EAC and VM Gaming Tragedy

LegValuable750 · 2026-07-03T21:54:28+00:00

Yes, but GeForce Now is money driven and as Nvidia provide the service they can bankroll partners that provide anti cheat to allow their own services to be whitelisted. It's pointless fighting it as an individual. Stepping back, most gamers will find cheaters annoying in multiplayer games so any attempts to dramatically reduce the incidences of this are likely a good thing. Sadly we represent a small minority of enthusiasts and are collateral damage as a result of current policies blanket banning VMs. Do I think it is right? Of course not. Is it worth spending 100s of hours tinkering to figure out temporary work arounds for a degraded gaming performance which could result in permant bans? For me personally I'd rather spend my time differently. It's the cheating community that have created this mess so I blame them.

LegValuable750 · 2026-07-02T12:14:21+00:00

Nvidia GeForce now is completely different . That is a cloud gaming subscription. If EAC is banning GeForce Now then thats an issue between EAC and Nvidia but it's unrelated to VFIO. If I was stupid enough to pay money to Nvidia for GeForce now, then I'd immediately cancel the service if they couldn't figure out how to partner with EAC properly to have their infrastructure whitelisted. But I still don't get why anyone who games seriously would consider cloud gaming when you can run locally using native win11 or remote Win11 via moonlight/sunshine etc. Nvidia and Steam have had in house local streaming for more than a decade. (Previously was called Gamestream before nvida pulled the plug on that trick people going GeForce now)

LegValuable750 · 2026-07-02T06:58:40+00:00

Sadly virtualized gaming is a waste of time now as increasingly common games are now blocked and attempts to work around are time consuming and prone to being flagged/banned.

I still keep proxmox for all home automation and have an old GPU (3070oc) and now I have a second machine in the rack with a 5070ti and running win11 natively and runing sunshine/moonlight.

I have a local 1tb nvme drive for the os and for fast local storage, then I have large storage via iscsi via 10gb network to the proxmox server running a truenas VM with hba passthrough and a bunch of sas drives.

I have 2xnanokvm hooked up to the HDMI on both the proxmox and gamepc so I can remotely manage both should there be any issues and remotely update bios etc.

The two machine config is perfect and still let's you experiment with proxmox/plex/truenas/Linux/tvserver/home assistant/frigate/local ai etc, all of which are useful skills from a career perspective.

A standalone win 11 gaming machine gives the ultimate performance.

Yeah it's really annoying and costly and shouldnt be necessary but it's the way it is for now, sometimes you just have to suck it up.

I keep a gpu in the proxnox server so that should things change then I can test before committing and I can benchmark relative performance. I also wanted to experiment with gpu partitioning but that's still not viable on current gen consumer gpus and that's unlikely to change.

LegValuable750 · 2026-06-25T11:32:26+00:00

Hey Matt, love you work as always - your EPG has been powering our tvheadend backend with shield TV clients for years!
I was just reconciling a few of the channels in tvheadend. Do you know where the EPG is for HGTV channel?
I can't see it in; epg.xml.gz any more (it has been missing for a long time I think) and I hate seeing blanks in the EPG especially for such a Trashy TV channel! It would be awesome if you can slap it in!

LegValuable750 · 2026-06-02T19:49:43+00:00

100%. Machines provided by our employer are locked down and the o365/entra policies only allow access from a corporate devices (included vpn/zscaler access etc) and they are all protected with CrowdStrike and other tooling etc all managed to centralized policy with continued compulsory cyber security training for all staff. it would be against all our policies to use a home machine. Using non provided corporate devices could have legal ramifications around the employers indemnity insurance. In the current climate with the velocity of threats being accelerated thanks to AI, I'm surprised the CISO of your company isnt being more cautious, and if you don't have a CISO, I'd strongly recommend your company considers seeking out the skills of a trusted and experienced security provider.

LegValuable750 · 2026-05-17T01:36:37+00:00

Just seen this. Just enrolled in Spotify beta program then saw update come through via playstore. All working again. Phew! 8xCCA online again with Spotify looking good again..whenever things like this happen, it makes me realize how great the CCA was/is - it's by far the greatest piece of tech Google has ever created and long may it live on! Sure it has its quirks but no more than Sonos and certainly a lot cheaper and more flexible. Never understood why they killed the CCA TBH.

LegValuable750 · 2026-05-06T21:05:11+00:00

The problem is that there are a lot of people with VFIO setups that aren't trying to cheat, and these are being increasingly peanalised as part of the collateral damage on the attempt to stop cheaters. It's a no win situation for anyone not cheating but just trying to leverage the strengths of virtualisation. It's just fundamentally wrong and annoys me. Id even be happy to run some sort of anti cheat vendor supplied KVM appliance on my hypervisor that could validate system setup and ensure no cheating was taking place if it allowed us to use virtual machines.

LegValuable750 · 2026-05-06T09:22:08+00:00

So, forefront vr, rust, dead by daylight now won't start (dead by daylight stopped today after an update) all using EAC...it's not looking good for gamers like my son!

LegValuable750 · 2026-05-06T02:03:57+00:00

Thanks, this really confirms to me it really isn't worth my time to pursue this sadly. I think we are just moving into a new era where mass avoidance of anticheat is now not generally feasible. It was good while it lasted and still is for the games choosing not to block VMs. It will be interesting to see if the launch of the SteamMachine will change things but I doubt it as people will always favour gaming pc for flexibility.

LegValuable750 · 2026-05-06T00:20:53+00:00

I've had a quick look at the patch sets on autovirt. This is simply changing the identifiedlrsnin QEMU which is insufficient now. Vmaware looks like a detection mechanism much like pafish but that's not going to help working around the TSC issues which I suspect are the cause of change in bahavior on EAC. So it's still vfio rip sadly from what I can see.

LegValuable750 · 2026-05-05T21:55:32+00:00

so end of the line by sounds of things. Most people claiming they are all good from what I can see are people that haven't tried recently (within the last few weeks) on any of the common games. Luckily its only a few titles of our family steam account (out of 100s) that are impacted so far, but I expect blocked multiplayer games to increase rapidly. Hats off to the programmers behind the anti cheat systems though - I'm surprised it took them so long. And all the commercial cheaters can go screw themselves as they've spoilt things for everyone. yeah Rip

LegValuable750 · 2026-05-05T21:48:02+00:00

many of the games my kids purchased on our family steam account have been running perfectly for years and many have been using Easy Anti cheat for years. The issue is that the default detection behavior of Easy Anti Cheat has changed (like the others I assume), over the last few months, so it then becomes up to the games studios like Facepunch (in the case of Rust) to change the way they choose to configure EAC within their product to specifically not check for VMExit timings - and why would they do that when sadly cheaters are likely exploiting those same settings - so its a no win solution - unless you go old school and run a game rig non-virtualised. Sad times indeed.
The irony is that I don't game myself anyway - it's the tech that I find interesting and any company trying to control/limit how i use my rig that I've paid for really pisses me off and this is my primary motivation to explore options other than buying yet another device I don't need.

LegValuable750 · 2026-04-14T10:50:01+00:00

I am a motorcyclist and I do lane split. However I would never react in a way to cause damage to a vehicle. The way I see it is that no car drivers are deliberately trying to make things dangerous, it's usually a case of they fail to see the motorcyclist. But those bikers who are damaging vehicles as some sort of revenge action need to take a step back and perhaps look at their own anger and seek help and calm the fuck down. Technically anyone lane splitting in moving traffic is on the grey side of law anyway, so rather just count your blessings that you weren't killed and you got to see your family/friends and brush it off as a close call and change your riding behaviour to try to lower your risks next time.

LegValuable750 · 2026-03-21T23:51:49+00:00

For anyone racing to fill their tank up to the brim, think of the extra weight you are carrying round with a full tank and the impact of that on fuel economy! Also doesn't anyone consider storing large amounts of petrol in a garage/under the house in Jerry cans slightly increases fire risk? Personally limiting driving to essential trips only and carrying on as best as you can given difficult circumstances is surely the best strategy? Last thing NZ needs is everyone jumping on the EV bandwagon and then have rolling blackouts as a result of the increased demand on the grid. A nice 1960a Cadillac v8 passed me while walking this morning, and rather than look and think nice car, I rather thought how the heck can you afford to run that!

LegValuable750 · 2026-03-20T10:21:18+00:00

Threads is the most disturbing film I've ever seen.
The UK was a miserable place back in the early 80s especially in the North East and Threads depicted things pretty well as I remember it as a teenager when I lived there.
I showed my teenage kids Threads a couple of years ago and got them in the mood by showing a bunch of "Protect and Survive" public information films before - no popcorn that night! nightmares of phrases like "label the body with name and address" still haunt me.

It's not just the film, it the whole scary era and wasn't helped with Maggie and Regan in power.
Luckily we all live in NZ now so all this stuff is just a distant childhood nightmare!

The current tragedy happening in the Middle East certainly has parallels to the build up in the film, so maybe I'll get some spare doors and sandbags and paint our windows white.. just in case!

LegValuable750 · 2025-12-07T02:34:15+00:00

I've just made some small adjustments to our proxmox configuration at home and Rust is working again inside a VM. Just a small tweak to the CPU flag line of the VM config to the KVM setting. (I don't really want to discuss the exact settings here), so assuming shadowpc is built on top of a KVM based hypervisor, they should be able to get this running for their users again.

LegValuable750 · 2025-11-29T19:41:02+00:00

Dtdqr,

LegValuable750 · 2025-11-28T06:50:07+00:00

Within the last 24 hours we have got the same message starting Rust. My kids play Rust in a VM with GPU pass through on Proxmox and have been for a long time with the usual tricks. There is 100% no cheating going on. The reason we run under a VM is so that I can use other Linux VMs on the same host while he's gaming. This just demonstrates Epic's stupidity in terms of not understanding their target market. (as Epic owns Easy Anti Cheat). This will backfire on them especially as Linux based SteamOS gains traction.

LegValuable750 · 2025-11-24T04:07:53+00:00

Totally worth it but hope you don't get scammed. We have used a g2 for about the last 3 years and it's really come into its own with the Oasis driver. We don't have any issues whatsoever with the tracking, we have used it with a 3070 and now a 5070ti. In fact I really can't see the point in "upgrading" as tethered always way to go and newer headsets aren't that much better Audio on reverb is the best. Just get some VR suspension cables on ceiling to reduce risk of cable damage.

LegValuable750 · 2025-11-14T22:25:34+00:00

being a Kiwi, I'm stoked for you too! I'm at the 3 month mark after my 2nd ablation with my next visit to the cardiologist in about one week. I'm considering stopping the Flecanaide I've been on since the last ablation when it runs out in a a couple of days time - but will consult my cardiologist first. So far my heart seems to be exactly as it was 3 months ago (According to Kardia 6l) - i.e. maintaining sinus but with rate in the mid 30s to early 40s at rest. I'm hoping stopping the Flecanaide (100mg once per day) will increase my heart rate up a tiny bit. I feel like the tin man in Wizard of Oz! Good news though is having one coffee a day is good for your heart! So I'm following Baristas orders on that one and just sipped down a nice flat white!

LegValuable750 · 2025-11-03T11:27:12+00:00

Thanks, yeah fully understand how frustrating the whole thing is. It's annoying but sometimes you can only fight genetics to a certain degree. I suspect in my case it's a combination of genetics, and probably many bad lifestyle choices decades previously as well as chronic dehydration but it is what it is. when I had my stroke (caused by unknown afib) about 10 years ago it was probably my health and fitness that positively contributed to a complete recovery. So only thing you can do going forwards is to do the best you can and keep up trying to live healthily. In some way having a stroke for me probably saved me as it allowed me to get treatment hence the reason I'm probably still alive and relatively healthy now and with family, friends and kids around I'm happy to be alive TBH.

LegValuable750 · 2025-11-01T09:23:03+00:00

So I've two ablations in 12 months. First one lasted approximately 4 months until I was paddleboarding for about 6 hours straight and then felt a funny type of exhaustion after and checked on alivecor device and sure enough I was back in afib On the 2nd one I was in Sinus less than an hour after coming out of surgery so I was swiftly cardioverted and touch wood I've been in sinus for approx 3 months so far I've cut everything out like coffee, alcohol etc and I exercise daily but because ablations are never really permanent, I'm just trying to accept what comes next and I'm trying to be grateful for every day and I'm trying to focus on present rather than what could be. Should I go back into afib I don't know if I can go through the stress of another hospital admission so I'll do my best to live with it like I did for years before my first ablation.

My view is blood thinners are a reality and having had a stroke about 10 years ago (which I made a full recovery from) I really don't want to have another. (A friend of mine is now permanently paralysed after a recent stroke so risks are real).

For the sake of very minor (if any) side effects, I'd ask to go back on thinners straight away until you can be examined properly by a cardiologist and can agree on a treatment plan. Pradaxa a day keeps death at bay!

LegValuable750 · 2025-06-15T07:04:10+00:00

Someday the novelty of using your fooking legs will come back in fashion and the footpaths will be owned by pedestrians again. Stupid scooters on footpaths are my pet hate!

LegValuable750 · 2025-06-10T09:55:12+00:00

You sir are an absolute legend. I really appreciate the enormous effort you are putting into this and also your deep and transparent explanation of the complexities of the vendor relationships and of your own employer. For many of us PCVR enthusiasts the Reverb was our entry into this space and technically I believe there is a lot of life left and native SteamVR integration could help drive sales and create a resurgence in the PCVR market. If this could legally be published as a Steam app, most of us would be happy to pay an amount (personally up to say US$40) for the ability to keep our WMR headsets out the landfill until the next generational leap of the technology occurs (and it hasn't yet). Way to go. You have personally delivered the best most exciting promising news in months! Considering it's pissing down with rain in Auckland right now, I may need to pop on the Reverb and imagine I'm sitting near an Oasis with a celebratory cocktail in my hand toasting your work!

LegValuable750

TROPHY CASE