this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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This isn't necessarily true - most anti-cheat programs detect VMs, and depending on the game, some may prevent you from launching the game (eg games using Vanguard), others may flag you and cause you to get kicked out of the game, or even get you banned (Battleye is pretty notorious for this, from what I hear).
Now there are some tricks you can use, such as editing the XML for your VM to mimic your host machine's SMBIOS data / vendor strings etc, but it's a bit of work and can be a hit-or-miss.
Of course, the best option would be to not support games which use invasive anti-cheat in the first place. :)
And if you're on nVidia, it can be a bit of a pain to get it all going, since you need to patch your GPU's vBIOS. You can see how much work is involved in setting it all up over here: https://gitlab.com/Mageas/single-gup-passthrough - so not for the faint-hearted. :)
cc: @JinxLuckless@beehaw.org
Thanks so much for the info, both of you!
I do in fact have Nvidia... bummer! I'm not too worried about AntiCheats that don't support Linux since that mostly seems to be for PvP-heavy games, which are not usually a thing I'm into. Ark & Rust were about the only games like that I liked, & I played on PvE servers. But I do think some MMOs use AntiCheats, right? Though for sure not GW2 or FFXIV, which are my current obsessions.
My current plan is, since support for Windows 10 is being dropped in October 2025, maybe I'll upgrade to Windows 11 so I can keep getting security updates, and then dual-boot to Linux, but have Linux as the main. Like 90% of the time I'll be in Linux Mint (or whichever one I pick), and then just swap over to Windows briefly if/when I need to.
The VM plan sounded really awesome, but I think the nVidia fix looks beyond my ability. I'm someone who can't code & only knows like 3 DOS commands, but can set up a Minecraft modpack (without changing any recipes) & upload the files to servers others run, or otherwise handle setting up mods for games in general. I'm saying all that to try and give some idea of my expertise or lack thereof. I'd consider myself a low-end power user, maybe? So given that, does this plan sound reasonable, re the dual booting & mostly swapping to Linux Mint (or whatever distro)?
Yes, I mostly agree with your conclusions. MMOs do generally employ anti-cheat, so I wouldn't attempt running them in a VM unless you want to take a risk. So dual-booting is an acceptable compromise.
The good news is though that gaming on Wine keeps improving every day. From the games you've mentioned, only Rust isn't compatible with Linux (due to EasyAntiCheat), but the others are gold rated - and GW2 is even platinum rated!
You can use ProtonDB to check the game compatibility, and the user reports are usually helpful to see if they've encountered any issues or had to employ any tweaks to get it going. But do keep an eye out on this space, as Wine/Proton keeps improving constantly, so you never know, maybe some day even Rust might work!
Edit: Actually, reading the reviews for Rust, looks like you can actually get it to work if you connect to a server that doesn't use anti-cheat!
Oh wow, nice! I especially appreciate the ProtonDB link-- I'd known about Proton, but not ProtonDB. :) And that's awesome, re GW2 especially!
I'm thinking I'm going to try Pop!OS... I was reading reviews etc. of various gaming/newbie Linux stuff on [https://itsfoss.com/](It's Foss) and they're a big fan, and Pop seems pretty readymade for gaming stuff. I plan to put it on a flash drive & test it before dual booting to it, and if I'm not a fan, Linux Mint it is! I tried that once before, years ago.