On March 20th, 2026 MSI released a BIOS update for B650 Tomahawk Wi-Fi motherboard. One of the changes says “Implemented the anti-cheat mechanism.”
I looked around their forums and people seem to agree that it refers to Microsoft Pluton security processor.
Does anybody know what this change is actually about? Is it another initiative by Microsoft to further lock people out of their computers? Would it somehow hinder using Linux with this motherboard?
Can someone explain to me why cheating shouldn’t be solely caught and prevented on the servers these games run on? Why the hell are they diving into control on my own system?
It’s all about control. They demand control over servers, not allowing you to self host. They also demand control over communities, by putting them all in one big server or other controlled channels (but sometimes refusing to properly moderate them like in league of legends).
You make it sound like a conspiracy to control our lives instead of a profit-maximization behavior. It’s cheap and easy to lock you out and expensive to build things more robustly. The cost to your privacy, autonomy, etc. isn’t passed on to them because typical consumers don’t know or care what they’re giving up. This is what regulations are for but it’s all a little late for that
That would require them to run more servers, any extra CPU time is an indirect cost. By moving anti cheat to the client (along with other stuff like hit detection,) then they are only spending the customers CPU time not their server CPU time.
In basic terms, your computer has to say something like I clicked here, to send it to the server and orchestrate with the other clients.
On the flip side the server sends stuff back that your client can show you were the other clients are.
All this raw data can be used by a cheater however they want.
If we minimise the data available to you or a cheater to be the levellest, that would be the client only sends mouse and keyboard inputs, and all the client gets back from the server is pre-rendered frames. Think game streaming, from a cheating perspective is the problem solved? No, they just make a program to read screen and move the mouse when it sees an enemy faster than any human can, or more realistically to avoid that detection, just act slightly better than the cheaters opponent.
As other comments have mentioned, game streaming for everyone would be expensive for the server.
And if your clever you’ll realise that even BIOS level detection won’t stop a separate computer with a webcam doing keyboard mouse emulation, hence the comments about the developers wanting control.
AI deepfakes can attest that even gameplay moderation will get more difficult as the input emulation gets more human like.
So the only hope is to do enough of all these things so that cheaters deem it not worth the effort/not profitable enough.
MSI is on my shit list for the next build, then. I want full control over my machine, including the games I play. I do not want to waste time grinding for stuff, when I can be enjoying narratives instead. Plus, who knows what kind of crappy things that governments or corporations would get up to?
Vanguard demands this level of control over user systems
Vanguard seems to be the only entity handling a threat vector most people simply ignore. I suspect not even crowdstrike and the like could handle malicious pci devices. Well, vanguard can’t either, it’s just a cat and mouse game. But they are definitely trying in an area where most seem to have given up, but it’s absurd that it’s a fucking game anticheat that’s doing this.
They do it though. People all of a sudden are motivated and able to enable bitlocker and secure boot and update their bios when they need it to play le funni video game.
Sometimes I wonder if Vanguard is actually a government pet project for practice blocking and executing malicious pci devices.
You take one of those pci dma cheat cards, put a modem in them, and you’ve broken secure boot. And nation states have done such a thing to compromise laptops or other devices after getting physical access to them for a bit.
So glad I stopped playing league of legends over a decade ago. (And it wasn’t even because of this, you could play it on a completely normal computer back then, I just ended up liking Dota more)
Yeah the QoL on dota is insane and for league it’s non existent. Watch any replay, watch friends, sandbox for testing heroes. Idk to me league is unplayable for that.
It is spyware by design, but whether it’s being used as such is still in question.
It does send encrypted traffic to China, though, and while that alone isn’t proof of nefarious behavior (could be anonymous metadata/logs for development purposes), it’s extremely suspicious
In the video game ‘black market’, boosting/carry services and selling accounts is big business. You can hire minimum wage employees in whatever country has the cheapest labor costs, throw them in front of a PC with aimbot software and have them escort customers for US $30/hr.
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Can someone explain to me why cheating shouldn’t be solely caught and prevented on the servers these games run on? Why the hell are they diving into control on my own system?
It’s all about control. They demand control over servers, not allowing you to self host. They also demand control over communities, by putting them all in one big server or other controlled channels (but sometimes refusing to properly moderate them like in league of legends).
Now, they want to control your device.
You make it sound like a conspiracy to control our lives instead of a profit-maximization behavior. It’s cheap and easy to lock you out and expensive to build things more robustly. The cost to your privacy, autonomy, etc. isn’t passed on to them because typical consumers don’t know or care what they’re giving up. This is what regulations are for but it’s all a little late for that
Sad people still play that garbage
That would require them to run more servers, any extra CPU time is an indirect cost. By moving anti cheat to the client (along with other stuff like hit detection,) then they are only spending the customers CPU time not their server CPU time.
It’s about money.
In basic terms, your computer has to say something like I clicked here, to send it to the server and orchestrate with the other clients. On the flip side the server sends stuff back that your client can show you were the other clients are. All this raw data can be used by a cheater however they want. If we minimise the data available to you or a cheater to be the levellest, that would be the client only sends mouse and keyboard inputs, and all the client gets back from the server is pre-rendered frames. Think game streaming, from a cheating perspective is the problem solved? No, they just make a program to read screen and move the mouse when it sees an enemy faster than any human can, or more realistically to avoid that detection, just act slightly better than the cheaters opponent. As other comments have mentioned, game streaming for everyone would be expensive for the server. And if your clever you’ll realise that even BIOS level detection won’t stop a separate computer with a webcam doing keyboard mouse emulation, hence the comments about the developers wanting control. AI deepfakes can attest that even gameplay moderation will get more difficult as the input emulation gets more human like.
So the only hope is to do enough of all these things so that cheaters deem it not worth the effort/not profitable enough.
Thanks, that’s a useful breakdown
MSI is on my shit list for the next build, then. I want full control over my machine, including the games I play. I do not want to waste time grinding for stuff, when I can be enjoying narratives instead. Plus, who knows what kind of crappy things that governments or corporations would get up to?
https://www.riotgames.com/en/news/vanguard-security-update-motherboard
I am so deeply annoyed that
Vanguard demands this level of control over user systems
Vanguard seems to be the only entity handling a threat vector most people simply ignore. I suspect not even crowdstrike and the like could handle malicious pci devices. Well, vanguard can’t either, it’s just a cat and mouse game. But they are definitely trying in an area where most seem to have given up, but it’s absurd that it’s a fucking game anticheat that’s doing this.
Ah yes, people who don’t even know what motherboard they have will have to update their BIOS
They do it though. People all of a sudden are motivated and able to enable bitlocker and secure boot and update their bios when they need it to play le funni video game.
When the arms race with cheaters has gotten there you should change strategies in fighting them.
Sometimes I wonder if Vanguard is actually a government pet project for practice blocking and executing malicious pci devices.
You take one of those pci dma cheat cards, put a modem in them, and you’ve broken secure boot. And nation states have done such a thing to compromise laptops or other devices after getting physical access to them for a bit.
So glad I stopped playing league of legends over a decade ago. (And it wasn’t even because of this, you could play it on a completely normal computer back then, I just ended up liking Dota more)
Yeah the QoL on dota is insane and for league it’s non existent. Watch any replay, watch friends, sandbox for testing heroes. Idk to me league is unplayable for that.
Vanguard is proven spyware. If you installed that shit, I’d wipe the OS and reflash the BIOS.
And refund any games that require it on steam if you purchased any from there…
Do you have a source of this information?
No, but it feels right and it sounds cool.
It is spyware by design, but whether it’s being used as such is still in question.
It does send encrypted traffic to China, though, and while that alone isn’t proof of nefarious behavior (could be anonymous metadata/logs for development purposes), it’s extremely suspicious
I was just memeing bro.
This is why I dislike Tencent (parent of Riot Games)
we always knew video games would be the end of the world since gamergate
How is cheating in Valorant this profitable?
Why would a game owned by China want full control of a PC?
Maybe cheating is the excuse because selfhosting and server mods just banning cheaters would work if they actually cared about cheating.
Why would anyone want root kernel access to a PC?
Oh, uh, to be able to read anything on the entire PC, also be able to interdict and then modify literally any ongoing process or command.
… Palantir is very very hungry for data, after all.
And you can make money, if you sell it to them.
In the video game ‘black market’, boosting/carry services and selling accounts is big business. You can hire minimum wage employees in whatever country has the cheapest labor costs, throw them in front of a PC with aimbot software and have them escort customers for US $30/hr.
Buncha fuckin’ clowns wanting video game ranks they didn’t even earn. So pointless.
It’s super pointless, but there are people with a lot of money and no self control. Those people are the ones that keep these services in business.
tfw millions of dollars of anticheat development is defeated by one PCI-E-boi
or even better, an adruino that connects your mouse and video output
The fast object detection aimbots are a pretty good budget option if you’re into that kind of thing.
and its THE anti cheat mechanism. Not just any but THE one.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220726042219/https://gabrielsieben.tech/2022/07/25/the-power-of-microsoft-pluton-2/