[oliwarner]

Doesn't require it. Anticheat for multilayer could all be done server-side, by peers (started by vote), on demand or by peers on demand; all by just checking the player could do what their client claimed to do.

It's just event logging and replay.

But checking drivers and secure connections is easier.

[bob1029]

Event logging is irrelevant if you have incorporated certain optimizations into your game.

For instance, many forms of netcode necessitate revealing slightly more information to players than you otherwise would want to. The world coordinates of player footstep sounds is almost certainly some information flowing across the network.

All you would need to do is intercept this information on the network and view it on an entirely decoupled system in a 3d coordinate space - potentially one synchronized to your player character using similar snooping tactics. Valve has done a pretty good job at making this harder with asymmetric encryption, but its still something the client can ultimately decode or otherwise you wouldn't hear shit during a multiplayer match.

Trying to lock down/validate the actual gamer's PC is a fool's errand. Just go back to first principles in information theory to see what a joke this is. If a certain fact made its way to a player's computer (or simply their home network), you should assume that they know it in the most adversarial way possible and model for that outcome. Obfuscation is just playing yourself in the long run.

[majormajor]

How does checking if the client claimed to do something possible answer questions about if the player had the skill to actually do what they could have possibly done?

[oliwarner]

Because many cheaters do things which are impossible. This is low hanging fruit that we're told we need a ring0 driver to have access to EVERYTHING. Stupid things like tracking other players through walls. Still common because it's so damned easy. You play back their events and you see the cheater always knows where to go, where to hide. There are also exploits. These can all be unit tested away.

But there are cheats like kickback compensation, hitbox tracking. You can apply statistical models and find unlikely consistency but it's hard to say for certain.