AMD Anti-Lag+ Causing Havoc In Multiplayer Games With VAC Bans in CS2

AMD has a technology named Anti-Lag+ that effectively works to keep the CPU in pace with the GPU and apply frame alignment within the game for better frame syncing. This technology can lead to lower latency and can be desirable in fast-paced shooters so long as you don’t get banned for using it, which is unfortunately the case for Counter-Strike 2 players.

CS2 VAC Bans For Anti-Lag

Recently AMD released the driver version 23.10.1 which allowed players to access Anti-Lag+ in Counter Strike 2 which is exclusive to the RX 7000 series. Unfortunately however, this is causing problems with CS2 which has been made clear by a tweet from the Counter-Strike team (Via VideoCardz). The Anti-Lag/+ feature is causing issues with CS2 as it is implemented by “detouring engine dll functions” which leads to a ban because it is tampering with CS code. They warn players to not enable ANTI-LAG/+ and once AMD releases an update to remedy this, they will identify affected users and reverse their bans.

AMD is fully aware of this problem and released its own statement again discouraging the use of Anti-Lag+ in CS2 and stating that they are working with Valve to address the issue.

Other Games Also Affected

With many popular multiplayer games using complex anti-cheat measures, it’s highly expected that this problem extends beyond Counter-Strike and as it turns out that is definitely the case as shared in a further article from VideoCardz. There are various claims in forums and subreddits for both Call of Duty and Apex Legends which stem from as far back as three weeks ago, this isn’t a new problem. There are three reports at the EA and AMD websites (1, 2, 3) for Apex Legends all claiming false bans for using Anti-Lag+ similar to CS2 however it seems this has flown under the radar due to Apex not being as popular as it once was. On the other hand, there are several reports (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) for both Modern Warfare II and Warzone which all complain about game crashes and Anti-Lag being the culprit although fortunately not any account bans. It also seems that Anti-Lag is fine here but not Anti-Lag+

This is quite an oversight from AMD, surely someone would’ve clicked that accessing DLL files would trigger the anti-cheat on a lot of the titles which would benefit from Anti-Lag+. At the very least it is fortunate that this technology is only available on the RX 7000 series meaning the amount of affected people is a lot smaller than it could be. If you’re one of those people, avoid Anti-Lag+ for now.