definition - valve anti cheat
You search the steam store with 'Valve Anti-Cheat enabled' and it'll return any game with it. You can click on 'single player' as well to lower the number down. Keep in mind though that single player games with mutliplayer will show up on that list if they have VAC. But again, VAC runs on the servers you connect to to play those games.
- Steamworks Documentation Features Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) and Game Bans VAC Integration Goals and methodology The goal of VAC is to strongly discourage users from using cheat software by both having strong penalties if a user is caught cheating, and by making it hard for the cheating community to know if a cheat is actively being detected.
- Valve Anti Cheat is messed up. They ban people who try and fail to hack, they fail to detect/don't ban cheaters on many games. They haven't managed to find a way to stop Anti-VAC hacks on older games. They make it the game sharers fault if one of their friends cheats. Older games are so full of hackers that people just give up, and the people that do play end up in a hacked lobby/server, or lose t.
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Developer(s) | Valve Software |
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Initial release | 2002 |
Development status | Active |
Operating system | Windows, Mac OS X |
Platform | Windows, Mac |
Type | Anti-cheat software |
Website | http://store.steampowered.com/ |
Valve Anti-Cheat, abbreviated to VAC, is an anti-cheat solution developed by Valve Corporation as a component of the Steam game development platform.
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History
VAC was first released with Counter-Strike 1.4 in 2002,[1] following Valve's decision to forego PunkBuster in preference of a proprietary system. The initial version, VAC1, saw success for a period, but in March or April 2004 updates ran dry as the Valve engineers maintaining it moved on to the production of its successor, VAC2.
Valve does not normally discuss VAC, and very little is known about its internal workings. However, on November 17, 2006 they announced that 'new [VAC] technology' had caught 'over 10,000' cheating attempts in the preceding week alone,[2] the first real indication of the scale of anti-cheat operations. Not all of the accounts banned would have contained legitimate, purchased games, and there is no external audit on the figure.
As of 2010, unofficial sources estimate that over a million Steam accounts have been banned by VAC.[3][4]
Advantages
- Total integration through Steam, including using the Steam framework for any update tasks.
- Delayed bans deny cheat producers accurate and timely information. This causes a reduction in the supply of cheat programs to players who want to cheat online.
Disadvantages
- VAC cannot detect 'content hacks', where, for example, texture transparency and color are manipulated, since they do not involve modifying any program code. In Source engine games the option to create 'pure' servers (
sv_pure
) that prevent custom content from overwriting the game's defaults was created to alleviate this.[5]
Delayed bans, criticism & rationale
If a cheat is found the player's Steam account will be flagged as cheating immediately, but the player will not receive any indication of the detection. It is only after a delay of 'days or even weeks'[6] that the account is permanently banned from 'VAC Secure' servers[7] for that game, along with other games that use the same engine. (e.g. Valve's Source games, GoldSrc games, Unreal engine games). Valve never discloses which cheat was detected.
False-positive detections
There have been allegations that VAC has banned users for false positives.
- There are six recorded instances of incorrect detections, which were fixed and rescinded:
- VAC1: On its initial release, VAC would issue bans for faulty memory. Valve quickly updated VAC to only kick for faulty memory[8].
- VAC1: Running a VAC-protected game through the Cedega software compatibility layer for Linux.[9]
- VAC1: An apparent server-side glitch on April 1, 2004.[10]
- VAC2: Over two weeks in July 2010, approximately 12,000 owners of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 were banned when Steam updated a DLL file on-disk after it had been loaded into memory by the game. Those affected received a free copy of Left 4 Dead 2 or an extra copy to send as a gift.[11][12][13]
- VAC2: In January 2011, owners of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 or Call of Duty: Black Ops were banned due to their computers being infected by the trojan Win32/Spyeye.H.[14]
- VAC2: In June 2011, an unknown false positive detection caused a handful of Team Fortress 2 owners to become banned.[15]
- There are four recorded instances of game plugins that are not considered cheats triggering bans. These are:
- VAC1: HLamp, which allowed the user to control Winamp from the game's interface. Detection later reversed, and all bans caused by it rescinded.[citation needed]
- VAC2: The X-Spectate tool, which allowed server administrators to enable a wallhack effect while spectating to help decide if another player was doing the same. Later downgraded to a kick from the server, but bans not rescinded.
- VAC2: The single-player Half-Life modifications Paranoia and Half-Life FX, which made changes to the engine's renderer that propagated to multiplayer games. This still triggers a ban and no bans caused by it have been reversed.
- VAC and VAC2: sXe Injected, an anti-cheat system for Counter-Strike.
Cheats may be hidden inside otherwise legitimate mod or skin downloads that are created to maliciously get innocent people banned. Since the source of a cheat installed on a computer cannot be proven, bans due to this are never rescinded.[6]
Valve has 'a zero-tolerance policy for cheating and will not lift VAC bans under any circumstances.'[7] This includes account hijacking and other circumstances beyond the control of the account's owner.
Manually applied bans
In July 2010, several players who successfully used information leaked from Valve to increase their chances of finding a special Team Fortress 2 item called the Golden Wrench found themselves banned by VAC.[16][17]
Games that support VAC
Mods based on the games above may inherit VAC support from the host game.
See also
References
Valve Anti Cheat Download
- ^'Online cheaters face games ban'. BBC News Online. August 29, 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2221335.stm. Retrieved August 23, 2006.
- ^'Steam Message'. Steam Update News. November 17, 2006. http://storefront.steampowered.com/Steam/Marketing/message/837/?l=english. Retrieved December 11, 2002.
- ^http://www.gameme.com/bans
- ^http://vacbanned.com
- ^'Pure Servers'. Valve Developer Community. 2007-06-06. http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Pure_Servers. Retrieved July 11, 2007.
- ^ ab'I've Been Banned'. Valve Support FAQ. 2008-01-23. https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?p_faqid=589. Retrieved September 18, 2008.
- ^ ab'Valve Anti-Cheat System (VAC)'. Steam Support. November 15, 2006. https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?p_faqid=370. Retrieved December 23, 2006.
- ^VAC Update | SK Gaming
- ^'WineX and VAC'. CS Nation. July 10, 2003. Archived from the original on May 28, 2006. http://web.archive.org/web/20060528064844/http://csnation.net/viewnews.php/6278/. Retrieved July 28, 2006.
- ^'VAC Bans Ramp Up'. CS Nation. April 15, 2004. http://www.csnation.net/comments.php?id=7083. Retrieved July 28, 2006.[dead link]
- ^Smith, Quintin. 'Valve Anti-Cheat software goes a bit GlaDOS?'. Rock, Paper, Shotgun. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/07/26/valve-anti-cheat-software-goes-a-bit-glados/. Retrieved 26 July 2010.
- ^http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/valve-offers-free-game-after-12-000-false-bans
- ^http://www.gamedaily.com/games/left-4-dead/xbox-360/game-features/valve-fixes-issues-that-incorrectly-banned-some-modern-warfare-2-players/
- ^'Re: Told You So !!!!'. Valve Software. Archived from the original on 28 February 2011. http://steamreview.org/files/vac_spyeye/vac_spyeye.htm. Retrieved 4 March 2011.
- ^'For those hit by the recent ban wave over the past two days'. Valve Software. July 1 2011. http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1961785. Retrieved July 2, 2011.
- ^http://www.devicemag.com/2010/07/08/tf2-engineer-update-gets-serious-vac-bans-issued/
- ^http://www.toptiertactics.com/2010/07/goldengate-the-engineer-update-scandal/
External links
Valve Steam Games Download
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Steam Games With Valve Anti Cheat Engine
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