Valve unbans Counter-Strike 2 players wrongfully banned for using AMD Anti-Lag+
After an AMD driver update that introduced Anti-Lag+ started causing bans in CS2, Counter-Strike 2 players are now being unbanned by Valve.
Valve’s Counter-Strike 2 was released just a few weeks ago and has been plagued by issues since hitting Steam. One major new issue stems from graphics card maker, AMD. Team Red recently introduced Anti-Lag+ to their suite of GPUs, designed to reduce the latency between your hardware and the game.
However, as it was introduced at the driver level and with no preparation time on Valve’s end, Counter-Strike 2 players who turned it on found themselves banned from the game. AMD has had to pull the feature entirely, updating the drivers to disable it.
In the latest patch notes, Valve states:
“Added a startup check for incompatible AMD graphics drivers. We will now begin reversing VAC bans for affected players.”
A CS2 skins trader is one of the users to get unbanned from the game, with it seemingly being a slow rollout for those caught in the accidental ban wave.
Counter-Strike 2 VAC bans being reversed after AMD software caused false positives
Valve’s VAC bans work differently from other games. Rather than turning access off entirely, you just won’t be able to play on VAC secure servers. This would limit what access you have to things like ranked games and official servers, relying on communities instead.
In contrast to how AMD handled the launch of its Anti-Lag+, Nvidia’s Reflex – which does similar things – is supported in the game. Nvidia often works closely with developers and publishers to ensure that their software is supported.
From the looks of things, AMD didn’t approach Valve properly regarding the big change. With software changes potentially leading to hacking in one of Valve’s biggest money makers, it’s unsurprising that the system began a ban wave.
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