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PayPalValve has announced that developers who use Easy Anti-Cheat for their games now have a much easier setup for Proton and the upcoming Steam Deck.
As we wrote about recently, it turned out that the announcement from Epic Games on supporting Easy Anti-Cheat for Proton was not as easy as expected. It required an SDK update for Epic Online Services, something developers noted was not exactly simple.
Thankfully, Valve has been doing more with Epic behind the scenes and the process is now much better, which should hopefully mean more developers will be able to do it. Valve has now expanded the developer documentation noting how Easy Anti-Cheat can be hooked up with Proton:
- Proton supports Easy Anti-Cheat without requiring any recompilation, but it does require you to manually enable support for your build by following these steps in order:
- Go into the EAC settings on the EAC partner site and enable Linux support from the dashboard.
- Once that's done, download the EAC Linux library (easyanticheat_x64.so) for the SDK version integrated with your game, and add it to your depot next to the Windows library (EasyAntiCheat_x64.dll).
- Lastly, on the Steamworks site, publish a new build of your game containing the new depot contents. (You don't have to make any changes to the game executable, just include the new files in the depot contents.)
Valve states that starting Monday - January 24, they will begin sending out Deck Verified data to developers that use anti-cheat to notify them of the results. Once they get it, developers will have a week to accept it (broken or otherwise) or do the necessary work to get it sorted.
So, if all goes well, we might in the next few weeks see more anti-cheat enabled titles working on Linux with Proton. This would be great for the Steam Deck, since it ships with SteamOS 3 Linux.
Just some of the titles that could benefit include:
- Apex Legends
- Back 4 Blood
- Dead By Daylight
- Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout
- Halo: The Master Chief Collection
- New World
- Paladins
- Rust
- Warhammer: Vermintide 2
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I think most developers will enable it, it's just a question if they do it now or wait until it starts costing them money not too.
4 Likes, Who?
Mmm, I was wondering.. Step 2 is just placing a certain file in a certain dir so, couldn't proton take care of that? (And actually you could control which dir is it by changing the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH) It would remove step 2 and 3 which are the most annoying I think.
6 Likes, Who?
rustybroomhandle Jan 22, 2022
Next step is to send someone over to all these studios to hold their hand and feed them treats.
30 Likes, Who?
And that's indeed few clicks away. Unless a studio lost the sources or the libraries, there is little excuse now to not add support.
Well done, both Valve and Epic!
Well done, both Valve and Epic!
3 Likes, Who?
rustybroomhandle Jan 22, 2022
And that's indeed few clicks away. Unless a studio lost the sources or the libraries, there is little excuse now to not add support.
Well done, both Valve and Epic!
It's even less effort for BattlEye and has been for a while now, and yet I can't think of one game that has asked BattlEye to flip the switch.
5 Likes, Who?
I fail to see why the most played EAC titles on Steam would not jump on the opportunity to easily support more platforms now.
I mean the potential return on investment is clearly in their favour now.
I mean the potential return on investment is clearly in their favour now.
1 Likes, Who?
Insurgency: Sandstorm now? 
Thanks to Valve and even Epic that they were still working on this and improving the situation. It's not as easy as with just sending an email to BattlEye... but it's close.
Fingers crossed!
Last edited by Corben on 23 January 2022 at 10:20 am UTC
Thanks to Valve and even Epic that they were still working on this and improving the situation. It's not as easy as with just sending an email to BattlEye... but it's close.
Fingers crossed!
Last edited by Corben on 23 January 2022 at 10:20 am UTC
2 Likes, Who?
Mmm, I was wondering.. Step 2 is just placing a certain file in a certain dir so, couldn't proton take care of that? (And actually you could control which dir is it by changing the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH) It would remove step 2 and 3 which are the most annoying I think.
Version of anticheat with game is compiled probably need match version of library. Don't know if there is way how proton can get version... and if some game stop updating anticheat, you need multiple libraries...
Last edited by Arten on 22 January 2022 at 10:53 am UTC
1 Likes, Who?
I think most developers will enable it, it's just a question if they do it now or wait until it starts costing them money not too.
Unless a studio lost the sources or the libraries, there is little excuse now to not add support.
I fail to see why the most played EAC titles on Steam would not jump on the opportunity to easily support more platforms now.There is a simple reason, not to ship it: If they ship it, they have to support it! That will always cost resources (i.e. money).
There are Linux binaries missing on GOG although a port is available on Steam. These developers don't have to do much but upload the existing build, besides their Windows and potential macOS releases, but simply refuse to avoid the work afterwards!
So I have my doubts that many games will be made compatible for a system of which many developers are unsure. They'll rather wait to see how many people will install Windows on the Steam Deck before committing to anything.
2 Likes, Who?
I do not understand if this this simplification will allow both versions of Easy-Anticheat (the Epic Online Services version and the old one, as wrote by the Vermintide2 developers some weeks ago) to work without upgrading the code base?
0 Likes
I do not understand if this this simplification will allow both versions of Easy-Anticheat (the Epic Online Services version and the old one, as wrote by the Vermintide2 developers some weeks ago) to work without upgrading the code base?
Yes exactly. Don't need the EAC EOS SDK only for the support. Can use the old EAC SDK now also.
8 Likes, Who?
rustybroomhandle Jan 22, 2022
I do not understand if this this simplification will allow both versions of Easy-Anticheat (the Epic Online Services version and the old one, as wrote by the Vermintide2 developers some weeks ago) to work without upgrading the code base?
The announcement says it will work with any EAC and not require any EOS integration any more.
!link
11 Likes, Who?
I can see where titles which are still in active development/patch cycles are not adding it. It's additional Q&A, it's additional support they have to do.
And those are the ones who mostly have EAC still active.
If it's a finished product and they just have to do that once the incentive may be high enough to do that, and to support the Steam Deck.
For stuff like New World... I don't know, the handheld market is for sure not their target audience, and which each release they'd have to verify the steam deck build, and who ever has done some Q&A work in the past ... another platform is testing everything over twice.
And those are the ones who mostly have EAC still active.
If it's a finished product and they just have to do that once the incentive may be high enough to do that, and to support the Steam Deck.
For stuff like New World... I don't know, the handheld market is for sure not their target audience, and which each release they'd have to verify the steam deck build, and who ever has done some Q&A work in the past ... another platform is testing everything over twice.
2 Likes, Who?
There is a simple reason, not to ship it: If they ship it, they have to support it! That will always cost resources (i.e. money).
Except they don't need to officially support Linux through Proton either. They can just enable it for anyone wishing to play the game while clearly stating they do not offer any support or guarantees about the compatibility continuing to work in the future.
Sure, sounds a bit hypocritical, because it is, but if this was opt-out instead of opt-in nobody would ever call them out for their game breaking at some point.
Lets be real, EAC and BattleEye won't just drop support for Proton now that it's officially included, not unless there's a huge reason to do so, nor would it just stop working for anyone using the official Proton builds from Steam.
The only real world issue with any of this is how userspace detection of cheats on the client side is never going to catch up with kernelspace detection, therefore devs might be reluctant to potentially downgrade the experience for the majority of their userbase over us.
With that being said, I'm not even sure if EAC or BattleEye is actually kernelspace on Windows at this point.
1 Likes, Who?
I think most developers will enable it, it's just a question if they do it now or wait until it starts costing them money not too.
yeah but its a chicken and egg problem...
or people might just install windows...
0 Likes
There is a simple reason, not to ship it: If they ship it, they have to support it! That will always cost resources (i.e. money).
False. Even today you can (try to) run any windows game on wine or proton, and if works fine, if it doesn't work the developers don't owe you support. You can open tickets ofc. But they can copy paste "not supported" and close them faster than you open them.
As a customer I would expect that "proton supported" games, with the badge clearly visible on the steam page, will offer support. But that's on voluntary basis.
4 Likes, Who?
And that's indeed few clicks away. Unless a studio lost the sources or the libraries, there is little excuse now to not add support.
Well done, both Valve and Epic!
It's even less effort for BattlEye and has been for a while now, and yet I can't think of one game that has asked BattlEye to flip the switch.
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/12/more-battleye-titles-for-proton-on-linux-including-dayz-arma-3-now-supported/
1 Likes, Who?
mr-victory Jan 22, 2022
So... Fortnite?
1 Likes, Who?
rustybroomhandle Jan 22, 2022
And that's indeed few clicks away. Unless a studio lost the sources or the libraries, there is little excuse now to not add support.
Well done, both Valve and Epic!
It's even less effort for BattlEye and has been for a while now, and yet I can't think of one game that has asked BattlEye to flip the switch.
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/12/more-battleye-titles-for-proton-on-linux-including-dayz-arma-3-now-supported/
Thanks. Sadly nothing yet that I am keeping an eye on. Hoping the verification name&shame will help.
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