Understanding VAC

Learning what VAC is and gain knowlegde of what it can achieve

Introduction

VAC (Volvo Allows Cheats) is Valve's way to counter cheats for video games. What makes VAC unique is that no one knows the inside and outside of VAC, it’s kept a secret for a reason.

This guide will hopefully give you knowlegde of ways VAC is used and what to take notes on, and this guide is to prevent people always asking, "WELL THIS GET ME VAC BAN?"

What does VAC look for?

Since VAC’s algorithms are confidential, no one knows the get around of how it operates.
But over the years, people have started gaining what triggers VAC. Here is a few of them:

• Memory-changing (Internal or External cheats access these)
  
• Changing Game Files
  
• Any active/background debuggers (Assembly code viewer i.e Debugger)

Now let's do through each of these:

Memory-changing

Picture from Google: Insanity Cheats

Cheating has always been a problem for counter strike, ever since 1.6.
There is no complete method that will work to counter cheating, sadly none.

These are mostly the common reason of a VAC Ban, External Cheats.
Unlike Internal cheats, External cheats are ran in a different program to the game. Most External cheats require you to run full screen window or in window mode to see the visuals. These are popular among cheat forums since they are simple to create.
On the other side, Internals are the big mean guys of creating a cheat. Although you can get Externals that can out-perform Internal cheats, some believe it’s easier to create these ones.
Since the cheat is Internal (Injected onto the game’s own process) everything made from the Dll file is injected onto the process itself. DirectX or OpenCL libraries are used to achieve the visuals for the cheat. I believe that both version of cheats still give the same risk, you can’t out run VAC. You can for a month or two, but it’s running for you. It will remember you.

Changing Game Files

WILL I GET VAC BAN FOR THIS AUTO BUNNYHOP MIRCO?
WILL THIS FONT OR TEXTURE MOD GIVE ME A VAC BAN?

These are common questions that are asked among the counter strike community.
Here are a few points on it:

Note: When you boot up counter-strike, there should be a message to alert you that one of the files have been changed and it's not the offical file. Always validate your files if this occurs!

• As long as the main files are not replace/modified, you're fine.
  
• Text mods, Rader Texture Mods, and Font Mods are fine. These won't give you the competitve advantage over the game.
  
• Be careful if you use a game booster, it may modify a few files while playing the game which could trigger a flag to VAC to say, "Beep boop, I see that one of the files have changed! Lets put him to the waiting list and to see if he is really cheating"
  
• VAC is very picky when it comes to how it handles things, so be warned. VAC is a big baby.

Assembly Code Viewer Programs (Debuggers)

Cheat Engine & OllyDbg are the most used programs which lets you see how the program access and reads in the RAM

These programs are used to change memory in games or applications. These programs helps the programmer to produce the values and pointers that access certain memory locations points to access important data to make their cheat work.

ALWAYS CHECK that these programs are not running when using the game. This also implies game injectors (If you done Game Reverse Engineering on another game) VAC can identify if the program can dissect code.
People have been VAC banned for leaving these programs open in the background, even if they aren’t hooked onto the game’s memory locations.

How do I avoid getting banned by this evil beast?

The most simple answer to this is: DON'T CHEAT EVEN IF YOU BOUGHT IT WITH YOUR MUMS CREDIT CARD.

A few more notes:

• Stay away for programs which changes or reads the values from the game. Ensure that the software you are using are at least approved from Valve (Things like SteelSeries Game Sence is okay since it use's CSGO's API, it doesn't read or write the games memory)
  
• Never leave your computer unattened with friends around/family, as silly as it sounds, you'd be suprised how many people accounts have been banned because of their friend or brother installed a "Free Cheat" onto their computer. You cannot make the steam support to provoke your VAC ban, you're an idiot for letting that person on. Your Account, YOUR RESPONSIBILITY
  
• Avoid scripts which controls your gun spray, since the rise of VACNet, it's learned how to detect sudden movement using the lovely mathematics of VIEWMATRICS
  
• Just because a guy ran and headshot you doesn't means he cheats, don't assume that. You need to understand that CSGO is somewhat unbalanced when it comes to the ranking system. You'll always bump into people who know the map better than you. Sometimes you need to accept the defeat, it's hard. I know. No one likes to lose.
  
• Check for any unusual devices which have been plugged in, If your friend has a USB stick while playing the game, never take a chance, look at the files. We don't know if VAC looks through devices which contain files. So always take every precaution of what devices are plugged in or out.

And remember, if it sounds too good to be true, "DON'T DOWNLOAD ANY PROGRAM WHICH SUGGEST IT CAN IMPROVE YOUR GAMEPLAY.

So, is VAC a Joke?

VAC is known for it's famous quote, "Valve Allow Cheaters"

Although this is somewhat true, VACNet is pushing itself to new standards. Ever since VACNet took action, I've notice that more OW cases contain more cheaters than ever. I get the odd case where it's just a guy with good prediction and understand of the game. Here is some facts:

The OW and VAC Ban Hammer

Graph from Steam Database, with interesting results.

From January this year (2018) there has been 1M+ Game bans and just under 143.5K VAC Bans.
Back in the day, Good cheats were the cheats which you can play on without getting banned. With the introduction of Overwatch Cases, It's getting harder for cheaters to hide their evil ways.

Wingman cases are now in Overwatch

Picture from Google: Unknown picture holder

For a few days or months, Wingman became the new HvH on valve offical servers. Most DMG+ that you played against, were prominently a cheater.

When Volvo put there baby feet with hard force into the ground, looking at Gaben, they said, "Lets put Wingman Cases on Overwatch"

And from then, it makes it harder for cheaters to populate wingman servers.

VAC will always remember

A close-up of a russian kid who used a 3 day out-of-date cheat from unknown cheats which account got banned with 64 minutes of CSGO playtime.

Everytime VAC bans you, it grabs the signatures of the cheat and stores it into its database.
As cheats (Mostly every free cheat ever) use mostly the same methods, VAC is having a fun time checking each line of the code. It loves playing snap with playing cards, VAC always wants to win at it! Don't challenge him at it!

So, what now?

Thats it, DAB ON THOSE CHEATERS, YEEEEEEEET.
Don't stab me please, limmie get an ace first.

Social Media

It ain't a complete guide without doing a sellout move. So here it is!

• @TheE7Player
  
• My Twitch Account[www.twitch.tv]
  
• Youtube Account 1
  
• Second Channel (Account for sillyness)

[ODopamine]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[Pro-FF3$$0r@S]

Today i get vac ban. Idin't use anything you said. Do you know where i can send an email about my vac ban?