Does Adjusting Graphics Settings Lower Than the Game Allows Constitute Cheating?

I'd argue this is definitely chesting.

How to enforce it though.

I've often wished that games had modes where they enforced the same quality settings on all players.

The good old example is render distance difference, where you are behind cover on your screen, but not in the screen if the guy shooting at you.
 
if you need to control all aspects of a game then you dont use a platform that specifically gives that control to someone else.

What they want is a console. What they released on was not. They're stupid. Any other conclusion is destined to fail.
 
the only reason people are using this is for a competitive advantage against other players...so 100% yes it's cheating...now if you did it with a single player game then it would be fine as you're not gaining any advantage
 
Zepher said:
how does 4:3 give an advantage? 21:9 would give you more of an advantage since you see more on the sides if the game supports fixed vertical FOV.
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21:9 doesn't give any advantage. if the game supports...good one :X3::giggle:
 
polonyc2 said:
the only reason people are using this is for a competitive advantage against other players...so 100% yes it's cheating...now if you did it with a single player game then it would be fine as you're not gaining any advantage
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But you wouldn't do it in a single player game because you play it to enjoy it, and that includes the graphics.
If you want to win at all costs even at the cost of reduced graphical fidelity then you're doing it wrong.
 
MrRuckus said:
My son does this in Fortnite and it pissed me off when I saw it. They do it to make the hitbox larger = easier to hit. I agree that if its in the game settings, its fair game and if it gives an unfair advantage, it should be removed up to the game devs discretion. If you have to edit a config for it and its online competitive, it shouldn't be allowed. I commend EA for the bans. Would support Epic if they did the same.
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This explains a lot of things with my experiences in Fortnite. I am not a bad shooter but the amount of people who get a shotgun headshot from foe after foe in quick succession is simply perplexing and made me wonder if the use of aimbots was running rampant in Fortnite PC servers.
 
NWRMidnight said:
You missed 1:

4:3 gives higher frame rate which reduces input lag, which is the number 1 reason they do it.
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Does it really? Frametimes goes down as more and more frames get rendered in same duration BUT input lag cannot be lower than your monitor. Your monitor is still showing, as an example drawn from hat, 120 frames each second and those frames are about 8ms behind vs. what is actually happening inside the computer.
 
M76 said:
But you wouldn't do it in a single player game because you play it to enjoy it, and that includes the graphics.

If you want to win at all costs even at the cost of reduced graphical fidelity then you're doing it wrong.
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I think that's part of the reason why I have started enjoying coop/PvE so much more lately.

profiled said:
21:9 doesn't give any advantage. if the game supports...good one :X3::giggle:
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21:9 does offer a significantly higher field of view. Especially when the game lacks a field of view slider.
 
profiled said:
21:9 doesn't give any advantage. if the game supports...good one :X3::giggle:
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Diablo 3, BF4, BFH, and BF1 support it and BF5 probably does as well.
Overwatch which I play a lot, does not support it properly, game has a fixed horizontal view so I end up with a cropped image, but I play it like that anyway since I like the screen filled up.


 
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It is cheating IMO. This had been going on for a long time-very early Unreal and Quake days. Competitive play needs to have a set of standards that are not changeable, and hosted servers need to have options to enforce graphic/sound options. For example, a player making the graphics so as not to be affected by suppression (graphically) when suppression is a key component of the game. Also, draw of character to LOS, LOE, and POV are easy aiming since everything is much bigger in size at most engaging distances.

I used to run a mutation on my Unreal server that prevented the removal of all sounds except foot steps. They knew where you were and always engaged the opponent before hand. Shit, like that take the ability of the player to sneak and hide using sounds. It pissed me off so much on servers that didn't lock the setting down.
 
cageymaru said:
Jackfrags on YouTube has released a video that shows game play where users adjust the LoD Bias in their NVIDIA drivers to create an effect where Battlefield V looks like a cartoon. When the graphics are lowered by the user in this way, players can easily see enemy player movement. Bushes where players could hide in before are nonexistent and players can be easily tracked across the map. But since the player isn't running a cheat or hack program to create this graphics style; should it be against the terms of service and how can it be enforced? Is it cheating to turn your graphics down lower than the game officially supports? Fortnite professionals run their games with a 4:3 resolution for a competitive advantage. Is that cheating? Thanks to TheMadHatterXxX for the link!

Battlefield V are banning people supposedly for using a graphics edit. This gives you a massive advantage in terms of visibility but is it a cheat?
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This has been a problem in a lot of games. Most recently, in Escape from Tarkov you could do a driver tweak to remove all the vegetation. Obviously, that basically being a game-breaker. I believe they finally patched it out. I would definitely qualify it as a cheat.
 
Carbon_Le said:
Thats the one thing console has over PC honestly. Everyone on console has the same advantage as the other player.
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Not really. Like this was hardware manipulation, Halo 2 used to suffer from people using the modem reset cheat to give players extreme lagging.
Client-side detection has always been a problem on consoles. It introduces all of the cheats PC has.
 
Carbon_Le said:
Thats the one thing console has over PC honestly. Everyone on console has the same advantage as the other player.
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Cheating is just as prevalent on consoles as PC. Common methods are different, but there are still host hijacks, mod menus, and other things found on PC. Lag switching on consoles is still a thing and a huge problem.
NWRMidnight said:
You missed 1:

4:3 gives higher frame rate which reduces input lag, which is the number 1 reason they do it.
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No, the input lag is at the mercy of your monitor regardless of the resolution. The main reason for 4:3 resolution is it makes your mouse sensitivity consistent along the X- and Y- axis. The secondary reason is people that stretch it on a 16:9 monitor believe it makes hitboxes larger when it only makes game models appear to be bigger while it is just a placebo effect. The placebo effect being that they are actually getting finer control in their mouse movement in a physically smaller display area.
 
HockeyJon said:
I mean, is winning at a video game really this important to people?
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It isn't about playing the game anymore it is just about winning and getting to the top of the charts. Us old people only play to enjoy the game and have fun anymore
 
Wow... They basically turned BFV into Fortnite/TF2 level gfx. I'm quite impressed actually.
 
Online multiplayer game suuuuuuuuuckkkkk. Its too steep a learning curve when all you do is get killed, too old to bother with that shit.
 
[21CW]killerofall said:
This is not something new, even to Battlefield. I know people (including myself) who have done this all the way back in BF2. You are able to drastically decrease the draw distance of cover like grass and bushes and even make night maps much brighter and shadows disappear (in night maps).
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Indeed, this has been used well back in UrT and Quake 3 days for same exact reason. Though I feel if these are not settings in the game then it is cheating, though game exploits with even in-game settings could be cheating as well. I recall PunkBuster checked config files for this sort of stuff.
 
This sort of thing isn't new. While I think people that use these kinds of "tactics" aren't technically cheating, I do think that it shows they don't have very good gaming ethics. I remember a time when gamers played by a set of unwritten rules that were built on mutual respect and decency. Now, all they care about is how high their "kill count" is and having bragging rights. Even if it means "cheating" to do so. If you aren't any good playing the game the way it was designed/intended to be played, maybe you should find something else to do and not ruin the experience for everyone else.
 
Using low settings or changing resolution/aspect ratio is not cheating since it is available to anyone.

Modifying your GPU drivers to purposefully gimp the graphics for an advantage is cheating. It is no different than modifying the game files or loading specialized skins to cheat.

Crotan said:
that's something that would be banned with PB screenshot evidence, back when battlefield used evenbalance's punkbuster, you'd find screenshots to the same effect. Fairfight takes screenshots, but with no custom servers or exposure of their anti cheat to the community, no idea if they would consider that cheating. It's really a question of does fairfight consider that cheating? From JackFrags video he's saying yes, and I would agree. fairfight should ban for what is depicted in that video, every battlefield I've played before would ban for that via Punkbuster.
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I don't believe FF considers it cheating, Jack even makes the reference, he believes as do I it was admins being notified of the streams. All those banned to date appear to be streamers. Which is insane to cheat and then stream it IMO.

FF is server side that uses algorithms to monitor a player stats and bans based on anomalies. It does not do file verification like PB/EB did which would be needed to detect the cheat. The SS feature is also gimped in FF and only works after reports have been initiated. At that its server side, so it won't see what your screen is displaying. The SS only shows in game actions, like shooting a pistol 600m or getting a headshot on a player while facing the wrong direction.

FF wouldn't be able to catch the LOD cheating since the user is manipulating the GPU drivers. Even if they did file verification, FF would need to also read the GPU drivers which NV would never allow.

EA has said multiple times they believe file verification and screenshots to be an invasion of privacy. There was a twitch streamer and BF1 gamer that was banned when he went 202 and 8 in a bomber. The server thought it was odd and banned him. FF even banned one of the top BF1 players in the world because their performance didn't match other players.

Cheating sucks and FF is useless. We really need a way to stop cheaters in game since BF5 is already full of them. Only way is file verification but that is a slippery slope.
 
Cr4ckm0nk3y said:
We really need a way to stop cheaters in game since BF5 is already full of them. Only way is file verification but that is a slippery slope.
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Very much agree. With driver edits and lag manipulation it could easily get to the point of where you can only use signed drivers that have to be verified at launch and if your lag spikes too many times you get dropped from the match with a loss added to your record.

Or we go back to allowing private servers and get rid of universal score boards and win/loss tracking. Also win rewards should go away too. Play the match, win or lose it doesn't matter you gain nothing just play for fun.
 
Using a utility outside of the game to gain an advantage is cheating in my humble opinion.

I miss the days when people would get together for a fun game instead of score. Borderlands 1 is great for that.
 
AceGoober said:
Using a utility outside of the game to gain an advantage is cheating in my humble opinion.
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Hell, I think using console within the game for binds and macros is cheating. Don't care if it's available to everyone, you're breaking what the developer originally intended.
 
Darunion said:
Or we go back to allowing private servers and get rid of universal score boards and win/loss tracking. Also win rewards should go away too. Play the match, win or lose it doesn't matter you gain nothing just play for fun.
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I agree! Forcing ranked servers just to gain XP/unlocks is ridiculous.
 
TheOne&OnlyZeke said:
Not a cheat in my view.
However if a games Dev has an issue with this... Patch the fucking thing out
Banning people because of lazy coding is just a shit thing to do
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oldmanbal said:
Modifying the game in any way outside of the intention of the developers to achieve a competitive advantage is clear cut cheating. Setting the in game graphics to low is not. This would fall into the category of modifying the game itself outside of menu options. If you want to do this in single player, have at it, but in a competitive environment, you should be banned from participation. I feel like you should be able to do anything you want with a game that you purchase, but if you bring that modified content into online competitive play, you need to be separated from honest competitors.
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Basically the above. Most ToS agreements for games specifically call out purposefully doing something to gain a competitive advantage above the options in the game. Thus, changing something out of the game that gives a clear competitive advantage would be considered cheating. This is nothing new and has been enforced for as long as I can remember when playing competitive games. It mostly comes down to if and when the company detects the "method of advantage" being used.
 
Darunion said:
Very much agree. With driver edits and lag manipulation it could easily get to the point of where you can only use signed drivers that have to be verified at launch and if your lag spikes too many times you get dropped from the match with a loss added to your record.

Or we go back to allowing private servers and get rid of universal score boards and win/loss tracking. Also win rewards should go away too. Play the match, win or lose it doesn't matter you gain nothing just play for fun.
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I think a combination is the best method. Have competition servers and non-competition servers. On competition servers, create stricter rules and checks for balance and competitive fairness. Allow people to create their own servers in non-competition space and give them some editing tools to create their own rules therein.
 
AlphaQup said:
- Some of it is strictly personal preference. CS Pro's have (mainly) been playing it since at least 1.6 on CRT';s, and are just that used to it.


- Some run the game 4:3 stretched to make the player models appear fatter, thus "easier" to hit.

- Some don't have the hardware at home to hit a really high fps, lower res/settings help bump the frames up. CSGO is weird and actually feels much smoother running way above 144/240, w/e the refresh rate of your monitor is. Personally, mine hits around 35-400 on my 144hz screen and feels much smoother then if I capped it.

- The amount of physical space on your monitor your eyes have cover is smaller, less area to focus your eyes on, use your mouse more, etc.

- Muscle memory might not be/feel 100% if a 4:3 player were to switch.

The list of reasons go on and on, IMO, most of it is placebo.

My favorite though, the spectators in the game for the matches on Twitch, etc., run 16:9 max in game settings, and at times, you can see an opponent that the actual player in game cannot see due to 4:3 res, its right on the end of the screen.

Happens more frequently then you'd think.
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AceGoober said:
Using a utility outside of the game to gain an advantage is cheating in my humble opinion.

I miss the days when people would get together for a fun game instead of score. Borderlands 1 is great for that.
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People still do that so you must be looking in the wrong places. Have you ever hesth of Minecraft before? You should look into how it works.
 
TheOne&OnlyZeke said:
Not a cheat in my view.
However if a games Dev has an issue with this... Patch the fucking thing out
Banning people because of lazy coding is just a shit thing to do
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You can't patch the LOD bias cheat. It can be used on multiple games not just BF1 or BF5. Merson316 with EA/DICE stated its possibly a cheat and they are looking how to fix it.

Merson316 said:
Using it to abuse LOD Bias can land you in trouble. We're investigating potential fixes.
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I don't see how unless EA/Dice can check NV inspector / driver settings. Since EA/Dice are against file integrity checks and NV's general attitude towards giving access to files is no it won't happen.

LOD Bias modifications have been used for years across multiple games without NV ever fixing it. NV ignored Blizzard and Valve so I don't see EA/Dice stopping it.

It will take NV removing or locking the setting bypass to stop LOD cheating.
 
Regardless of what is or isn't a cheat, doing this hack makes the game look like absolute shit.

There is no way I could have fun playing the game like this and knowing that I could be playing something that looks like actual BFV. Half of the appeal of the battlefield games is the gameplay the other half is the setting, look, and feel of them. There is zero appeal to this.
 
Bit of a cheat? No, this is a major fucking cheat. I think game devs give gamers too much leeway to set their settings low. The lowest settings should get 120fps on a modern i5 CPU, if it gets more than that, the lowest settings should be increased until framerates fall to 120fps. And things like smoke and grass, trees, etc, should never get disabled on low if they're enabled on high.
 
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