How Anti-Cheat Software Impacts FPS in Online Games

How Anti-Cheat Software Actually Works

Anti-cheat softwares are basically designed to monitor the unusual activities of the currently running softwares. These basically check the software’s running behavior, memory access, and system processes to recognize whether it is getting personal data or making any other unexceptional changes to our system. To do these processes and making all the checks, it usually runs continuously in the background while a game is playing, when we are watching a video, or we are doing any other thing on our system.

Because of its continuously running, it places a heavy load on our system, due to which CPU, GPU rendering becomes slow, display devices lag, and FPS drops in games. This extra load is usually caused on the CPU and RAM, due to which the FPS is directly affected. In the case of mid-range, older, or low-spec systems, This things is very common and most of the time is responsible for lower FPS. There are different levels of cheating, kernel level anti-cheats go more in-depth, which interact with the system’s components individually and collect the data from every component.

For example, if it connects with the keyboard, it can access all our passwords or the other things typed. This not only increases the security risks, but the resources are also consumed freely. The more aggressive and working anti-cheat software is, the higher is the chance of FPS dropping, screen lagging, stuttering, frame drops/spiking.

Anti-Cheat Type	Access Level	CPU Usage	GPU Impact	Frame Time Stability	Low-End PC Impact	High-End PC Impact	Online Only	Background Activity
Kernel-Level AC	System Kernel	High	Low	Medium	Severe	Moderate	Yes	Constant
User-Level AC	Application	Medium	Low	Better	Moderate	Low	Yes	Frequent
Server-Side AC	Remote Server	Low	None	Stable	Minimal	Minimal	Yes	Limited
Hybrid AC	Mixed	Medium-High	Low	Medium	High	Moderate	Yes	Constant
Signature-Based AC	User	Low	None	Stable	Low	Very Low	Yes	Periodic
Behavior-Based AC	Kernel	High	Low	Unstable	Severe	Moderate	Yes	Constant
Scan-On-Launch AC	User	Low	None	Stable	Low	Very Low	Partial	Temporary
Always-On AC	Kernel	Very High	Low	Poor	Extreme	Noticeable	Yes	Always
Cloud-Assisted AC	Mixed	Medium	None	Good	Moderate	Low	Yes	Dynamic
Legacy AC Systems	User	Medium	Low	Medium	High	Moderate	Yes	Frequent

 

Anti-cheats program usually reduce FPS because they continuously consume CPU cycles, memory, in the background while the other processes are running on the frontend. Every scan, verification, check, spying takes the processing power and places more load on our system. In the heavy games on low-spec systems, this impact becomes more visible and noticeable and is responsible for the game lagging. The problem is caused due to one reason that both the game logic and the anti-cheat rely on the same processor threads. If there are different processors used for both of the purposes, then this problem can be sorted out.

Online vs Offline Performance Differences Due to Anti-Cheat

It is clearly noticeable that games run smooth in offline versions than the online. And we can say that one major reason is anti-cheat softwares activation. In offline modes, it is totally disabled and the CPU resources are freed, and when we switch to online version, full anti-cheat monitoring is on, uses the CPU resources and causes in lowering the FPS. This is the main reason when we switch to multiplayer, we notice a little bit lag, micro stuttering, and other problems. And this performance gap is more clear on weaker systems. Understanding these all processes helps the gamer to understand that their FPS drop is caused by the system limitation or the background security processes.

Kernel-Level vs User-Level Anti-Cheat Softwares

Kernel-level anti-cheat programs operate at the deepest level of the systems, which makes this cheating at most impossible. And as they are operated at their deepest, so any type of cheating can be detected very easily. Due to this, it also consumes more performance cost, because it is given the top priority, so it uses most of the GPU cycles, and on low-spec systems, even on high-end systems, it interrupts the normal games due to the same processors, which leads to the FPS drops and inconsistent frame.

On the other hand, user-level anti-cheats programs are designed in such a way that they can detect cheats less intrusive and cannot detect all the cheats, but most of the cheats can be detected. That’s why they use low power and creates a low impact on FPS. Furthermore, as they consume low power and not full resources are given, so it is easy for any developer to bypass user-level anti-cheat programs. Game developers must ensure the balance between the performance as well as security because of these two our system can get hacked.

Common Anti-Cheat Systems and Their Impact

1. Increased CPU usage during gameplay

2. Background memory scanning causing micro-stutters

3. Kernel-level access interrupting game processes

4. Reduced 1% and 0.1% low FPS

5. Frame-time spikes during cheat verification

6. Conflicts with overlays and monitoring tools

7. Higher impact on older or low-core CPUs

8. Performance drops in online modes only

9. Slight input latency due to background checks

10. Extra load during updates or patch verification

CPU Bottlenecks Caused by Anti-Cheat Software

Anti-cheat softwares rely on both ; CPU and GPU, but heavy rely on CPU. That’s why the CPU-focused games get more interrupted than the others, such as competitive shooting games, battle royale games, and online championship games. These get more hurted because these are the heavy games and the CPU is at its giving its maximum values at that time when we run the anti-cheat software, it pushes, it limits to the edges, which results in low FPS, skin lagging, stuttering, and many other problems.

On the other hand, the background scans, driver checks, behavior analysis, all this totally depends on the CPU. And the players using low-spec system, quad-core systems, feel this impact more than the high-end systems, multi-core CPUs. In such cases, the optimization becomes critical. So the game developers must focus on both of the things to ensure a better and healthy environment.

Conclusions

At last, I would say that you must use the anti-cheat software at any cost because it helps to maintain the system secure. And due to its activation, if we are observing the FPS drops, then we should upgrade our CPU and can get a good gaming experience.