• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Helldivers 2 Technical Director Addresses Anti-Cheat Concerns

T0@st

News Editor
Joined
Mar 7, 2023
Messages
2,077 (3.43/day)
Location
South East, UK
Hi everyone, my name is Peter Lindgren and I'm the Technical Director of Helldivers 2. I've been making games at Arrowhead since the Magicka days and I've been involved in every game we've released to date. I will do my best in this post to address the concerns and confusion that's come up recently regarding the choice of Anti-Cheat software in Helldivers 2. So, let's start off with the more urgent questions:

Is GameGuard a kernel-level / administrator-priviledge anti-cheat?
Yes, GameGuard is a "kernel-level", aka rootkit, anti-cheat. Most anti-cheat run at "kernel-level", especially all of the popular ones. It's unfortunately one of the more effective ways to combat cheating. There are some anti-cheat systems that can run in "user-mode," but they are much less effective and tend to be cracked very quickly, resulting in widespread cheating.




Will GameGuard stay installed on my system after I've uninstalled Helldivers 2?
No, GameGuard is removed at the same time as the game is uninstalled. The installer and uninstaller for GameGuard is visibly included with the game in <install-dir>/tools/GGSetup.exe and <install-dir>/tools/gguninst.exe.


I'm worried about my privacy, will GameGuard collect sensitive information about me?
No, GameGuard does not collect any personally identifiable information (PII). And doing so would be a GDPR and/or ADPPA nightmare as well. I can speak from experience that we're all bending over backwards to be compliant with these regulations. On a more technical note, GameGuard is scanning the running processes (applications) for malicious software and attempts to block such software from manipulating the game client.

Will GameGuard reduce the performance of my PC?
GameGuard is only active while the game is running and after thousands of hours of testing we've not noticed any noteworthy degradations of performance on our developer and QA workstations.

And the BIG ONE that needs plenty of context:

Helldivers 2 is a co-op/PvE game, why do we even need Anti-Cheat?
That's a great question, and there's two related but separate points to it:

First, we want everyone to have a great time playing Helldivers 2, with friends, ex-friends or randoms. What we've seen in some of our and others' games is that rampant cheating tends to have a very negative effect on the participants' openness to playing, especially with randoms.

There's an anecdote from Helldivers 1 I'd like to share: When we released Helldivers 1 on PC there was effectively no anti-cheat implemented. Additionally Helldivers 1 uses a peer-to-peer networking model, and that means, from a security perspective, each game client will blindly trust each other.

Shortly after release we noticed there was a cheat going around which granted 9999 research samples. Unfortunately any non-cheaters in the same mission would also be granted 9999 research samples. These non-cheating players now had their entire progression ruined through no fault of their own. We were able to deal with a lot of these early issues without using a third party solution, but it took a lot of work, and most of it was done reactively.

Incidentally Helldivers 2 also uses a peer-to-peer networking model, but this time around we're trying to be more proactive and make sure everyone can play the intended experience. Second is the Galactic War. There's this huge metagame going in the cloud which all players (and game clients) participate in. Even though we have other countermeasures in place, a cracked game client could make it easier to disrupt the Galactic War, which would sour everyone's experience.

As a final note, on an open platform like PC it's not possible to stop cheating from ever happening. Someone with the skills, dedication and resources will ultimately succeed. The point of anti-cheat is to make it more difficult and time consuming to develop cheats. Needless to say we will be keeping a very close eye for any issues that may be encountered at release.

See you on the battlefield ;)
  • Peter

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source
 
Joined
Jan 9, 2023
Messages
293 (0.44/day)
Isn't it amazing how they never address Linux compatibility?
I wonder if it's compatible hmmmm? I have a good guess
 
Joined
Feb 11, 2008
Messages
607 (0.10/day)
Location
Omaha, Nebraska, USA
System Name Built By Me
Processor Intel Core i9 9900K @ 5.1 GHz
Motherboard Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Ultra
Cooling Custom Water Cooling - CPU Only
Memory 32GB (2 x 16) GSkill Ripjaws V DDR4
Video Card(s) RTX 4080 - ASUS ROG Strix 16GB OC - P Mode
Storage 1TB Samsung 970 Evo NVMe
Display(s) Alienware AW2723DF @ 280 Hz @ 1440P
Case Fractal Design Define S2
Audio Device(s) Corsair Virtuoso Pro
Power Supply 850W Seasonic Platinum
Mouse Razer Viper V2 Pro @ 2k Hz
Keyboard Asus ROG Strix Scope II 96 Wireless - ROG NX Snow Switches
Software Windows 11 Pro
After watching this video, I feel like kernel level anti-cheats are just a buzzword now:

 
Joined
Feb 21, 2006
Messages
2,210 (0.32/day)
Location
Toronto, Ontario
System Name The Expanse
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Motherboard Asus Prime X570-Pro BIOS 5013 AM4 AGESA V2 PI 1.2.0.Ca.
Cooling Corsair H150i Pro
Memory 32GB GSkill Trident RGB DDR4-3200 14-14-14-34-1T (B-Die)
Video Card(s) XFX Radeon RX 7900 XTX Magnetic Air (24.10.1)
Storage WD SN850X 2TB / Corsair MP600 1TB / Samsung 860Evo 1TB x2 Raid 0 / Asus NAS AS1004T V2 20TB
Display(s) LG 34GP83A-B 34 Inch 21: 9 UltraGear Curved QHD (3440 x 1440) 1ms Nano IPS 160Hz
Case Fractal Design Meshify S2
Audio Device(s) Creative X-Fi + Logitech Z-5500 + HS80 Wireless
Power Supply Corsair AX850 Titanium
Mouse Corsair Dark Core RGB SE
Keyboard Corsair K100
Software Windows 10 Pro x64 22H2
Benchmark Scores 3800X https://valid.x86.fr/1zr4a5 5800X https://valid.x86.fr/2dey9c 5800X3D https://valid.x86.fr/b7d
After watching this video, I feel like kernel level anti-cheats are just a buzzword now:

Watching now great video so far.
 
Joined
Feb 6, 2021
Messages
2,864 (2.10/day)
Location
Germany
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard ASRock B650E Steel Legend Wifi
Cooling Arctic Liquid Freezer III 280
Memory 2x16GB Corsair Vengeance RGB 6000 CL30 (A-Die)
Video Card(s) RTX 4090 Gaming X Trio
Storage 1TB Samsung 990 PRO, 4TB Corsair MP600 PRO XT, 1TB WD SN850X, 4x4TB Crucial MX500
Display(s) Alienware AW2725DF, LG 27GR93U, LG 27GN950-B
Case Streacom BC1 V2 Black
Audio Device(s) Bose Companion Series 2 III, Sennheiser GSP600 and HD599 SE - Creative Soundblaster X4
Power Supply bequiet! Dark Power Pro 12 1500w Titanium
Mouse Razer Deathadder V3
Keyboard Razer Black Widow V3 TKL
VR HMD Oculus Rift S
Software ~2000 Video Games
That made the decision easy to not buy this game.
 
Joined
Jun 29, 2023
Messages
543 (1.11/day)
Location
Spain
System Name Gungnir
Processor Ryzen 5 7600X
Motherboard ASUS TUF B650M-PLUS WIFI
Cooling Thermalright Peerless Assasin 120 SE Black
Memory 2x16GB DDR5 CL36 5600MHz
Video Card(s) XFX RX 6800XT Merc 319
Storage 1TB WD SN770 | 2TB WD Blue SATA III SSD
Display(s) 1440p 165Hz VA
Case Lian Li Lancool 215
Audio Device(s) Beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO 80Ohm
Power Supply EVGA SuperNOVA 750W 80 Plus Gold
Mouse Logitech G Pro Wireless
Keyboard Keychron V6
VR HMD The bane of my existence (Oculus Quest 2)
An anti cheat is as good as its code, not its access level.
Welp, next game lads.
 
Joined
Feb 13, 2023
Messages
75 (0.12/day)
Location
Hell
So the reason they need a kernel level anti-cheat is because...they are insanely incompetent.
Why in the hell did they ship the first game with blind client peer to peer. Dumb, dumb, dumb and they are fixing the same problem they designed into the second game by adding a third party anti-cheat instead of designing their game better.
Real "burning your house down to get rid of spiders" kind of shit.

So actually looking up the specs of the anti-cheat:
Same profile as a rootkit :)mad:)
Hides its own process (rootkit)
Monitors memory
Blocks calls from the OS
Auto update that makes calls to the company's remote database
Some versions apparently also have anti-virus/anti-spyware
Some versions also have anti-keylogger (this is interesting)
The list of games it is currently used in is a list of, lets face it, trash.

Make the game free and I'll consider eating your shit sandwich.
 
Joined
Dec 29, 2020
Messages
205 (0.15/day)
After watching this video, I feel like kernel level anti-cheats are
Great video but it does not show kernel level anti-cheats do not work in this context
All of the effective cheating methods described here are at least somewhat involved.
And aimbots are not really the issue, the biggest problem are the generally easiest to detect cheats.
 
Top