Do you know what are DMA cheats and why are they such a big deal for the gaming community, especially Fortnite?
Gamers are always searching for a competitive edge. Some turn to rigorous practice and skill development, while others resort to a more insidious tool: DMA cheats.
What are DMA cheats?
So let’s delve deep into what are DMA cheats.
DMA stands for Direct Memory Access. It’s a hardware-level feature that allows devices to bypass the CPU and directly access a computer’s RAM. This can be an incredibly useful tool for developers, but cheaters have figured out how to exploit it for nefarious purposes.
Traditional cheats usually inject code into a game’s running process. This makes them relatively vulnerable to detection by anti-cheat software.
What are DMA cheats? Well, these cheats take a different approach than traditional software-powered cheats:
- Separate device: DMA cheats operate on a secondary computer or device. This machine is connected to the gaming computer via a specialized DMA card
- External execution: The game cheat software runs on the second device and uses the DMA card to directly access and manipulate the RAM of the gaming machine
- Undetectable execution: Because the cheat code never resides on the gaming computer itself, it’s incredibly difficult for anti-cheat systems to detect
Types of DMA cheats
DMA cheats offer a frightening array of unfair advantages, including:
- Aimbots: DMA aimbots automatically detect and lock onto targets, providing players with superhuman accuracy
- Wallhacks: These cheats reveal vital information to players, allowing them to see the locations and movements of enemies through walls or other obstacles
- Radar cheats: DMA radar cheats show the real-time positions of players on a mini-map, granting preternatural awareness of the surroundings
Some DMA cheats can also manipulate recoil, adjust damage or health values, grant unlimited resources, or even teleport players around the map.
So the best way to answer what are DMA cheats is they are types of undetectable, multi-purpose (sometimes all at once), and probably the biggest problem of modern gaming.
The Fortnite DMA cheat issue rises
Fortnite, the immensely popular battle royale game Disney invested in recently, is facing a rising wave of insidious cheats powered by DMA (Direct Memory Access) technology. This alarming trend is causing widespread frustration and calls for increased measures to combat these undetectable cheats.
If you ever boot up to Fortnite right now and expect a fair fight, chances are you might see someone doing crazy things like the fella on reloshorts‘ video is pretty high all because Fortnite’s anti-cheat system is failing to detect DMA cheats:
@reloshorts Credit: @framerate_fn #fyp #fortnite #fortniteclips #relatable #trending #viralvideo
You now know what are DMA cheats but can you evaluate why is it such a big deal for Fortnite? The increasing prevalence of DMA cheats in Fortnite has far-reaching consequences for the game and its players
Players using DMA cheats gain an insurmountable and dishonest advantage, undermining the integrity of competitive play and tournaments.
Legitimate players facing off against DMA cheaters have their game experience ruined, potentially causing them to leave the game entirely.
Solving the problem of DMA-based cheats in Fortnite is a complex and ongoing challenge for Epic Games as they have to collaborate with hardware manufacturers to implement safeguards that make DMA manipulation more difficult.
Why can’t anti-cheat detect DMA cheats?
DMA cheats pose a unique challenge to anti-cheat detection systems because they operate in a fundamentally different way than traditional software-based cheats. These cheats typically run on a separate computer or a device that’s linked to the gaming machine using a specific DMA card. As a result, the cheat code never actually resides on the same system as the game itself.
Instead, the DMA cheat uses external hardware to read and modify the game data from afar. This approach makes it extremely difficult for traditional anti-cheat software to identify the presence of the cheat.
Anti-cheat programs generally rely on techniques like searching for known cheat signatures within the game’s code, scanning for anomalies in the game’s memory, or injecting their own code into the operating system to monitor suspicious activity.
However, DMA cheats largely circumvent these methods. Since they aren’t directly modifying the game’s code, signature searches often prove ineffective. Their careful manipulations of game data can evade basic memory scanning, and the direct hardware-level access they exploit might operate out of sight of a hooked operating system.
Featured image credit: vecstock/Freepik.
