Valve explained in Friday’s announcement that this new anti-cheat feature “significantly restricts the types of programs and files that can interact with the game.” This doesn’t only affect cheats, it blocks loads of harmless software too. In its initial state, folks have reported it objecting to software including Discord’s overlay, some of Nvidia’s jazz, anti-virus, and the OBS video capture software. Sounds like some software developers will be able to make it comply with Valve’s new rules. Valve explained more of what’s going on: For now, the new measures are limited to a public beta branch for those who really want to try it. Following many reports of the beta build running far worse, Valve popped out a beta performance patch last night. Some are still reporting their performance has tanked on the beta so it sounds like more work is needed. With that in mind, I wouldn’t expect this to launch super soon. “For developers of third-party programs that interact directly with the CS:GO executable process, we have added requirements that will impact your software. Moving forward, all DLLs that interact with CS:GO will need to be digitally signed with an Authenticode signature. Additionally, we will block signed DLLs if their functionality interferes with the game in any way.” This isn’t mean to be Valve’s big end-game anti-cheat move. It targets a specific type of cheat, doing nothing to sneakier types. It’s still helpful to have one more tool in their kit as the endless cheatwar continues. As is the way with the cheatwar, this new level of protection was reportedly broken the same day. Doubtless Valve will try something else to counteract that bypass. Then the cheaty cheaters will one-up Valve. And on and on through the decades and centuries until only Dustnet remains
