Valve starts reversing Counter Strike 2 AMD Anti-Lag+ VAC bans

Valve starts reversing AMD Anti-Lag+ VAC bans and implements Radeon driver checks

Last week, Valve confirmed that AMD’s Anti-Lag+ technology was getting users of Radeon GPU users banned in Counter Strike 2. Since then, AMD has removed their Anti-Lag+ technology from their Radeon GPU drivers from all games, citing game ban concerns. Now, Valve has updated Counter Strike 2 to ensure that “incompatible” AMD GPU drivers are unable to play Counter Strike 2. Additionally, the company has started to reverse VAC bans for affected players.

Valve’s anti-cheating systems mistakenly saw AMD’s Anti-Lag+ technology as a a form of cheating. While the blame for this can be laid on Valve’s shoulders, this issue is also caused by how AMD’s Anti-Lag+ technology alters a game’s graphics pipeline to reduce lag. AMD are working with developers to improve their Anti-Lag+ technology, and at this time it is unclear how AMD will address this issue.

Why is AMD’s Anti-Lag+ technology important?

Technologies like AMD Anti-Lag+ decrease the time between game inputs and seeing the effect of those inputs on screen. Reducing lag helps to make games feel more responsive. It also result in a competitive advantage in online games like Counter Strike 2.

Nvidia has their own anti-lag technology called Nvidia Reflex. This technology is implemented directly into games. By doing this, Nvidia avoids anti-cheat systems by making their anti-lag technology an official game feature, not a driver tweak. AMD could follow Nvidia’s lead by making Anti-Lag+ an implementable game feature. That said, such a change would mean that fewer games will benefit from Anti-Lag+.

At this time, it is unclear how AMD will address the concerns surrounding their Anti-Lag+ technology. We expect to hear more from AMD soon about this issue.

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