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Anti-cheat, explained
Short guides on how anti-cheat works and why it decides whether your game runs on Linux and the Steam Deck.
Kernel-level vs. user-space anti-cheat
Why some anti-cheats work on Linux and others never will.
4 min readReadHow anti-cheat runs on Proton
What the Linux runtimes for Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye actually do, and who has to turn them on.
4 min readReadSecure Boot, TPM and anti-cheat
Why newer games ask for firmware features, and what that means for Linux.
3 min readReadWhat the status labels mean
Supported, Running, Broken, Denied, Planned, and what each means for your account.
2 min readReadSteam Deck and anti-cheat
How the Deck fits in, and why Deck Verified is not the same as multiplayer working.
3 min readRead
Glossary
- Anti-cheat
- Software that detects or prevents cheating in online games, either on the player's machine, on the game server, or both.
- Deck Verified
- Valve's rating for games that have been tested on the Steam Deck. It does not by itself guarantee online anti-cheat works. Learn more
- Driver
- A piece of software that runs in the kernel. Kernel-level anti-cheats install one on Windows. Learn more
- Kernel / Ring 0
- The most privileged level of a computer's operating system. Code here can see and control everything. Learn more
- Proton
- Valve's Wine-based distribution that lets Steam run Windows games on Linux and the Steam Deck. Learn more
- ProtonDB
- A community database of player reports on how well games run under Proton.
- Secure Boot
- A firmware feature that only lets signed software load at startup. Learn more
- Server-side detection
- Cheat detection done on the game's servers, for example by spotting impossible player behavior, with no client driver needed.
- TPM
- Trusted Platform Module: a security chip or firmware feature that stores keys and can attest to the boot state. Learn more
- User space
- The restricted level where ordinary programs run, isolated from each other and from the kernel. Learn more
- Wine
- A compatibility layer that runs Windows programs on Linux by translating Windows API calls.