Recently, i had to move from nixos to windows against my will simpy because of anti cheats. While i dont game that much, the few games i enjoy playing are all online with some kind of anti cheat. I used to dual boot but i was tired of having to wait for my slow hdd to load windows (i only have one ssd). I literally used linux for everything else but because of anti cheats i am forced to move to windows. I managed to make it a little better by using wsl2 and removing bloatware but it will never be the same as linux
I think what you meant to write is "online games with anticheat are the worst thing".
Because "online anticheat" is becoming a thing wherein the anticheat system is run on a remote server and not your local system. Not only does it not need to install malware on your local system, but it does a better job at catching cheaters.
I could be wrong but I believe most games (e.g: Fairfight in all EA games) do have a server-side anti-cheats, just not very effective ones because they like for EAC/BE to do most of the work.
No, you're not wrong, but like you said they don't really do much. But what I'm talking about is fully functional server-side anticheat. Check this out Waldo Vision. I skipped past the intro, cause that had WAN Show clips, which haven't aged well...
I don't think I would consider "games with anti cheat" to be "every pleasure in life". We're spoiled for choice in games. I can increasingly narrow the scope of what I'm willing to support with my money every year and still not run out of great games to play.
Not sure why there are so many downvotes. Are there really that many people in here of all places who think gaming is just triple-A games from companies that don't respect their players and nothing else?
I don't like it because that's the kind of elitist attitude that turns away new people from checking out Linux gaming. Imagine that as a response to "Hey I play these games and am interested in Linux". You're going to tell them: "switch to Linux and give up those games and if you don't you're not committed enough"?
It's gatekeeping "console-wars" fanboy mentality. Like a Linux Playstation fan attacking someone for playing an Windows Xbox Exclusive. As if that's supposed to be their whole identity, and not just a way to play video games.
There's nothing wrong with having multiple consoles; there's nothing wrong with dual-booting.
I could stop playing these games right now. As i said i'm don't use my computer for gaming that much. I could be perfectly satisfied with only minecraft. But i play them with the homies and i can't let them down
Not every game on Steam has DRM. Lots will let you just copy your entire install directory to another machine and play without logging in to your account.
Which is fine, but it isn't a perfect strategy, because developers and publishers have complete control to replace the client at any time to add features you decline to use, and you are not automatically entitled to a refund if that happens.
Same here. I’ve only a Linux machine for over a decade but I had to go out and buy Windows just so I could play on FaceIT. I’m praying that cs2 supports Linux and the MM experience is good enough to make FaceIT obsolete.
Sometimes you have to choose between what is convenient and what is right, and sometimes that means giving things up. But not everyone is willing or able to do that. It's fine, do what you feel you need to.
NVMe drives have become to inexpensive recently I just bit the bullet and dual-boot windows from it's own drive. Takes less than ten seconds to switch.
Just make sure you physically disconnect all other storage devices while installing windows. The windows boot loader seems to make itself comfy on any drive it can find.
Honestly, I'd rather the anti cheat be there. Playing a game with a bunch of cheaters ruins the game. Not wanting to play it is equal to not buying it in the first place in terms of enjoyment. So I'd rather have strong anti cheat on Linux. Anti cheat doesn't ruin the game, you are still able to enjoy it.
But this is also why I think supporting native Linux builds is better. If they are supporting native Linux builds they are supporting Linux as a platform. With proton the developers don't think about Linux. Proton overall has kind of hurt Linux support because it means no one thinks about the platform anymore.
Client-side anti-cheat is the way to go for this. You need to, at some level, trust the client to get good feeling gameplay. Otherwise, you'll end up with the Counter-Strike style missing. Where bullets on the client hit the head, the head shows blood but the target doesn't get damaged. If you don't trust the client, you are going to get pop-tarting where someone jumps over a wall/hill/etc. and shoots, and because the only physics that matters is server side, they are already down under the thing they shot over. There are strong reasons why Six Siege, Valorant, Overwatch, Squad, and almost any modern shooter trust the client but put anti-cheat on it. Server-side checking can only do so much.
Overall what runs on the client is going to be 1 frame behind at least of what runs on the server. Usually far more due to latency. So the only answer is client-side anti-cheat. Now let's talk about the "invasive" part. The only way to securely ensure there are no third-party applications affecting your play is to tie into the kernel and a definitive process list. Otherwise, anyone could just prevent the process list from being accurate. So you then need kernel-level modules to report and secure the client.
There is another method that is rarely enacted. Hysterics, simply if you do too well on a game, you get banned. Have 99% Headshots? Banned. Have higher reaction times than most people? Banned. It's a real big brother solution. That's what you really should be fighting against. Banning people from games without solid proof but just statistical evidence that they shouldn't be that good. This is mainly been the focus on combating those controller automation cheat systems. It also means people who use macros can get banned.
All in all though, if you aren't doing client-side kernel-level anti-cheat then your game at this point is filled with cheaters. It's exactly why Counter-Strike has ESEA and Faceit which both require kernel-level anti-cheat to replace VAC which doesn't have kernel-level hooks and is easily by-passed. Thus CSGO's matchmaking is filled with cheaters where anyone using EAC has a relatively cheater-free game.
Most developers don't support their native Linux release at all. You'll download an automatic update, and suddenly the game doesn't even start; check the forum and find out, they never even tested the Linux build, it's just all automatic, and it's gonna take a couple of weeks before they get their linux box updated and working again so they can fix it because their one linux guy is working on something else. It's crap. Proton has been a massive improvement in game reliability.
Really? Do you have an example of this with non early access games? I've personally never seen this happen and I'm my experience when a studio supports a platform they buy a computer to run the game on for that platform. I can only assume this was an experience with some very indie game?
I play League of Legends via Proton. I assume it has an anti cheat and I never had issues with cheaters/hackers. I refuse to believe they need kernel level anti cheat for valorant. Not that I care about shooters.
If you refuse to believe it then my 10 years of making fast-paced shooters won't change your mind. League uses a userland-level anti-cheat that is easily broken. This is why most of their hacking detection is server-side. Also, reaction time doesn't really play a huge factor in League. So as long as it's within human range, the cheaters can go undetected since Rio believes that using cheats to get you high human reactions "defeats the purpose of cheating." as documented here: https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/dev/dev-anti-cheat-in-lol-more/
So overall, shooters are much faster and require client-side authority to feel good. In league, the game is slow enough to wait for the server to tell you what happened. In something like Overwatch, the clients report what happened. When you have that level of fidelity you need that level of trust. But you don't care about shooters, so don't worry about it. You can make your flawed argument that all games can be league and all anti-cheat systems can focus on league-like gameplay.
I'm not judging, as I said I was curious.
I get it though, Apex just had a Linux ban wave, Fortnite well, it's owned by Epic and Fall Guys to my knowledge requires editing AC files so Windows in your case is more convenient
With the exception of the false positive ban wave reported a few days ago, Apex Legends has played flawlessly on Linux for the last couple of years. According to comments on protondb, Fall Guys also appears to be working fine, including multiplayer with anti-cheat. I'm not trying to tell you that you shouldn't run Windows if you want to, but perhaps you didn't fully explore all options?
If you switch back to Linux you could suggest Shatterline to your broke friends. It's f2p and had no issues with anti-cheat last time I tried it. I think Overwatch 2 is also f2p.
Linux is inherently less “secure” to developers. They have to sacrifice anti-chest efficiency to enable them on Linux, which is a tradeoff most aren’t willing to make.
Most every game I play requires me to stay on windows. I don’t really get any enjoyment out of single player games anymore. So windows stays as the primary OS and that’s likely never going to change.
I primarily play competitive fps games. They’re more or less the only genre of gaming that’s any kind of fun anymore imo.
I don’t enjoy single player games. I own literally thousands of dollars of indie/AA single player games that I don’t enjoy, so I’ve stopped buying new ones. I’m simply not interested in non-competitive games. They’re not fun and I’d rather not play them.
But it's not. Easy anti-cheat, for example, works on Linux. The problem isn't with Linux, it's that developers don't target Linux, so their anti-cheat systems don't work on Linux.
And that's fine with me, though it would help Linux adoption if those games worked on Linux. But it's not an inherent limitation of Linux, it's just something devs need to proactively support.
So EAC works, but it works at a different level than it does on windows. EAC does become less secure on both platforms when Linux support is enabled from my understanding. BattleEye, Vanguard and Riots AC don’t work on Linux either, which is a significant portion of major games right now.
I’d argue it is an inherent limitation of Linux, as it’s so open that it’s harder to validate a user isn’t using 3rd party programs to cheat.