League of Legends and Valorant players who previously opted into ‘pre-boot security mechanisms and Windows’ own native protection features’ can now switch the Vanguard anti-cheat software from always-on to ‘on demand.’ The system now won’t launch when your system does, but when you choose to turn it on.
Riot worked with the Xbox OS Security Team at Microsoft on improvements to the Windows kernel that can lock out driver and memory exploits that let cheaters use wallhacks, aimbots, triggerbots and other tools.
You’ll need to be running Windows 11 25H2 to use the feature. In a Riot blog post from Philip Koskinas, Riot’s head of anti-cheat, he explains the reason for the Windows 11 25H2 requirement.“Mostly because the driver attestation report was only initially added in this version, but it’s also because, due to the natural progression of security, it gets more convenient to cheat the older your operating system is,” he says. Other requirements for on-demand anti-cheat include using the Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) and Hypervisor-Protected Code Integrity (HVCI). They also need to enable the Input-Output Memory Management Unit (IOMMU).
Most players won’t be able to access pre-check, as 65 per cent of players will need to make changes if they want to use the on-demand version of Vanguard. However, other users will now be able to have an optional pre-check: “You only need to do anything if you’d like to enable on-demand mode, which will allow Vanguard to launch when the game does and remain running only while you’re playing a Riot title,” Koskinas says.
Newer PCs typically ship with the required features enabled, and 35 percent of players already meet the requirements to use Vanguard Pre-Check. If you’re in that group, you’ll be able to switch to on-demand mode “with your very next update.”
I’m happy I’m a console gamer, where cheating is possible, but definitely a lot less likely, and I don’t need to think about all this anti-cheat software.
Source: Riot Games
