (through what I believe is a feature in Windows, but forgot the name) Valorant should actually run. Or at least it did a few months ago, not sure if it does work now. Worth a try.

by cdata 5y ago

gnif 5y ago

Yes, unfortunately Valorant is one that blocks VM usage... not that it has helped them any.

egeozcan 5y ago
Anti-cheat measures end up blocking mostly the well-meaning players. I know it's sometimes too costly, but game studios should invest more on server-side security measures and mostly distrust the clients.
- Cloudef 5y ago
  The anti-cheat systems end up really just being more menance than use. Tons of money burned on something that cheaters will get around anyways.
  - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
    It's one of those 'keeping honest people honest' things, of it were even easier I think even more people would do it?
    - Cloudef 5y ago
      They keep honest people from playing the game, unless you have clean install of windows with no blacklisted drivers or software installed. Not to mention how these things basically hook themselves to critical system APIs, acting more like a malware. Valorant is probably worst example of this. Community run servers are the best form of "anti-cheat". The problem is that developers treat PC like a locked console. This is just a completely fruitless uphill battle. PC gives power to its users, while consoles give power to the developers. PCs are designed to not sandbox or lock you, you can do anything with them without having to break its sandbox first. The mindset with the developers that deploy intrusive anti-cheat is to have the users locked in so they can ship their centralized server model and hope they can deal with the hopefully lesser amount of cheaters themselves, instead of giving the moderation power to the users themselves.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  But distrusting the client doesn’t solve the problem. If a user can see through a wall locally how can ‘distrusting’ anything fix that? What is there to distrust? All inputs are genuine.
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    > If a user can see through a wall locally how can ‘distrusting’ anything fix that? The fact that the client can remove the wall and see something behind it is due to the fact that the client is trusted to do the hiding. An untrusted client would not receive the enemy position until the enemy is visible. This, however, comes with the drawback that the server needs to do the culling - That's why pretty much nobody does it right now. Aimhacks would still be possible, of course, but client-side anti-cheat can't prevent those either.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      Right it’s not a realistic suggestion as not even the client does it in software!
      - CyberDildonics 5y ago
        Why do you think that? The server needs to at the very least trace a line for a shot. There is nothing difficult or slow about that. Before you say that it is done with a z-buffer or something similar, think about third person camera angles or how older games did the same thing. You might want to pull back on being so certain if you don't have experience with game engines or graphics.
        chrisseaton 5y ago
        > Why do you think that? The server needs to at the very least trace a line for a shot. There is nothing difficult or slow about that. Before you say that it is done with a z-buffer or something similar, think about third person camera angles or how older games did the same thing. You might want to pull back on being so certain if you don't have experience with game engines or graphics. But... it is done with a z-buffer. If an opponent is obscured behind a nearby pillar or something, that's not going to be culled in software - that's done by the hardware z-buffer as part of the render process. You can see this for yourself if you look at a game being run with wireframe rendering. You'll see it's in the same render node so it's still rendered - it's just obscured by closer geometry. And it's how some cheats actually work - they basically turn the wireframe back on! 'Tracing a shot' is casting one single ray. For example read this article someone else linked https://technology.riotgames.com/news/demolishing-wallhacks-valorants-fog-war https://technology.riotgames.com/news/demolishing-wallhacks-... and look at the last animation.

ShinyRice 5y ago

If you enable nested virtualization in your host and shove Valorant in a VM with Hyper-V (through what I believe is a feature in Windows, but forgot the name) Valorant should actually run. Or at least it did a few months ago, not sure if it does work now. Worth a try.