Asus Request Feedback on "Cheat" Drivers

skunkeh writes "Asus have a poll up on their site asking the general public whether or not they would like to see "SeeThrough technology" available in drivers for Asus graphics cards. The technology in question is causing uproar in the online gaming community where the drivers can be used to cheat in games such as Quake III and Counter-Strike. Asus have posted some flimsy arguments in defence of the technology on their product page but they don't appear to be convincing the several thousand gamers who have already posted their comments." I still think this is cool stuff. People are just going to cheat online: drivers don't have all that much to do with it. And if they can't cheat, they'll DoS attack. Maybe I'm just disillusioned, but I have more fun playing with people I know and trust then strangers. Strangers cheat.

Comments

Hacking and economics

[Aphelion]

So you ask, why don't id software and Valve just add cheat protection to their games? Well, that's the funny part. Because the games use an open standard to render their scenes, they are also succeptible to all sorts of totally unpreventable "hacks." Just like id software loves to hack open protocols and add some error correction to UDP, Asus likes to hack the open protocols and modify the way some OpenGL instructions work. It helps their business, just like it helps id's business.

Is it A Bad Thing? No, I don't believe so. If someone will go to all the trouble to buy a $150+ video card just to see through walls, I believe that they would no less likely spend the five minutes searching to download the superwallhack cheat for Half-Life. Anyone who won't face up to this fact is simply naive.

Regardless, id software and Valve are both in the same boat: by using an open standard to render their games, they are relying on security through obscurity.

Re:Hacking and economics

[The Pim]

Regardless, id software and Valve are both in the same boat: by using an open standard to render their games, they are relying on security through obscurity.

Disregarding the obvious fact (already pointed out) that using an open standard makes games less obscure, you bring up an interesting topic. One of the interesting aspects is that there is in fact no need, in principle, to rely upon obscurity at all.

All the games need to do is perform more computation on the server, to avoid sending "forbidden knowledge" to the clients. If the other guy is hiding behind the wall, figure that out on the server instead of relying on the client (game software, drivers, hardware) to keep the secret. This is expensive, but given the gains in CPU speed and 3D hardware (no reason the server couldn't offload this to a 3D card), I think it may be feasible. And it will only get more feasible in the future, because the cost of figuring out what's visible is increasing much more slowly than the cost of detailed rendering.

bah

[QuantumG]

I would say that the players are ruining the spirit of fair play, not the drivers.

Re:Not really

[Old Wolf]

One day, you're actually going to have a girlfriend.

Double standard

[FattMattP]

So now people want to get rid of "SeeThrough technology" in graphics cards because it might be used to cheat by some individuals?

What next? Getting rid of peer-to-peer file sharing because some people might trade copyrighted data?

Yes, let's deny something that could be useful to many because of the actions of a few.
</sarcasm>

no only strangers cheat

[rbreve]

> Strangers cheat.

Girlfriends cheat too!

Asus not the first to do it.

[DeeKayWon]

Metabyte tried this exact same thing back in the days of the Voodoo2. The community blew a collective nut, Metabyte pulled the drivers and they never left the underground. I imagine the same thing will happen again.

Depends on the game, and gameplay.

[EvlPenguin]

In a game like Quake II, the ability to see through walls would hardly give you any advantage, because it comes down to your ability to move fast and aim accurately. However, in a game like Counter-Strike, a patch such as the one mentioned above could win you the game.

Anyone who's ever played CS knows the intensity of crouching behind a box, hiding behind a corner or ducking in a vent, waiting to make your move. If your enemy could just look up and see someone waiting in the vents, why not jump in behind the enemy and blow his head off?

Never the less, cheating in any form in a multiplayer game is not only rude and unfair, but you _will_ be found out, and when that happens, you are immediatly discredited. Just try to use a cheat patch or auto-aiming script for more than one round before someone yells "[your name here] is a BOT!!!". Then, hopefully someone in the room has administrative privlidges, and can ban the cheater. Or there could be a voting system in place to kick the cheater (like there is in CS). This is really the only way to stop cheating. It is impossible to prevent, but easy to stop with the right methods.

Cheaters:Online Games::Script Kiddies:Hackers
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Re:*Sigh*

[electricmonk]

Does that mean we should leave bank vaults open?

Actually, that's an incorrect analogy. He's not advocating that game developers purposely make it possible to cheat. He's saying that cheaters should be given the tools to abuse the game and make it miserable for everyone else, much like BUGTRAQ's philosophy that script kiddies should be given tools of destruction to embarass companies into fixing security holes.

Perhaps what you were trying to say was that since people are going to steal things as well, we should sell them C4 and Thermite at the highest prices that they are willing to pay. Which I wholeheartedly support, as long I'm the only one doing the selling and they don't go out to rob my bank.

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No! Don't get rid of the cheats!

[wrinkledshirt]

I can't very well admit that the reason why they keep getting headshots on me has anything to do with SKILL, can I?

WTF?

[glenkim]

Man, I tried the ASUS see-through drivers on NPRQuake, and it didn't help my deathmatch skills at all! I tried the "wireframe" mode in the sketch rendering mode, and it didn't help me 0wnz anybody! What a scam.

The scariest application of this...

[PYves]

using the see-through to cheat at minesweeper! I played so long to get those high scores and those bastards can see the mines right off!