4 ms·

Why would this be considered an illegal cheat? In a networked game, shouldn't the only determinative factor be whose input arrives at the server first?

tremon 3y ago
My guess: this changes the timing profile of the overall game/engine. If the engine monitors itself for erratic/unexpected delays, it may conclude that it's running under a debugger if certain procedures take far longer (or shorter) than they should.
- Sakos 3y ago
  You can literally check if something has attached itself to your executable or replaced a DLL. No need to check for timings or anything particularly elaborate.
  - rcxdude 3y ago
    Cheats will of course attempt to disguise such tampering
serf 3y ago
'weird' i/o hooks and erratic timing are big red flags for anti-cheats.
SXX 3y ago
In this particular case anything hooking itself into game code is considered cheating.
- noduerme 3y ago
  Ah, so it's considered a "bot" because the game is expecting something to reach the display before a human responded? The card isn't doing any network input, so something must be checking if the state was blitted before the human response...(?!)
  - diath 3y ago
    It's considered a "bot" because it injects its own code into the game itself, which is what cheats do.
  - SXX 3y ago
    It's not considered bot or anything. It's just Valve forbids any software signed or unsigned to mess with game executable, data or memory without being specifically whitelisted. Why? Because even if software doing this is legitimate it's can still be used by actual cheaters by patching it.
    - Waterluvian 3y ago
      It’s a nice clear line in the sand. The program is a black box. Do not inspect or augment it.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - sa-code 3y ago
    Wall hacks are also a type of cheating that doesn't require changing your communication to the server
mort96 3y ago
The server doesn't always decide. It's common for shooters to want to guarantee that if it looks like you shot the other player on your screen, the game will react as if you shot the other player, even if the server would have considered it a miss due to timing differences. Those things can really only be done by trusting the client not to lie, which means verifying that the client hasn't been tampered with. Plus, there's a lot of cases where the server sends some pieces of information to the client but the user isn't supposed to see it. The locations of the other players is a common example, where people modify their client to render outlines of players through walls. That's a huge advantage but doesn't even affect anything hit registration related.
- Wowfunhappy 3y ago
  This makes me wonder—how much performance would you loose by taking a "distrusted client" approach, and only sending data that you want the player to know about? Could you make cheating basically impossible?
  - davikr 3y ago
    Valorant and Counter-Strike attempt to do this as much as they can, not sending information about enemies the player shouldn't be able to see. This is not flawless, though, probably due to performance or latency requirements. Iirc, Warzone also sends information about non-existing players to suspected cheaters to attempt detecting aimbots.
    - snailmailman 3y ago
      I think the client also receives information about non-visible-but-nearby players for things like footstep noises. In counter strike you can hear a person around the corner running around, reloading, etc. and I think in some cases you can shoot through thin walls at these players. Even if they are completely obscured from view.
      - filoleg 3y ago
dbttdft 3y ago
They are being banned for the game code being modified in memory, the anti cheat knows nothing about the fact that input latency was decreased. And no, reducing input latency is not considered a cheat, anywhere, no game does that.
- hypercube33 3y ago
  Yep exactly. It does remind me of the story of someone coming to quake con in the 90s though and using a "feature" of idtech game engines where it tied a lot of code to frame rate and thus once you get enough fps, time accelerated effectively for that player. I think it was ruled not a cheat for that season (I could be wrong it's been over 20 years) but discouraged for future years.
  - jfim 3y ago
    Not sure if that's what you're referring to, but quake 3 physics behaved differently based on the client frame rate. 125Hz made all of the physics steps round up when jumping, allowing for just a little extra height that allowed for some jumps.

tremon 3y ago

My guess: this changes the timing profile of the overall game/engine. If the engine monitors itself for erratic/unexpected delays, it may conclude that it's running under a debugger if certain procedures take far longer (or shorter) than they should.

Sakos 3y ago
You can literally check if something has attached itself to your executable or replaced a DLL. No need to check for timings or anything particularly elaborate.
- rcxdude 3y ago
  Cheats will of course attempt to disguise such tampering

serf 3y ago

'weird' i/o hooks and erratic timing are big red flags for anti-cheats.

SXX 3y ago

In this particular case anything hooking itself into game code is considered cheating.

noduerme 3y ago
Ah, so it's considered a "bot" because the game is expecting something to reach the display before a human responded? The card isn't doing any network input, so something must be checking if the state was blitted before the human response...(?!)
- diath 3y ago
  It's considered a "bot" because it injects its own code into the game itself, which is what cheats do.
- SXX 3y ago
  It's not considered bot or anything. It's just Valve forbids any software signed or unsigned to mess with game executable, data or memory without being specifically whitelisted. Why? Because even if software doing this is legitimate it's can still be used by actual cheaters by patching it.
  - Waterluvian 3y ago
    It’s a nice clear line in the sand. The program is a black box. Do not inspect or augment it.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- sa-code 3y ago
  Wall hacks are also a type of cheating that doesn't require changing your communication to the server

mort96 3y ago

The server doesn't always decide. It's common for shooters to want to guarantee that if it looks like you shot the other player on your screen, the game will react as if you shot the other player, even if the server would have considered it a miss due to timing differences. Those things can really only be done by trusting the client not to lie, which means verifying that the client hasn't been tampered with. Plus, there's a lot of cases where the server sends some pieces of information to the client but the user isn't supposed to see it. The locations of the other players is a common example, where people modify their client to render outlines of players through walls. That's a huge advantage but doesn't even affect anything hit registration related.

Wowfunhappy 3y ago
This makes me wonder—how much performance would you loose by taking a "distrusted client" approach, and only sending data that you want the player to know about? Could you make cheating basically impossible?
- davikr 3y ago
  Valorant and Counter-Strike attempt to do this as much as they can, not sending information about enemies the player shouldn't be able to see. This is not flawless, though, probably due to performance or latency requirements. Iirc, Warzone also sends information about non-existing players to suspected cheaters to attempt detecting aimbots.
  - snailmailman 3y ago
    I think the client also receives information about non-visible-but-nearby players for things like footstep noises. In counter strike you can hear a person around the corner running around, reloading, etc. and I think in some cases you can shoot through thin walls at these players. Even if they are completely obscured from view.
    - filoleg 3y ago

dbttdft 3y ago

They are being banned for the game code being modified in memory, the anti cheat knows nothing about the fact that input latency was decreased. And no, reducing input latency is not considered a cheat, anywhere, no game does that.

hypercube33 3y ago
Yep exactly. It does remind me of the story of someone coming to quake con in the 90s though and using a "feature" of idtech game engines where it tied a lot of code to frame rate and thus once you get enough fps, time accelerated effectively for that player. I think it was ruled not a cheat for that season (I could be wrong it's been over 20 years) but discouraged for future years.
- jfim 3y ago
  Not sure if that's what you're referring to, but quake 3 physics behaved differently based on the client frame rate. 125Hz made all of the physics steps round up when jumping, allowing for just a little extra height that allowed for some jumps.