So EA's anticheat bans linux players
Hello people So i read a post on Lutris about someone who has been banned by FairFight just because the anticheat panicked when it read "dxvk" an opensource library who let us play on linux while yo...
Forum Discussion
Hi!
I really hope they resolve this issue ASAP. This started gaining attention when players started getting banned from Battlefield V, however, I'm having a problem with another game. My setup is as follows: Manjaro Linux running Lutris, via which I run Origin using Proton 4.11 and I play Apex Legends this way. Getting this set up was already an agony of it's own, there is only one other company whose games are even harder if not impossible to run, the name of which I'm not going to post here, Linux users know what I'm talking about. Anyway, that's not the point here. I finally got Apex Legends running and after playing the training for like 1 minute I got kicked back to the menu and it said that my client didn't pass the anticheat authentication. For what, exactly? Sure, it's a free game, I'll just play something else. But what if it wasn't? What if I actually paid for an EA game, like Battlefield V? Do I also have to purchase Windows, like they're in a bundle?
"Well just install Windows, you shouldn't be using Linux for gaming anyway" most readers would say.
It is true that for a very long time Linux had been lacking behind Windows when it came to gaming, in fact it was always the argument against using Linux for gamers. But times have changed. I can play any game I want on Linux without even a single FPS being sacrificed, and although the Linux community is indeed much smaller than that of Windows, that little 2 percent is still very significant when the 100% means millions of users. I think it's time EA and other companies take Linux users into account when making their games. Now, this doesn't mean they should port all games to Linux as well - because let's face it, it really wouldn't be worth it for them, they do want to make money after all - but at least they could make their anticheat software in such a way that it doesn't start screaming in terror when it sees DXVK, or make a native version of at least their game launcher client, etc.
This is a pointless post. You're not falsely being banned for trying to play Apex Legends on Linux. Apex Legends uses EASY ANTI CHEAT, which is a completely different anticheat software than what BF5 uses.
BF5 users weren't getting banned just for playing on Linux (the original story was an absolute misleading bit of nonsense), but either way, Apex uses Easy Anti Cheat and Easy Anti Cheat DOES NOT WORK in Wine/Proton. It doesn't function, so the game kicks you for not having working anticheat. THAT'S the issue, it's not a false ban.
BF5 uses a SERVER-SIDE anticheat, Fairfight, so when you play it on Linux the anticheat still functions. But with Apex, it uses a kernel-level client-side anticheat, and when you try to play on Linux, it fails to run, so it kicks you from the game because you don't have a working anticheat client. It's not even remotely the same thing.
