WINE Is Not an Emulator (that’s what the acronym actually stands for).

At a program level, WINE creates a dummy Windows directory structure, slaps files where an exe expects them, and executes the program.

EXEs (well, all programs) will use system calls to request resources (ie. files, access to hardware like GPUs, data from other processes) which Windows maps to certain areas of memory and has its own protocols for how to handle requests. Linux has its own protocols and methods that are incompatible, hence why Windows and Linux apps can’t run natively together.

Then the magic happens: WINE maps these requests to Linux requests so that the running program is none the wiser. It asks for GPU resources like a Windows app would, then gets those resources back just like a Windows app would expect. There are thousands of edge cases, hundreds of system calls, and a bunch else that complicates things but that’s how WINE (and Proton) works.

The reason this fucks up Kernel-level anticheat is that it isn’t trying to communicate via these established channels. They usually operate with full resources outside of the jurisdiction of your OS, and scan your memory bit-by-bit rather than asking the OS politely via system calls for info on other processes.

With WINE, whilst a typical application will not notice the differences they’re designed to not throw a fit if your underlying OS is configured differently, a kernel anticheat will not even recognise the system as a valid OS even if it was able to run in the first place.

The solution here is systems like EasyAC that give up the benefits of being able to analyse processes at the kernel level in favour of portability. Another potential solution (though unlikely imo) is a cross-platform kernel anticheat protocol, that all major operating systems agree to implement, similar to how operating systems will implement the TCP/IP protocol to communicate across networks regardless of underlying OS.

Now the reason "WINE"s acronym is particularly important is that if it DID emulate windows, as in what most virtual machine providers do, then anticheat would be running in an environment mapped out like a real Windows install - because it is. This is how many Linux gamers prefer to run certain titles, and something that should always be functional. It is much more annoying to maintain, However - balance how much you really wanna play the latest COD with your willingness to debug GPU passthrough shit.

I hope not. I hope it never does. Windows users are weird enough not giving a shit about installing rootkits on their computer. We don’t want this in Linux. What computer is worth compromising just for some game to determine whether or not you’re cheating at it?

https://areweanticheatyet.com/no-js

Proton anti-cheat works with punk buster and what ever garbage gta5 is using now.

Anticheat detects if you’re running normal Windows or something else.

If you’re using something else, they won’t let you play the game.

Wine is something else.

IIRC Most major anti-cheat platforms not using kernel -level support linux these days. The SteamDeck forced their hand.

The problem is the developers. They have the ability to specifically block Linux and that’s only going to change once enough people use it. As for kernel level that’s an entirely different can of worms and I’m fine just not playing those games.

Yes, we are waiting for the CrowdStrike aha moment where the industry learns the hard way that anticheat with root privileges was a dangerous idea not worth the risks.

Anti cheat software tries to find cheats running on the computer, and in order to that, so called kernel-level anticheat hooks into NT (Windows kernel) internals, and runs at the highest possible privilege level. It has to do that so it can monitor everything going on in the system. If it didn’t do that, the cheat could just hide from the anticheat software by running with superior privileges.

Wine does not implement undocumented/internal parts of NT, and neither does it run at an elevated privilege level. It also cannot realistically implement any and all possible NT kernel internals, and it cannot possibly hide the fact that it’s actually wine, and not real Windows, from any program that really wants to figure this out.

If wine tried to implement a specific workaround for a specific anti-cheat software/version, in order to it trick into thinking it’s running on a real Windows system with elevated privileges, the anti-cheat vendor would likely interpret this as a kind of deception, and they could easily update their software to detect this situation.

Theoretically, anti-cheat vendors could do kernel-level anticheat for the Linux kernel specifically if the game runs on Linux, but this has problems: First of all a general backlash and complete lack of cooperation from the Linux community (btw, Microsoft isn’t too happy about them doing this on Windows either, and they might at some point do something about this, since it’s bad for security and stability). Also, Linux kernel internals aren’t at all stable, and so just practically you cannot hook into the Linux kernel nearly as easily as you can into NT.

Some anti-cheat vendors do support Linux though, but only optionally if the game dev allows that. In practice, this just means many checks will just be disabled on Linux, which is presumably why many games do not enable the Linux support.

tl;dr: No. Only the anti-cheat vendor / game dev can realistically fix the situation, and they may not want to because it’ll be worse at actually detecting cheats on Linux in practice.

it already runs anticheat whenever game developers allow it to.

Just buy a minipc and use it solely for gaming on Windows if you really need to game.

I wonder if immutable systems could negate the need for kernel anti cheat. If the game can ensure the current kernel and image is one from a list of acceptable ones, it doesn’t need to kernel anti cheat. They could do this by comparing the checksum or something.

Will wine ever be able to run antiCheat.

I hope not. I switched to Linux to get away from malware and spyware.

No, forget anticheat games. It’s not possible to create a “fake” rootkit. If it was possible, they would have done it for Windows too, and it would defeat the purpose of anti-cheat. So, just don’t run these games. They don’t worth your security.

Lightning flashes, sparks shower, in one blink of your eyes you’ve mis-seen.

https://areweanticheatyet.com/

Did you know that most big anti cheat systems actually do run in Wine when allowed to by the developer?