Anti-cheat tool

The articles Anti-Cheat-Tool and Cheat (computer game) # Anti-Cheat-Techniques overlap thematically. Help me to better differentiate or merge the articles (→  instructions ) . To do this, take part in the relevant redundancy discussion . Please remove this module only after the redundancy has been completely processed and do not forget to include the relevant entry on the redundancy discussion page{{ Done | 1 = ~~~~}}to mark. Calle Cool ( discussion ) 12:59, 27 Mar. 2014 (CET)

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

An anti-cheat tool is a computer program that is supposed to recognize whether a player is cheating (cheating) in a computer game's multiplayer mode . These programs use different patterns to identify the cheats and are divided into three groups (according to the type of installation ).

Methods

On the client side (at the user) as an external program

On the one hand, such a program can be installed on the player's computer himself, which continuously checks whether the player is using a cheat or executing a type of program called a trainer to facilitate the game in parallel with the game. If necessary, this is communicated to the server on which the cheating player is active, which then blocks access temporarily or even permanently. In drastic cases, service providers with several servers can also have a "global" block for all games and servers.

Integrated on the client side (at the user)

Probably the best solution for the player is an anti-cheat tool integrated into the game engine , which has the advantages of an independent program, but does not have to be installed separately by the user - this variant is e.g. B. used with Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) in current source games - this method is technically very effective and does not require any additional knowledge from the player, in the case of VAC, however, very few updates are provided by the manufacturer, so the practical benefit is this Variation very low.

Server side

The anti-cheat tool can also be installed exclusively on the game server and check communication with the player's client computer for typical characteristics of a cheat. However, this variant is no longer used by most developers because the cheat programs have become too good and too numerous. One example is the Cheating-Death tool, which was developed for Counter-Strike , but is no longer developed any further. Another more recent example is CVAR-X from steambans.com , which is currently designed for almost all Source games (such as Counter-Strike: Source or Half-Life 2 Deathmatch).

Client and server side

Such an anti-cheat tool is installed on the server by the server administrator and must also run on all clients at the same time ( client-server model ). The server then sends queries to the client, who must answer them. There are client / server anticheats that run externally, but there are also those that are integrated into the game. An example of the latter is PunkBuster .