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GDC 2018: John McDonald (Valve) - Using Deep Learning to Combat Cheating in CSGO

max4warn · talk · Watch on YouTube

Machine learning & deep learningGame programming & enginesSecurity & hacking

What it is

A GDC 2018 talk by Valve's John McDonald on VACNet, a deep learning system that analyzes CS:GO gameplay to detect cheaters. It covers how the model is trained on human-reviewed Overwatch cases and how its output feeds human moderation.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN points to it as the definitive example of server-side, behavioral, non-invasive anti-cheat using machine learning, often as a counterpoint to kernel-level anti-cheat.

  • 5 people recommended it
  • 4 different months
  • 1 strong recommendations
  • first 2018, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “Some Valve guy gave a great talk about their cheating detection a while back; I found it incredibly impressive”

    Valve's server-side cheat detection talk.

    abuob, 2026-01 · Strong recommendation · in “Microsoft kills official way to activate Windows 11/10 without internet”

  2. “Quite interesting to watch.”

    Valve's GDC talk on machine learning against CS:GO cheaters.

    Trellmor, 2018-07 · Recommendation · in “Riot Games Approach to Anti-Cheat”

  3. “It's not used to ban users, but rather to bring suspicious plays into their existing user-reviewed moderation system.”

    Deep learning flags suspicious plays for human review in CS:GO.

    ehsankia, 2018-07 · Recommendation · in “Riot Games Approach to Anti-Cheat”

  4. “Watch this! It's about using ML to catch cheaters.”

    Using ML to catch cheaters in CS:GO.

    hatsunearu, 2018-10 · Recommendation · in “With Proton and Steam Play, many Windows games now work on Linux”

  5. “The actual presentation is worth listening to if you have the time.”

    Valve's GDC 2018 presentation on VACnet.

    willis936, 2020-01 · Recommendation · in “EA is permanently banning Linux players on Battlefield V”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: vacnet, cs:go, anti-cheat, deep learning, valve, gdc

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