Battledield now throwing an error because Valorant is already sitting in kernel memory. Time to buy your EA Battlefield PC but don’t forget your Valorant PC

  • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Games dont belong in the kernel. Shit should have stayed in userspace. No, I dont care how many billions are on the line, games are not that important.

  • 9point6@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Isn’t Microsoft about to block kernel modules like this entirely? I thought I read that somewhere

    • fartsparkles@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Nope. They’re developing an alternative set of APIs for userspace in conjunction with security vendors for their products to use but it’s all still a long way off and will be optional to start with.

      Given the volume of mission-critical devices security products are installed on (which the CrowdStrike fuckup highlighted), getting them out of kernel space would be a huge risk reduction for the world. And security vendors would love to get away from that risk as pulling a CrowdStrike costs a lot of money setting things right with customers.

      But an anticheat used by consumers on their personal devices for a game, not such a big deal.

      While I’m sure MS will eventually deprecate and then kill off third party kernel drivers, it could take a decade since MS has so much business (both internal and within their customer base) that relies on legacy crap.

  • Default Username@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 month ago

    These anti-cheats don’t even work. Anyone can go out and buy a hardware DMA card with an FPGA on it, which is basically a modern day Action Replay. It has full access to RAM without touching the OS and cheaters like to use them to get around anti-cheat.

      • BeeegScaaawyCripple@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        yeah, i haven’t done tech support in a hot minute either and had to look up some shit too. All that makes sense, although I don’t recall it existing in the early 90s when I actually thought I knew what i was talking about.

    • BigFig@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      No no deadlock was that weird moba valve put out and supported for a whooping 2 months

        • BigFig@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          My bad, it just never makes any news rounds anymore so to the majority of game players it may as well be dead.

          • DragonOracleIX@lemmy.ml
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            1 month ago

            Valve never intended for deadlock to have as much media coverage as it did. It happened anyways because a media outlet chose to ignore the informal NDA message that popped up when launching the game. The message was removed shortly after the incident.

  • Bilb!@lemmy.ml
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    1 month ago

    I feel I would rather just opt out of playing these games. It ain’t worth it.

    I feel like they should just host the entire game and stream it to players if they want to eliminate cheating, but that’s probably the most anti-SKG way to publish a game possible. Oh well.

    • addie@feddit.uk
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      1 month ago

      Actually makes it easier to write aimbots and triggerbots, since you’ll have the video feed and can respond with the right inputs. Skips the step where you’ve got to film the monitor on the machine that’s ‘playing’ the game, which is protected by the HDCP between the PC and the screen.

      • Bilb!@lemmy.ml
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        1 month ago

        Good point. Guess it’s hopeless?

        To be honest I haven’t thought about this much because playing online games with strangers is not something I enjoy in the first place. I’m sure others have good ideas, though.

        • addie@feddit.uk
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          1 month ago

          Seeking a technical solution to a non-technical problem. Rather than having one set of company-hosted servers that they then struggle to police, just let everyone host their own, and they can be responsible for banning anyone that doesn’t follow the community rules.

          • ulterno@programming.dev
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            1 month ago

            But then that lets people socialize using the game without the company being able to harvest their data.

          • borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 month ago

            Yeah I wish we could go back to a model like that, the way PC gaming used to be. The sticking point would be battle pass progression, as mush as I hate it and an FPS is pretty much doa without it, although Hell Let Loose allows for rank progression while playing on clan-rented servers so it should work in theory.

      • borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 month ago

        The types of cheats that anti cheat in kernel space are trying to detect don’t view the video feed as such. They hook the process directly to read the memory, and the chest developer has reverse engineered the game binary to find out what variables correspond to things like opposing players, then using that information they draw stuff like wall hacks on the screen.

        But yeah I guess an fps developer could move to a GeForce now type of model to eliminate cheats like that, but then no one would play that fps because of the input lag issues.

    • dogs0n@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      Proof is in cheaters existing on day one of battlefield 6 open beta. Client side anti-cheat will never work. It’s good to have some basic preventative measures client-side, but server-side anti cheat is the only way to properly prevent cheaters.

      Unfortunately companies keep investing in garbage client side anticheat that just pokes security holes into our machines.

      Only Valve to my knowledge is investing money into their server side anti cheat, no other big player is to my knowledge.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month ago

        It needs to be a mix. Have your clientside anti-cheat look for obvious attack vectors, have your serverside anti-cheat look for suspicious play, and let users report others. Then have humans review suspected cheaters and make the final call.

        But that’s expensive, and off-the-shelf anti-cheat gives them someone else to blame.

        • dogs0n@sh.itjust.works
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          1 month ago

          I agree, there’s definitely some checks you can only do on the client and only some that work server-side. Ideally everything that can be checked on either, are checked.

          Currently it’s just all wrong, the client-side can’t be relied upon as heavily as it is.

          The benefit factor to the rootkits they install on our machines is nil. Just bloats our systems with garbage that is just waiting to be exploited by hackers.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        1 month ago

        Web developers work this out years ago. If you want to put content behind a paywall don’t do it client side because it will get bypassed.

        This was me working out of a tiny office. Yet apparently I was more advanced than AAA game developers.

        • dogs0n@sh.itjust.works
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          1 month ago

          Hopefully they start to learn from this at some point… they should realise that their current anti-cheat systems are not working as intended at some point right?

          Battlefield will lose sales, every game definitely loses players because of cheater infestations. Lots of money lost in my eyes, is it enough to make them see straight?

      • CptBread@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        That’s only proof that it will never be enough to stop all cheating. But if the metric is if it reduces cheating then that proves nothing. Not saying I have proof that it does reduce cheating but I would personally bet on it reducing it somewhat at least.

        • dogs0n@sh.itjust.works
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          1 month ago

          It definitely reduces cheating, but mostly just by raising the bar of entry (not by that much as evident in day 1 cheats being present). I doubt it’s effectiveness though, since most games you can do some quick research and find $5 cheats that will go undetected (hell even free cheats can work if you do a little more research on doing the injection part manually yourself).

          You can also never stop cheating, but the anti-cheat they install on your computer is just an extra attack vector for hackers, etc at this point, since it obviously doesnt work as intended.

    • CptBread@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      It only works in so far that it makes making cheats harder to create and easier to detect. But it will never fully eliminate or catch all cheats.

    • dvlsg@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Anecdotally, there seem to be fewer valorant cheaters than in counter strike.

      Idk if that can be chalked up to “valorant uses kernel and cs doesn’t”, though. Probably not. And it’s still nonzero for valorant.

  • Psythik@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Its*. This word is an exception to the rule of using an apostrophe to indicate possession. It’s is always a contraction for “it is”.

    • CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I didn’t even catch that the first time. But what should we expect from garbage software?

    • jsomae@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      It’s not an exception. Pronouns never have apostrophes for possessive.

      His. Hers. Theirs. Its.

  • LSNLDN@slrpnk.net
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    1 month ago

    As someone who will likely need to move to Linux after windows 10 goes dark can anybody ELI5 or maybe a little older, TIA

    • Destide@feddit.ukOP
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      1 month ago

      This is windows, So Valorant is running its anticheat stopping Battlefields anti-cheat from starting up. Meaning you will have to pick one game as they all seem to start from boot though other sources have said the games have to be running.

      In Linux you could prob just run a pass-through in a couple of VMs. But Linux itself doesn’t work with most of these anti-cheats so by default no one running Linux is exposed to this sort of thing.

      • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        In Linux you could prob just run a pass-through in a couple of VMs.

        So instead of having trouble with drivers for your one GPU, you can have it with two. Awesome.

          • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Yes, obviously, and you don’t typically have trouble with display drivers either nowadays, I suppose we were both jesting.

            The right way to do it would probably be either to spin a dedicated partition, or to add a boot entry that sets up a dedicated environment for the game (I haven’t really thought about it but it’s probably doable). In both cases it’s a bit silly, when the whole anti-cheat thing is apparently mostly useless anyway.

    • Serinus@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      These games won’t run on Linux.

      They do this to prevent cheaters, and it is effective. Some people who have no problems running any other executable that can do just as much damage believe this load on boot style is too invasive.

      I wouldn’t mind this feature dying so I could play on Linux though.

  • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    My son wanted to play the Battlefield open beta over the weekend. It legitimately took me 4 hours to get their shitty kernel anti-cheat shit working. I can’t imagine the average non-technical person being able to do that just to play a game.

    • Aztechnology@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      What’s funny is battlefield to me was always just a chill game I used to play to do whatever. More for fun and blowing off steam with very little consequence of death. Like if someone was cheating in battlefield i hardly ever care. I also don’t remember a huge ranked or competitive scene for the battlefield genre but I could be ootl cause I haven’t played since 4

      Compared to games like Tarkov or DayZ which have a lot more consequence tied to death.

      • dogs0n@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month ago

        I wish i could be zen like you. I hate dying in any game I JUST WANT TO KILL. Tryna rack up high scores, when I get killed it’s a big bummer, and dying by a cheater just makes it a WAY BIGGER bummer because it wasn’t even a fair fight.

    • AlphaOmega@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I came home pre early access and saw that I could play if I just watched some stream on twitch for 30 minutes. So I did. Got the code and it did not work. Started up the game and it was locked until early access/ next day.
      Went to bed and tried again on early access. Now the game won’t even start, claiming it needs secure boot to be on. I have secure boot on.

  • Skipcast@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    This only happens if you’re running both games at the same time. Still not great but not as bad as it looks.