If you want to own your computer, linux is where it's at. Windows is rusty iron chains and MacOS's are gold-plated silver pretending to be gold, but they're still chains.
I would love to move my gaming PC to Linux but until the kernel devs permit kernel-level anti-cheats, or an equivalent, I refuse to give up games that I love. It's nearly impossible to play multiplayer games now without KLAC. The cheating is out of control.
Unfortunately this is an ideological hill that many Linux devs are willing to die on, so we're at an impasse. Valve claimed to be working on a solution, and if there is any company which can negotiate an accord, it's them.
I want to clarify to anyone reading this that this only effects high-competitive games, like LoL, Valorant, PUBG, R6S; and not all of them (e.g. Counter Strike).
It does not affect "multiplayer" in general, to the contrary, most multiplayer games are not affected (coop games, MMOs, RTS).
| It's nearly impossible to play multiplayer games now without KLAC. The cheating is out of control.
Ofc, cheating is also present with KLAC, its just the next level of the cat and mouse game (Driver exploits, DMA access via PCIe, Network Packet analysis, ...)
| Unfortunately this is an ideological hill that many Linux devs are willing to die on
Nonsense. 1. Almost no anticheat is implemented on Linux in the first place. Most "working" anti-cheat solutions for Linux are just a #if Linux doNothing(); #else ... 2. KLAC requires SecureBoot/ChainOfTrust + closed source code running with highest privileges. This does not make sense for any PC, but I dont see why it would be harder to do on Linux than on Windows, Linux just has a smaller install base in general and a lower acceptance rate for KLAC, therefore its not worth it to implement.
I would like to respond because you're speaking authoritatively but this is mostly your opinion.
> I want to clarify to anyone reading this that this only effects high-competitive games, like LoL, Valorant, PUBG, R6S; and not all of them (e.g. Counter Strike).
It affected a game I really care about: Arc Raiders. That's not a "high-competitive" game. It's PvPvE, shooting at funny robots and scavenging rubber duckies. Cheating killed the game. [It's down to 6% of its peak.](<a href="https://steamcharts.com/app/1808500#All" rel="nofollow">https://steamcharts.com/app/1808500#All) Just because this hasn't affected the games you love doesn't mean it's not affecting many games. See Titanfall, H1Z1, and The Cycle: Frontier, among many more.
> It does not affect "multiplayer" in general, to the contrary, most multiplayer games are not affected (coop games, MMOs, RTS).
I was going to ask you to back that up, but I realise I made a broad claim and can also not back it up, so we're just giving each other our opinions, I suppose.
> Ofc, cheating is also present with KLAC, its just the next level of the cat and mouse game (Driver exploits, DMA access via PCIe, Network Packet analysis, ...)
Indeed. The goal is to reduce cheating to a manageable level. It is impossible to eliminate.
> Nonsense. 1. Almost no anticheat is implemented on Linux in the first place. Most "working" anti-cheat solutions for Linux are just a #if Linux doNothing(); #else ... 2. KLAC requires SecureBoot/ChainOfTrust + closed source code running with highest privileges. This does not make sense for any PC, but I dont see why it would be harder to do on Linux than on Windows, Linux just has a smaller install base in general and a lower acceptance rate for KLAC, therefore its not worth it to implement.
Linux does not properly support KLAC because its architecture and development philosophy work against it. For example, Valve explicitly recommends user-space anti-cheat for Proton and says kernel-space anti-cheat is “not currently supported and is not recommended”.
The Linux kernel also deliberately does not provide a stable binary kernel-driver interface. Kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman has said that Linux has neither a stable in-kernel API nor a stable binary kernel interface, because maintainers want the freedom to change kernel internals rather than permanently support proprietary out-of-tree drivers.
Riot is on the record as explaining that Linux does not give Vanguard sufficient ability to attest boot state and kernel modules. They also claim that distribution differences make enforcement harder, and that cheats can potentially operate outside an emulated environment where the anti-cheat cannot see them. Riot is on the record saying that anti-cheat is “extremely hard on Linux by design”.
So you're technically correct, but I think you misunderstand a lot of the architecture which underpins this issue, and the ideological boundaries which many developers prefer to enforce around security, FOSS, and ownership.
Only on Windows (and only after the game had already lost around 80% of its player base), which makes it effectively useless. Because they have a Linux build, there is no way to prevent cheating at a larger scale.
It's fair to argue I have no evidence of the cause of decline. I cite my frequent interactions with hundreds of players in the community, and streamers like Burnt Peanut. However this is qualitative, not quantitative. Me and my friends stopped playing because of the cheating, and so did every other one of my friends who picked it up. It wasn't that we wanted to stop playing the game. It was the cheating.
Well, a quick perusal of some Reddit threads about this leads me to believe that the decline in playerbase is more about lack of content than cheating. (And may not be out of the ordinary for this sort of game.)
But I don't know since I don't play Arc. I'm just aware of a number of other games rife with cheating that remain wildly popular.
downsplat · · focus · HN ↗
Gareth321 · · focus · HN ↗
Unfortunately this is an ideological hill that many Linux devs are willing to die on, so we're at an impasse. Valve claimed to be working on a solution, and if there is any company which can negotiate an accord, it's them.
Sweepi · · focus · HN ↗
It does not affect "multiplayer" in general, to the contrary, most multiplayer games are not affected (coop games, MMOs, RTS).
Ofc, cheating is also present with KLAC, its just the next level of the cat and mouse game (Driver exploits, DMA access via PCIe, Network Packet analysis, ...) Nonsense. 1. Almost no anticheat is implemented on Linux in the first place. Most "working" anti-cheat solutions for Linux are just a #if Linux doNothing(); #else ... 2. KLAC requires SecureBoot/ChainOfTrust + closed source code running with highest privileges. This does not make sense for any PC, but I dont see why it would be harder to do on Linux than on Windows, Linux just has a smaller install base in general and a lower acceptance rate for KLAC, therefore its not worth it to implement.Gareth321 · · focus · HN ↗
> I want to clarify to anyone reading this that this only effects high-competitive games, like LoL, Valorant, PUBG, R6S; and not all of them (e.g. Counter Strike).
It affected a game I really care about: Arc Raiders. That's not a "high-competitive" game. It's PvPvE, shooting at funny robots and scavenging rubber duckies. Cheating killed the game. [It's down to 6% of its peak.](<a href="https://steamcharts.com/app/1808500#All" rel="nofollow">https://steamcharts.com/app/1808500#All) Just because this hasn't affected the games you love doesn't mean it's not affecting many games. See Titanfall, H1Z1, and The Cycle: Frontier, among many more.
> It does not affect "multiplayer" in general, to the contrary, most multiplayer games are not affected (coop games, MMOs, RTS).
I was going to ask you to back that up, but I realise I made a broad claim and can also not back it up, so we're just giving each other our opinions, I suppose.
> Ofc, cheating is also present with KLAC, its just the next level of the cat and mouse game (Driver exploits, DMA access via PCIe, Network Packet analysis, ...)
Indeed. The goal is to reduce cheating to a manageable level. It is impossible to eliminate.
> Nonsense. 1. Almost no anticheat is implemented on Linux in the first place. Most "working" anti-cheat solutions for Linux are just a #if Linux doNothing(); #else ... 2. KLAC requires SecureBoot/ChainOfTrust + closed source code running with highest privileges. This does not make sense for any PC, but I dont see why it would be harder to do on Linux than on Windows, Linux just has a smaller install base in general and a lower acceptance rate for KLAC, therefore its not worth it to implement.
Linux does not properly support KLAC because its architecture and development philosophy work against it. For example, Valve explicitly recommends user-space anti-cheat for Proton and says kernel-space anti-cheat is “not currently supported and is not recommended”.
The Linux kernel also deliberately does not provide a stable binary kernel-driver interface. Kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman has said that Linux has neither a stable in-kernel API nor a stable binary kernel interface, because maintainers want the freedom to change kernel internals rather than permanently support proprietary out-of-tree drivers.
Riot is on the record as explaining that Linux does not give Vanguard sufficient ability to attest boot state and kernel modules. They also claim that distribution differences make enforcement harder, and that cheats can potentially operate outside an emulated environment where the anti-cheat cannot see them. Riot is on the record saying that anti-cheat is “extremely hard on Linux by design”.
So you're technically correct, but I think you misunderstand a lot of the architecture which underpins this issue, and the ideological boundaries which many developers prefer to enforce around security, FOSS, and ownership.
archagon · · focus · HN ↗
Gareth321 · · focus · HN ↗
It's fair to argue I have no evidence of the cause of decline. I cite my frequent interactions with hundreds of players in the community, and streamers like Burnt Peanut. However this is qualitative, not quantitative. Me and my friends stopped playing because of the cheating, and so did every other one of my friends who picked it up. It wasn't that we wanted to stop playing the game. It was the cheating.
archagon · · focus · HN ↗
But I don't know since I don't play Arc. I'm just aware of a number of other games rife with cheating that remain wildly popular.