I was thinking about the anti-cheat scenario and this popped on my mine. Consider the following scenario.
Valve comes out with an alternate OS for the Steam Deck called “Steam OS Secure” which supports anti-cheats. Special proprietary blobs were added to the OS, in collaboration with the game devs, which allow it to monitor metrics at the kernel level. These anti-cheats will only be able to run on an unmodified Steam Deck which gets disabled the moment you “modify” your Deck.
(I’m unsure what “modify” means here. Maybe if the user creates a root password or if a new layer has been added on top of SteamOS)
This will come pre-installed with the Deck (Steam Deck 3 maybe), but a seperate OS without the proprietary blobs is also available and can be downloaded/installed right from the Deck itself. This can be switched anytime but it’s a lengthy procedure. Obviously, the one without the anti-cheat performs better.
What do you think about this? Would you approve this? Will your perception towards Valve change? Will it be better for gaming over all?
Edit: I can understand the dislikes. No one wants RING-0 anti-cheat on Linux. But I just want to have a discussion on this. I don’t see game devs making exceptions their game only on Linux in the near future.
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With secure boot, combined with a signed kernel and initramfs, and basic TPM keys, every official Steam Deck can have full hardware attestation the same way mobile phones and some laptops do. This, combined with existing anti cheat solutions, can work to detect cheating.
This. We already have a secure environment for gaming. At this point, it’s essentially better than what Windows is offering. The only reason game devs carefully ignore this issue is because of market share.
No, that goes against the spirit of open source and will further hurt Linux gaming outside of the Deck. The Deck has been a huge boon to the Linux gaming community at large because it sticks to a basic Arch Linux core for the most part. Don’t segregate the Linux gaming community, instead force the shitty spyware companies to not embed their shitware deep into the kernel.
How could expanding anti cheat help portable gaming? It will consume more cycles meaning the battery runs down faster while the game plays worse because the CPU is busy looking for cheats that aren’t running.
Agreed.
But it will allow for more games to run, and a significant number of people might consider buying the Deck since it can play their favourite competitive games (Valorant/PUBG/Destiny).
Will it though?
It would require the exact same investment into a new system, which is already possible, and isn’t happening.
It won’t be like proton where valve can put in the work to make it work from their side.
Developers of your “favorite competitive games” would still have to opt in, something they could but don’t do with the Steam OS version that already exists.
I agree this is a discussion worth having. You shouldn’t have been downvoted just because you’re proposing we talk about a thing without advocating for it (necessarily). It’s also okay to play devil’s advocate with the discussion, as I think you’re doing here.
The issue I have with a kernel level anti-cheat is that even with those anti-cheat measures, cheating is still happening. Why then allow such invasive software on my machine? It’s a major reason why I don’t like to play multiplayer online with strangers (though my strong introversion actually explains that preference better).
But just because that’s my preference doesn’t mean I think that the option shouldn’t exist. I just don’t want it forced upon me. FOSS should be about choice. If I want those choices taken away, there is always Windows.
Or, the game devs/publishers could get a clue and realize that the already-supported anti-cheats on Linux work perfectly fine and do the job, not requiring the Linux community and vendors to jump through more hoops to satisfy their unfounded paranoia.
In the meantime I’ll continue not buying and playing their games.
The problem is not that anyone can modify the Steam Deck, after all it can be done with any Windows based system as well. Most and the biggest cheat program and programs are running on Windows. I don’t think giving up Linux as it is is a good thing and follow footsteps of Windows by incorporating more DRM, more controls, more hardware and software restrictions, just to make sure a deep Kernel level access of a rootkit based anti cheat tool can run.
The focus should be a different on: Make Steam Deck more popular as a target for publishers (meaning a big audience) and make it as easy as possible for developers (Proton does a good job). The problem isn’t a technical problem to solve in my opinion, so no need to make it “worse”. And Valve maintaining two different operating system versions, splitting up the user AND developer eco system, to test for isn’t good solution either. Suddenly people have to track not only if a game runs on Steam Deck, but also explain them on top of Proton and all other stuff that they need an alternate version. The website for the games would need to list both compatibility too. It’s a mess.
I understand your intention and why this is suggested by you. I just don’t think its healthy and would not even guarantee to solve the issues at all. The devs and publisher still would need to cooperate and support it officially. I don’t think any online game with anti cheat that runs on Steam Deck has a problem with cheaters using Linux. They have a problem with cheaters using Windows, even with the most intensive rootkit anti cheat installed and running at all times (Vanguard). I would not approve your suggestion (note I did not downvote, because you just want to discuss this).
Suddenly people have to track not only if a game runs on Steam Deck, but also explain them on top of Proton and all other stuff that they need an alternate version. The website for the games would need to list both compatibility too. It’s a mess.
I didn’t think of this. Thanks.
Someone mentioned this below but having an immutable filesystem should be proof enough that it’s a secure gaming device and should immediately be allowed by an anti-cheat system. But I guess game devs really need their “I-need-to-monitor-everything” itch scratched so we are still stuck with Linux incompatibility.
I would not approve your suggestion (note I did not downvote, because you just want to discuss this).
Cheers buddy! I just wanted to know the community’s views about this. ✌🏻
Hey its unfortunate you are being downvoted since this is about a active problem and all you’re doing is bringing attention to it.
It’s not that the OS doesn’t support such tools, (anyone can choose to run a 3rd party kernel module) its the devs of the anticheat software that refuse to do the work needed to make it a reality.
The other problem is that such software is unlikely to work correctly out of the box across the plethora of available operating systems and configurations. Just targeting the steam deck would be received rather negatively and probably illicit chilling effects across the community.
You could theoretically, do what NVIDIA has done for their driver and opensource just the parts needed to make it work for your OS. However, that could potentially be used as a means to circumvent the purpose of the tool.
All anti-cheat software is a cat and mouse game and any determined group will eventually circumvent any client side means which speaks to architectural problems with the game. Which could potentially be insurmountable without considerable investment in server sided solutions.
However, the creation of client sided kernel modules would at least bring it close to par with the Windows experience.
They already support anti cheat… what you think ring0 anti cheat does is exactly what SteamOS does.
