Sim Racing Esports Has A Cheating Problem

[@robwalker4452]

I'd rather be a slow, honest player than a fast cheater. Having to cheat is like admitting you can't compete. Keep up the investigative journalism, Jimmer; this stuff is important for our community.

[@ElGoogKO]

Cheating is a genetic defect in the present days humans. It is a trait left over since the cavemen era when those individuals where exposed to the you win or you die lifestyle. But for many generations now, this isn't a valid trait, as humanity has evolved past the inferior times of strife and danger. Billions of inferior people still pass on this gene to their offspring. You see cheating everywhere from school, to adult life, where people try appear more than they are to gain some form of advantage, to win something.

[@2JZDestroyer]

nay its important for journalism as a whole. if some waves a wad of cash in front of you spit on their shoes.

[@madbull4666]

It's good being an honest player that does this for a hobby, but remember that these drivers it's their literal career and if you win you get mega bucks.

[@the_mowron]

At the highest level, there is no way to compete if you don't cheat (if others are cheating). This was the whole issue with pro cycling. All of the best riders doped. You would never have heard of them if they didn't dope.

[@mihalis1010]

Being slow doesn't pay, and to some people, that's what's important. In Tomas Ronhaar's case, his cheat is said to be only for a 0.15% grip increase, which means he would already need to be a relatively fast driver for it to really make a difference. I'm not trying to morally justify cheating, just stating *why* it happens.

[@severousmedina9992]

If you're legitimately testing cheats for a company and also playing competitively, I really think that should mandate 2 systems so that there is no complication between the 2 uses. Just having things installed can lead to even accidental use let alone purposeful use.

[@99EKjohn]

Companies don't use players to test cheats, even professional ones. A player isn't guaranteed to have any experience reverse engineering software, which is what is required to figure out anti-cheat strategies. Companies have developers that will reverse and test cheats they come across or are provided, in order to come up with anti-cheats. Absolutely nothing a payer can do or say, has any bearing on developing an anti-cheat. The dude that gave that excuse is blatantly lying.

[@baltogames1501]

"No, Mom, I was only smoking pot so I knew what to warn my friends about; honest!!!"

[@slimlacy2]

@@99EKjohn I think the problem is thinking this was initiated by EA or Codemasters. It was probably a bunch of the esports players that downloaded it at their own initiative, and shared their findings with EA and/or Codemasters. This looks REALLY bad for Alvaro though. You'd think any testing was done not RIGHT before a PSGL event. Though so far EA and Codemasters haven't banned him and Williams have also done nothing. I doubt we'd get any more confirmation than inaction from them, that they did indeed know it was happening.

[@z1maass727]

I believe most F1 Esport drivers drive drive at a specific location away from their home for the promotion of their team, like merc drivers would drive official races in the Brackley factory, EXCEPT Thomas

[@jkliao6486]

The man saw FIA asking for ferrari's assistance to investigate engine cheats, and thought he himself could also pull it off.

[@fdfd4739]

Over the last couple years I've paid attention to e-racing of any sort, it seems like there is infinite potential and none taken. So many of the big events have been marred by bugs and technical problems, and of course cheating will forever be an issue, but it's exhausting after a while. If any organization or developer wants to be taken seriously, they need to start by taking their software seriously.

[@theaceofone2610]

You speak of a utopian world

[@Splarkszter]

The error is making the official competitions online, they need to make it on a vacuum... LAN.

[@grahamhill4113]

I said this exact thing yesterday. Right now it looks like a bunch of amateurs running everything

[@BoliveiraNTPW]

I can see other game developers doing things to avoid cheaters, but EA will do nothing because they don’t care . They want the money .

[@erdemeebilgee3584]

@@Splarkszter exactly.

[@Jardier]

Its just sad to read all this whats going on with cheats and companies doing nothing about it :(

[@MILSIM530]

They don't want to dirt their names by comment on it

[@TheRacePig]

There could be a solution similar to what Trackmania did when there was a big cheating controversy. Basically they created a mod that functioned as effective anti-cheat for the game and required drivers to use it for competitions. That may not be feasible for every sim, so I think there could also be like setups and telemetry to be required to be sent to stewards. I think it's pretty clear that doing nothing and leaving these games as is will if nothing else allow cheating to continue and at worst encourage it. People are bastards and will take any advantage we can get.

[@cyguy9253]

I think an idea like this very could work well for something like an assetto corsa league, because many leagues have specific apps that you need anyway.

[@someonespotatohmm9513]

That is the solution to offline cheating. For online TM has as far as i know eliminated cheating as it can be done in non time trial racing. Run the sim on the server, ppl can't cheat the physics engine that way. Just leaving the option to let an AI drive for them, which doesn't work well when sharing the track with other cars. Its comical F1 and other "Esport" racing games don't do this. Edit: also fun fact, if you want to catch f1 cheaters, do the same as they did in tm. Extract the user inputs from the replay and run them yourself and check if you get the same outcome, if not they cheated.

[@BURN447]

@@someonespotatohmm9513 there’s a lot of reasons for it. Number one being massive cost increases. TM uses such a massively simplified physics engine compared to iRacing/ACC. The amount of calculations is exponentially different and way more expensive in computing power.

[@someonespotatohmm9513]

@@BURN447 1 computer can easily run them, and probably uses a single core. They can run them in parallel and if they still can't find the money, only do it for actual competitions. This is no fluiddynamics or other FEM sim they are running.

[@BURN447]

@@someonespotatohmm9513 you can’t really parallelize a physics engine. 1 computer absolutely cannot do that. Servers already run predictive code, so do your local machines. This isn’t something that can just be thrown together. It would require a rewrite of the entire server architecture, the physics engine, the network code, the render loop, etc. These sims are processing exponentially more data than TM, which like it or not runs a very simple engine, despite the abilities of what can be done in them.

[@McNab1986]

I feel for Jarno, in his holding it in clip, there is nothing worse than feeling an intense rage, and not being able to let it out

[@dannywhite132]

Nothing worse than claiming someone who beat you is cheating without evidence

[@peodsgns]

jarno L

[@TomA-vl8ce]

@@dannywhite132 okay Thomas

[@joshflynn1148]

​@@dannywhite132there was evidence. The fact that ronhaar carried WAY more speed into the Spain chicane and got on power WAY more speed than the fastest esports drivers in the world. Thats suspicious. Its a shame Jimmy didn't even research more into this.

[@0Bennyman]

Thomas has gotten pole and WON a LAN Esports event, disgusting how Thomas was treated.

[@scotthecarnerd1995]

I think the main problem or issue is, is that it's so unnoticed by companies and it takes people like us to make videos like this to grab others attention to a problem that's been there from day 1

[@kekke2000]

Unfortunately the companies would only lose if they "notice" these issues. Both sponsors, hosts, gamedevs e.t.c. need it to look legit and serious.

[@scotthecarnerd1995]

@@kekke2000 Exactly

[@littledan6994]

The main problem is, big companies are obviously aware of it by the trying to "tell jarno not to mention anything on stream" ...

[@scotthecarnerd1995]

@LittleDan69 Yeah this whole situation is slowly becoming a bit of tainted side to sim racing which we all don't want to see 😒

[@littledan6994]

@@scotthecarnerd1995 you know it man 👌

[@brandono6718]

In my experience, I've always been a pretty decent driver on most sims performing at a high level, but when it came to iRacing.. I would always be around 1-2 seconds slower than where I would normally expect to be... This was until recent times where cheating and exploits have been getting more attention, like the grass dripping and brake dragging last year for example. Since some of these exploits have been fixed.. This year in the iRacing 24 hours of Daytona, I was able to match the top splits race lap times which blew my mind. It just goes to show how at the top level, teams will take ANY advantage they can to find speed even if it is by cheating. It is actually quite sad as I've doubted my own abilities and put myself under immense pressure to find more pace when after all.. It was never that bad. I hope this continues to receive attention. Thank you for this video.

[@GeorgioSubs]

I think we are really far away from good sim racing esports right now. These games simply aren't "esports ready", which in my mind means they are extremely stable, almost entirely bug free, and have robust anti cheat. The idea of hosting esports events and incentivizing people with money, connections to a real F1 team, and fame and having zero anticheat is insane. I'd be more surprised to find that anyone ISN'T cheating.

[@ProStreeter100]

Gran Turismo has had a pretty good Esports scene for years i think. But that game is not what you'd call an actual sim

[@triggermovies]

@@ProStreeter100 That's an advantage of consoles : much harder (if not impossible with modern ones) to cheat on. The problem is, to have the same level of anti-cheat on PC, you pretty much have to relinquish the ownership of your system to a third party (Microsoft or otherwise) so that they can control everything that runs on it. Microsoft already is pushing for this kind of stuff (Pluton is the security chip from the Xbox and is integrated into the latest AMD laptop CPUs, and is basically an extra core owned and run by Microsoft inside your hardware that they can use to lock everything down).

[@GeorgioSubs]

@@ProStreeter100 Certainly not a sim, but consoles do have the advantage of making it much harder to cheat.

[@Marksm50]

@@triggermovies Exactly this, the cheating companies are able to stay one step ahead this way. Warzone is a game I play thats littered with closest cheaters. I dont know whats next for PC gaming tbh.

[@madbull4666]

@@triggermovies from my reading up on pluton, it seems to be just an extra security layer like TPM, basically like a password manager. Don't believe that it actually communicates data with Microsoft, at least for now anyway.

[@McGuinty2]

The Alvaro Carreton situation reminds me of the functions referring to traction control that the FIA found buried in the onboard computers of Michael Schumacher’s championship winning Benetton that allegedly were used only in testing. Damned if it didn’t give me a warm fuzzy feeling of nostalgia.

[@MM-mx8sr]

Ehm in fact, there wasnt a Programm behind the menue point. The fia didnt found a TC.

[@garyrowe58]

​@M M there was a launch control ability in the car, that could be enabled after a specific series on actions on the wheel.

[@garyrowe58]

But of course, they said they'd never used it !!!

[@youtubeuser987]

@@MM-mx8sr They did but never realised it; basically because they were using traction control on the grid, the ECU was programmed to wipe out all data recorded at the start of every Grand Prix and rewrite said data as if they never used traction control (using the ECU to predict what 'actually' happened). So when the FIA reviewed all the data, they didn't realise the mapping never truly added up correctly to their timings. This was confirmed to me and my college class by our tutor, an ex-Benetton mechanic. I've butchered part of that explanation but this was also 8 years ago.

[@sauce_legend1186]

Jimmy seems genuinely disappointed that nobody has looked at his footage and accused him of cheating thus far. At least we know your clean Jimmy! Love you for it lmao ❤️‍🔥

[@pjludda4323]

Or do we?! I heard that the BoxxyBoi has a DEFINITE aerodynamic advantage other the puny SlickyBois...

[@s70driver2005]

[@reneg8]

What did he insinuate about le mans virtual though?

[@thalesesteves]

​@@reneg8I think it's because he showed some information regarding the server (IP address I think)

[@phunkdoctaspock]

You're*

[@Skrotobagins]

this sounds so much like what NASCAR used to be like. I cant remember who said it but theres a quote from back in the day that goes something like "if you aint trying to cheat, you aint trying to win". such a shame

[@MasterofSpiders]

"I'm helping Codemasters test cheats, honest!!!" - Alvaro, guilty as fucking sin.

[@luke_rr4474]

Great video Jimmer. ACC can use motec data from the game to detect cheating but needs to be shared by the cheater. Some leagues make you share your motec data after each event. But there still needs to be anti cheats added.

[@Yappit]

Jimmy, I think you are a great representation of someone who is passionate and genuinely wants sim racing and it's community to grow and thrive. If there is anyone that I would want as an ambassador of our community, it's you.

[@citypavement]

its*

[@Oscar_Myk]

There's been a big expose on cheating in Tarkov recently, one thing that came out of it was that Valorant's anti-cheat was very good at detecting other cheats (and had to be disabled to install them). Would be interesting to see if it can pick up F1's cheats as well.

[@iglobrothers645]

Valorants anti cheat is borderline illegal. There should be no anti cheat with more fuckin permissions than my own os

[@johnbieder773]

@@iglobrothers645 spoken like a true closet cheater

[@BlacKi-nd4uy]

@@iglobrothers645 get a second pc for important things and let yout gaming pc ruled by anticheats with higher permission then admin has. like a console.

[@hopterque]

@@iglobrothers645 almost every major anticheat has kernel level access lol. easy anticheat, punkbuster, battleye all have it and between them they cover anticheat for effectively every major multiplayer game

[@conor987]

Which are Chinese CCP malware

[@eghalgamingchannel6611]

the problem I have with this rubbish going on is that I am now second guessing everybody that has/have/will race against. This is not a good feeling. Hope something gets done soon.

[@olisk-jy9rz]

Don't worry, if others, MUCH bigger games competitions are to be used as an example, the issue will be fixed.... NEVER. There's no incentive to eliminate cheating for the programmers. Look at the CSGO scene, its ridicolous everyone is cheating to inhuman levels and everibody just shrugs. It's ironic that e sports ended up being much dirtier than real sports in 1/1000th of the time period.

[@madbull4666]

For actual competitions then I would agree, but the vast majority of people that aren't on F1 games don't cheat I believe.

[@basbass429]

Assetto Corsa has become infested by cheaters now too. Rarely seen drivers, suddenly world record braking speeds and faster than Max Verstappen out of the blue and suddenly breaking WR times which were untouchable and certain driver was never ever near those times, but suddenly breaks them with just occasional playing. A few of the streamers actually made vid's and showed how ridiculous easy it is to cheat in AC. When you look around, cheating on PC and lesser extent console's (they use dedicated hardware(!)) is a massive problem on all types of sims and shooters that it is starting to threaten online games and sims.

[@pdxholmes]

It's a weird situation. In RL motorsports we always say "if you aren't cheating you aren't trying", but in arena of e-sports people really (and probably rightly) put their foot down hard. I guess it's the difference between RL engineers finding clever gray areas in the rules, which takes effort and energy, versus just downloading a cheat file. As far as Ronheer, if he's innocent, I feel for him. He's damned if he does damned if he doesn't. We always wonder why people open their mouths in these situations, generally digging themselves deeper holes...but when he says nothing people equally find it suspicious. To really solve this, these big races need to be held on a LAN with event controlled hardware. Give the drivers a choice of wheel rim, seating position and pedals so they feel comfortable, but the PC itself needs to be fully controlled by the administrators.

[@olisk-jy9rz]

"To really solve this, these big races need to be held on a LAN with event controlled hardware. Give the drivers a choice of wheel rim, seating position and pedals so they feel comfortable, but the PC itself needs to be fully controlled by the administrators." I'm loving the naivety. How do you think the other esports do it? Do you think CSGO players are dragging around the world 3000 dollars pc towers and monitors? Trough airports and hotels?! Did you even think that trough?? Pro players everywhere just carry their peripherals, mouse and keyboard or controllers, and plug them in. That's it. And i'm sure you'd be perfectly satisfied with all that and consider cheating impossible at that point. You're lagging more than 10 years behind. Since the introduction of peripherals with internal memories (aka 100% of modern peripherals), cheats of all kind can be injected straight from the perihperals, activated and uninstalled trough button combinations, without not a damn pixel ever popping up on screen. So yeah, your proposition wouldn't fix anything at all, just make it mildly more inconvenient for all the cheaters. That's it.

[@nathangamble125]

@@olisk-jy9rz "Do you think CSGO players are dragging around the world 3000 dollars pc towers and monitors? Trough airports and hotels?!" Yes. They literally do that. Not all the time, obviously, but this is common practice for large esports competitions.

[@Dornogol]

@@nathangamble125 I mean for stuff like LoL the PCs are literally set up by Riot Games in the arena and clearly only used for the games (and by every single pro that sits at that seat they use the same PC, they do not even use their own accounts as I am aware but basically an competition only build of the game that is strictly LAN and just get their name set into the instance of the game they are running etc...sooo why would you need to lug anything around if the onsite company is managing the hardware. So dunno how it is for CSGO in that isntance. Nautrally for Simracing this would be less feasible with custom hardware etc that the pros may be trained on and cannot just easily switch to a setup rig and get out all times (or as shown by Rennsport on site event, maybe they even can)

[@MartynCharsley]

I drove the car transporter for a top team in BTCC. One Saturday morning I commented on the significantly higher rear ride height of a privateer using the same model car as ours. At least two people lunged towards me attempting to shut me up before anyone else registered what I was on about. RL motorsport is rife with rule bending if not outright cheating. I see absolutely no reason why Sim Racing would be any different especially at the top levels.

[@imallfordabulls]

@@olisk-jy9rz sir this is a YT comment section

[@driftboiz]

Well done Jimmer! I respect you for speaking up on this. I believe that it needs to be the big guys like yourself that start raising this issue for the games devs to take notice and act on it. So big respect to you for trying to help bring this to attention. 👍👍

[@vwbugoutracing3416]

thanks for making this video. i just watched the wiggle that killed tarkov, and was wondering how bad cheating was in racing games. i know cheats are inherently different. ESP and grip cheats are very different from each other but a cheat none the less. lets do our part to help stop cheaters.

[@Desert_Spec]

Reminds me of the old CS 1.6 days, 'Do it at lan' was a common phrase and applies to sim racing too.

[@markross4730]

I love your attitude about cheating in esports and the fact that you find it important to share the info. Thanks Jimmy!

[@jorisfries7595]

The difference with Alvaro and Thomas for me is that Thomas is a rookie and just was fast out of nowhere in F1 Esports and you have those suspicious corner exits recorded ant the reactions from other racers like Longlet and Opmeer while Alvaro was in the lower midfield for most of his career in F1 Esports so i think Ronhaar cheating is more likely than Alvaro but of cpurse there's no discussion that the files just shouldnt be on Alvaros PC

[@Eibarwoman]

Alvaro if he was cheating has been at it for an absurdly long time given his history.

[@0Bennyman]

Now Thomas has won at a LAN Esports event

[@mkharrison96]

With how popular sim racing esports have been getting, it's a real shame to see cheating like this. Here's hoping that developers can implement better tools to detect cheaters.

[@screemo2701]

I think that's exactly the point, nobody really cared to cheat before or nobody cared to point that out, because nobody really cared about sim racing and sports like they do now.

[@theonlylolking]

It is because of how popular it has been getting which is why more a discreetly cheating when able. There is cheating in all competitions, even real Formula 1. You can say it is in man's nature.

[@albr4]

the bigger a competition or game gets, the more likely people are to cheat in it, either for the fame of winning, or to obtain prize money. Especially in sports where the athletes dedicate their lives to try and win, they get to a point where they've committed so much that they will literally do anything to win even if it means risking their whole career.

[@citypavement]

Things usually go to shit once the general public gets their hands on it. They're great at the beginning but the more people get involved, the higher chances there are of some asshole(s) showing up and ruining it for everyone. That's why public bathrooms are so bad and that's why we can't have nice things.

[@si1208]

Prize money, sponsorship deals, professional players ... it all leads inevitably to corruption, whatever the sport. The more money involved, the worse it gets.

[@ChaosPootato]

These games need a kind of replay system like they found in Trackmania, where you can compare normal physics to potentially modified ones. Also I think the integration of massive car racing companies teams is overall a bad thing. Honestly. Even if it brings a lot of eyes on sim racing, it also brings aaaaall the bullshit and rule-bending they're willing to try because they're profit driven and massive prize pools lead to inevitable cheating (which is bubbling up already apparently). Once the ball of shit is rolling, there's no stopping it.

[@sedixmrboss5625]

Problem is, compared to TM, all sims have random physics. Same imput != same result.

[@ChaosPootato]

@@sedixmrboss5625 Ah that sucks indeed... Welp

[@madbull4666]

@@sedixmrboss5625 they would need to use the same inputs and run for example 50-100 laps and see if the laps are within a few percent and if they are they would keep a closer eye on the person, if they are found to be constantly a few percent more then they should open an investigation.

[@madbull4666]

Completely agreed. I find sponsorship of any kind absolutely ruins the sports and teams, I miss the teams where they were just completely random and fun and not Williams or mercedes etc.

[@Lollllllz]

Cheating had always been a risk in multiplayer games especially when there is a competitive or commitment aspect involved(as like in tarkov). I guess simracing esports could have workstations used in competitive play scrutineered before and after a match as well as recording mulriple viewpoints of the competitor to deter tampering and evading detection in between as other esports live competitions have done .

[@hansmcfinklestein7640]

I wouldn't be surprised if at some point, there's officials who come into participants computers via internal program to make sure everyone's files are up to par. And if at any point after that new files or hardware is installed- immediate dq. Stewards. Basically. How there isn't a software monitoring system already is kinda odd. If these top of the line races, with big money on the line, are intended to be any sort of legitimate replacements for real life events- there has to be an expectation of regulation. Eventually, every game like acc or ir or whatever could have this ingame check. People stream and make money off of views. It's only natural to want a tighter hold on what people can do to earn that. Otherwise is a crypto scam on wheels.

[@nickklavdianos5136]

Or just do what they used to do pre covid and bring every driver to the same place to race. And of course, if someone is suddenly faster in his home and his performance is different from the IRL tournaments then he should be investigated. And also, that's specifically for F1, they should require esports drivers to be on console. Then they can't cheat.

[@hansmcfinklestein7640]

@@nickklavdianos5136 Standardized hardware would ultimately be the way to go, but that would be super expensive to dole out and keep track of. Which is also why keeping everyone in the same space would be cost inhibitive as well. If we are going to have every driver using their personal computer and hardware, then just like every professional race irl- parc ferme needs to be a thing. Inspections, regs, hands off periods- all that.

[@DKBSOB]

I mean surely it wouldnt be that hard to have a piece of software scan the route folder for all the standardised files, anything out of the ordinary flags up?

[@hansmcfinklestein7640]

@@DKBSOB I don't know how anti cheat works in the wild, really, but additional files and stuff would make a noticeable difference in file sizes of folders- not sure if that would work though. Something to look into. I doubt streaming a game from an integral server so all the files aren't on the alleged cheater-to-be would be feasible over such large distances that these drivers play from- and netcode still be functional. Pc modders are too good at breaking into shit and fucking everything up on encrypted folders and apps... idk. Someone who knows better than I, lemme know lol

[@DKBSOB]

@@hansmcfinklestein7640 Yea I think it would make a folder size difference, but also the game, or track, or car only need certain files to run. A scan of the folders which are required for a certain race would be doable as the player would allow access for the scan or not be allowed to take part. Someone else said it in the comments somewhere, these esports drivers are proffessional, they should be basically using a 'work computer' which all access is allowed by the game host

[@dividead100]

In other types games one usually cheats by having access to information they shouldn't, in racing games they modify the outcome, this should be pretty obvious server side if they actually cared to do anything about it.

[@XenFPV]

Sim racing needs in person LAN events with a hardware sponsor so the top drivers have to go head to head in front of a crowd using standard hardware. Cheaters will be really obvious when they dominate online and lag behind or don't show up to LANs.

[@Joemamahahahaha821]

You can still cheat in lan, like it’s happened in csgo. Their mouse would inject the cheats on the lan pc… but ofc that requires a custom mouse… I guess if you just sit them down and make them drive on all stock everything that’s not a problem.

[@vash_dakari]

So basically, what Gran Turismo is already doing?

[@leswilliams5266]

I couldn't agree more. It makes it so much more difficult to break into any of the more professional competitions, as there are paid drivers who run mods. To have professional teams backing them is sickening.

[@Porkhammer]

This is one of the reasons I lost all interest in competitive racing, or competitive online gaming in general, really. It's become a bit ridiculous over the last few years. Great video.

[@amr1t_]

I think some of the cheating stories in actual motorsports from way back in the day were pretty fun, genuinely pretty ingenious in many of the cases and exploiting loopholes in the rules rather than breaking them, but I mean in video games its as simple as loading up a program. it's not like they're doing some crazy engineering work to make it work by regulation or anything.

[@christendombaffler]

Yeah, it's all too easy for it to go beyond simply going fast and into some real childish territory, especially when money is involved.

[@nomaschalupas2453]

If you lost ALL interest from a few run ins with hackers you wasn’t interested enough in the first place. Anyone who says there are hackers all over, usually are the ones calling everyone who’s better a hacker and really never ran into one.

[@ianrobertson3419]

@@nomaschalupas2453 no, that's not true. You can tell a good player from one who's cheating if you spent more than a day playing a game. Once you get good enough, you'll know what's possible and what's not. Your statement is that of someone who is either a)a casual or b)a hardcore cheater themself trying to justify their lack of skill. Denying that there is a cheating problem in esports is delusional, just look at all of the "good" players that have been caught.

[@basbass429]

@@ianrobertson3419 "You can tell a good player from one who's cheating if you spent more than a day playing a game." Cheat software has evolved, cheaters taking the time to get the settings right are super difficult to spot. You know they are cheating an you know it is impossible there are so many god-like players. Yet without detection in the game, it takes hours and hours to submit one report which has 0,0001% change to be reviewed.

[@welern2liv815]

Thanks Jimmy, this video was necessary and I'm glad you chose to make it. I have been sim racing for past 5 years and had finally decided to get involved with esports and some other top shelf leagues...until last month when I learn of the cheating. Never fails to work its way into everything that is good and I want no part of it. We'll see what happens with the claims going forward. Surprisingly it took this long to rear its ugly head. Peace to you and yours and keep up the good fight!

[@No-barkNoonan]

Judge Jimmer dropping the hammer. Had a similiar situation IRL with some big names exploiting restrictor plates. Its always selfish and you're always remembered as THAT guy, it's never worth it.

[@Staleyboi12]

Judge Jimmer, that's a show I can get behind!

[@hexgraphica]

Just happened with the lmdh winner of Daytona

[@Sponge-28]

My cousin who races in the Britcar Endurance Championship says it happens quite frequently. Very easy to sneak in a slightly less restrictive plate and for the stewards to not notice. They only find out if you overdo it and are suspiciously fast in the speed traps because they have per circuit BoP at hand too which makes it harder to tell. For the likes on Ronhaar, the solution is pretty simple. He races at a proper controlled facility away from his own PC as a lot of the Esports drivers do. He's one of the few to refuse to race away from his own rig. I understand its never quite the same when its not your exact setup, but all the others handle it no problem. When you have the whole field being within 0.15 seconds of each other in quali and then he's 0.25 seconds faster than second, its pretty damn evident. In Jarno's Spain PSGL race, Ronhaar completely disappeared out the final corner every time and he was on older tyres if I recall correctly.

[@mostlymotiongraphics2134]

Well done for addressing the issue publicly. That's exactly what people with a large following om major platform should do

[@Foosa]

Well, I'm a GT fanboy and what I like about this game is when a guy in the same car beats me, I know he's not cheating and it's not his setup (cause it's locked), it's just me being slow. And this attitude helps me to cope with being worse than others when I'm actually a competitive person and I start searching for the reason of this in myself instead of blaming everything else. I can't imagine the feel when you're sure that you're doing everything correct and some random guy just destroys your laptimes. I think in this kind of environment it should force you to think that he's cheating and instead of improving yourself just give up. This is a big problem not only for esports but for somewhat casual simracers also Sorry for poor English

[@vsrgilarabrywn]

If you think you can't cheat in GT7 you are in for a surprise.

[@Krukikro]

@@vsrgilarabrywn so why don't you give us an example instead of this empty comment?

[@tiruliru]

I was sim racing during isolation, was in a local league and being a somewhat good player I was being eaten by other drivers anyway. Like always in the bottom half. When we started a more serious Champ the manager of the league demanded everybody to use anti chest and all of a sudden I was doing poles And being constantly on the top 5. Telling and very frustrating.

[@szarkoz]

TBH I don't think it hurts simracing as a whole, it only hurts e-sports... At least for me, that is. The more I hear about stuff like that, the less willing I am to care about any e-sports events in simracing. But it doesn't stop me from racing myself, since I will never be at that top level anyway.

[@craigf1tz]

I think the problem is, like Jimmy said, if eSports pros are doing it, how many ordinary people are too? Then does it become cheat to win? If you have to cheat to keep up people are going to stop racing and simracing as a whole is harmed

[@kartoffelstranger9187]

​@@craigf1tz Honestly I just want good races and don't care if the other is cheating or not. I'm not playing to be first, but to have fun.

[@rickrolled7930]

I think that it does. Because if it works at the top level, average people that want to win without the skill will also use cheats.

[@Vesiputous]

People seem to like to compare real-life rule bending to ingame cheating a lot. The issue with that is that real-life is bound by physics, whereas simulations are not. I'm sure you could make the game think you won the second the race started, have a car ragdoll around the track like a fighter plane at the speed no real car could achieve, or even have a trained AI to do all the driving for you - maybe all of these combined. Would there be any point in racing or watching the racing for anyone else than the ones doing all that for money or whatever rewards? No.

[@ASoldierify]

Esports in general across many different games has cheaters and only more recently its starting to becomes easier to identify. The scary thing is imagine how many were cheating before the need to spot them as well as the tools became available.

[@nswanner]

This is embarassing for the online racing industry. These have been issues going all the way back to the mid to late 2000s, and we're still here discussing this. This is what destroyed NR2003, and it seems to me like there is no end. I wished that I honestly knew where my pace really stood in comparison to the rest of the world, but how can I, or anyone else, honestly know for sure. I trust a few of you guys (Jimmy, Jarno, JD, Daly, Aarava, and Ray Alfalla to name a few), but I just don't understand how anyone can feel good about winning a race that they cheated to do so. If you put in a cheat, you are NOT playing the same game as everyone else, period! I know my time in the sim racing world has come and gone for the most part, and I don't want to gloat any as a result, but I still drive when I can, and I still love the competitive banter. I just don't want to see this wonderful community destroyed to the point of no return. If these racing game creators don't all get their heads out of the sand and admit they have a problem, and if they don't go out of their way to solve it, there will be nothing left in 5 years.

[@mikehipperson]

The problem begins with professional teams, especially those from F1, who have a couple of hundred of IT engineers at their disposal and can be instructed to find as many 'advantages' as they can to boost the performance of their man!

[@happygster922]

Except it’s pretty obvious to tell when someone is driving a car beyond the limits of a car capability.

[@caralho5237]

@@happygster922 nothing more obvious than a massive explosion

[@ShimmeringSpectrum]

In a sense, it's not *that* different than how teams look for loopholes in technical regulations in motorsports. Complete with the mixed and mostly negative reactions to them.

[@happygster922]

@@ShimmeringSpectrum loopholes aren't at all similar. They're discovery of unseen cracks in the regulations. Using cheats in a game is neither creative and there are pretty clear regulations against it.

[@RonaldRegain]

Its somehow sad its the professionals who are that suspicious. But Im lucky there are mostly good fellas on track

[@BowBowSiwa]

I know it seems like an extreme measure, but to protect from Esports and sim racing cheating/ modding, surly playing on Console would mitigate these issues as consoles (as to my knowledge) have no way of people being able to tinker with the code to change physics of racing games or any other game for that matter. its mainly can a console like the Series and the PS5 handle the large lobbies and more serious sim games (excluding Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo) and would the teams behind sim racing games be willing to spend the time editing the code and optimisations of their games to be able to run on console in the best possible way. this could also help prevent future DDOS attacks as would have to gain access via the Xbox Live or PlayStation Plus firewalls

[@eamonahern7495]

Dáire is pronounced daw-reh. Similar to how you'd pronounce Dara ó Briain of Mock The Week fame but with an elongated 'aw' because of the fada* over the a. *That little slash over a vowel in Irish is called a fada.

[@kevinsobiski5212]

I think the reaction of the driver when he accidentally showed the folder with the patch for grip in it was a natural "oh shit" reaction. Like when your mom finds something in your room that you shouldn't have. If that driver was actually "testing" that patch, he probably would have been like "oh yeah guys, I've been asked to do testing on this grip package, so they can get some data and figure out how to block it" or something like that. It just sucks that it's happening.

[@SaintDorado]

Yeah cheating as a problem in a lot of E-Sports actually. I think it's not gonna change unless the punishments are harsher or countries start putting out actual laws against cheating. Sounds a little dramatic, but South Korea actually has a law like this already. For people that create/distribute cheating software to be exact. You can face up to 5 years in prison or a hefty fine. The only way to stop cheaters would be if they actually had to face the consequences, not just create a new account and keep going.

[@OmegaF77]

It's not really that dramatic: it's the same spirit as identity theft and monetary theft/fraud.

[@medpack]

These issues with the Simracing community has started well over a decade ago... Where back in the day, you'd join a session, with a fast guy, he'd gladly have a chat with you, share his setup, tell you how to tweak it to make it more stable for you, and you can learn and improve together. Now.... they sell em. Now, they go so far as to create completely unrealistic setups, DONT tell the developers of these games about these bugs, and use them for a competitive edge. Now. its a business and you can hire coaching and setup packs and whatnot. As soon as money enters a hobby, it becomes a job for some people. And when sports become's a job.... it tends to ruin the sportive aspect of it, in return for a more monetization aspect. It's no longer "lets have a good 2 hours of clean racing" But becomes a "Gotta win this 2 hour race at any means i can" Driving standards have gone down, You have teammates activly blocking competition and i wonder howmany E version of the renault F1 Crashgate have already happend in "e-sports". Add to that the fact that most racing sims have piss-poor (if any) anti cheat and i'd be surprised if not the majority of "e-sport" teams use at least one exploit or cheat of some sort to get an edge.

[@jamesyySCO]

Respect to you for giving this the attention that it really needs thank you jimmer

[@Krummelz]

I find it odd how most of the world, in all aspects of life nowadays, is looking for a shortcut to success. Very few people want to do the hard work. Very few people have integrity.

[@darkfox2076]

Well said jimmer!! Cheaters are destroying online racing

[@danfry909]

Well done for speaking out Jimmy. Getting good is where the satisfaction come from, not just winning.

[@FairestUnicorn]

Need to have these big events in person with provided peripherals

[@CarimboHanky]

there is a psychological attachment to ones peripherals. changing that for a competition could hurt the performance. it a weird thing, i normally race in other games on console against my brother and i beat him BUT a while ago i was visiting him at his home and he wanted us to do a race, i was using one of his controllers and it felt so uncomftable, eventho its identical to the one i have at home, i couldnt focus on the race because "the controller feels weird". so yeah

[@ianrobertson3419]

@@CarimboHanky Ya, well that's too bad. If you want esports to grow and be legitimized then something has to happen. Looking forward to the "olympic" esports show they're going to put on.

[@LongJohnnn]

It's a pretty hard problem to fix. Firstly, completely stopping people from hacking in games is basically impossible (especially in online tournaments as opposed to LAN) and secondly, it's up to each game developer to try and fix it. Also, no matter how good an anti-cheat is, it won't detect a good custom made cheat and a professional sim racer looking to cheat would have no problem paying someone to create one. This is a problem in all e-sports, just like steroids are in sports because there is always a way to beat the system.

[@ianp3112]

For eSports, only allow racing at specific locations, so the software AND hardware are all equal!

[@LongJohnnn]

@@ianp3112 Yeah that is the best way to make sure everyone is on the same playing field.

[@deliberation6022]

My thoughts on the Carton stream incident. The only way I can imagine it happening is that the F1 esports drivers realized something was up with Ronhaar. So they all got together and downloaded the cheat to investigate on their own then sent their finding to Codemasters (working with them.) Ininto cite Ronhaar because we’ve seen several drivers target him, via verbal and wrecking him on tracks that’s the only explanation I can come up with since EA nor Codemasters have responded basically briskly kicking him under a semi truck

[@philstansfield]

But if that was the case....why has not a single other driver come forwards to confirm it?

[@needude7218]

​@@philstansfieldOpmeer was there immediately to confirm it, and a fair few others were also in the twitter thread, none saying otherwise

[@philstansfield]

@@needude7218 They have confirmed they all downloaded cheats to see if Ronhaar was cheating?

[@needude7218]

@@philstansfield They've not said those exact words, but Opmeer responded to the statement, saying "Having to wait for this statement knowing you were not cheating was frustrating ngl." So Opmeer clearly knew about the situation before it came into the public eye. Then in response to somebody saying the statement is an easy excuse anybody caught cheating can make, Opmeer says "Not quite the case if you have written approval by the game devs right?", seemingly confirming that there was written confirmation given. It's fairly safe to put 2 and 2 together and say that Opmeer is one of the other drivers mentioned [Quick addition before sending: There is another of Opmeer's replies outright confirming it, if you choose to take his word for it. "He literally has written approval by games devs. Hence why nothing will happen."]

[@philstansfield]

@@needude7218 again though.....if there was written proof from the devs....then it's a physical thing that can easily be produced? Also having written proof from the devs to try out....is different to having them still on your system when you are doing league races. Having "permission" for them to be there doesn't mean he definately didn't use them. Simple fact is.....they should not be there. For any reason. If they are there...they can easily be used.

[@TANGORACING]

Congrats to putting this infos out! These arguments of pro e-sport teams and drivers even openly confirming to just do anything possible to win is despicable.

[@worstenbroodje6832]

I never understood people cheating in any sort of game because what's the point of even playing at that point. But now at an e-sport level with large sums of prize money on the line, I'm not surprised this is happening at all, especially with the lack of anti-cheat in this genre. It's just sad to see the way this is going.

[@Endslikecrazy]

the ronhaar thing is just so incredibly obvious, the whole field is usually just in a DRS train because the competition is so incredibly close together, maybe there is 2 seperate trains going on or whatever but generally the entire field is very close together. The qualifying times are usually within like .5 seconds of each other on the entire field, the Q3 times are usually like within .2 seconds of each other but somehow ronhaar is .2 to .5 seconds faster then the entire field in qualifying. Then there is the footage from abu dhabi where he is following his competitors more closely then any other driver can like dirty air does not exist for ronhaar but it does for everyone else. And then there is also the spain footage. Where opmeer absolutely drove the best race of his entire career and you can see him and ronhaar are well over 4 seconds away from the rest of the field and opmeer is struggling to stay in the DRS. Havent even mentioned the fact that ronhaar runs lower downforce setups then most of the field yet is the fastest person in corners xD Im also all for innocent untill proven guilty but this is just so blatantly obvious.

[@brokensmilephoto]

I enjoy getting my wins by the fast guys crashing, and me getting through the aftermath. I use the James May theory of "he is is last, shall be first." and "To finish the race, you must first finish."

[@MScotty90]

My first iRacing win was in a race where I missed qualifying because I was in the bathroom and had to start from the pits. I had a front row seat to watch the entire field wreck out in turn 1.

[@Vsankari]

"To finish the race, you must first finish." lol that's not the quote now is it =p

[@rickrolled7930]

Tell that to any lfm split that isn't in rookies. Those people are rapid, and rarely crash so hard. Some are legit aliens.

[@davisowen97]

“If you ain’t cheatin, you ain’t winning”😂😂😂

[@its_matt_long]

While I'm no pro racer, I've no motivation anymore to play such games where someone could have an unfair advantage beyond their own setup and skill. It needs to stop and teams cannot and should not stay quiet. Thank you Jimmy and others who are now raising awareness of it and hope traction is made to stop this happening (no pun intended). As Jimmy puts it: "JUST GET GOOD"

[@ExMachinaEngineering]

That's the actual reason I switched to GT6 on Playstation a while back. I was actually involved in some amazing GTR2 and GTL leagues, but as soon as they started getting traction the cheaters started flooding in.

[@CYMotorsport]

I trust nothing under 20nm. Full wrist breaking, exit wiggling consequences turned all the way up. If you’re not sweating and don’t need gloves to race, I’m calling Jobst to investigate.

[@guitaristforfunn]

Hopefully the other big Sim racers start making videos on this topic. Way to go Jimmer!

[@Traumglanz]

It's not competitive eSport unless it''s an offline event and you play on the hardware form the organizers. Everything else should be not taking fully serious imho.

[@danielprevratil3149]

The amount of cheaters I encountered in CP races in ACC is a lot higher that you would expect. Mostly unlimited engine RPM and no collisions against other cars. They basically drove around throwing cars about while revving 15 000 RPM. And I met the same people multiple times and no one ever did or could do anything about it.

[@olisk-jy9rz]

>"unlimited rpm" >15000 rpm

[@Hunter-th2fr]

It's the same with Thomas, he had wheel spin out of the exit but still was faster than everyone. If you watch f1 esports you know if you spin your wheels you are not going to get poll, the grid is stacked with talent and usually only a tenth off each other

[@jgbalves]

I would love if somebody spread an email with a cheat with datalogging in a famous competition just to later say "ok so those drivers installed and those don't" lol

[@shaggy7327]

If it's a competition, there's someone look8ng for the advantage.

[@EyeMWing]

The whole "I was just testing it" thing doesn't really wash - given the fact your career is on the line if you screw up and even *accidentally* cheat, you use a separate computer for that kind of thing if you're doing it, and keep the "Work Computer" clean.

[@olisk-jy9rz]

And why didn't he say that immediately "oh hey guys don't worry see this here? I'm testing for the company" No, he makes a tik tok "i'm screwed" face, becomes quiet all of a sudden, and takes a month to come up with that excuse. Pathetic.

[@Gino_567]

@@olisk-jy9rz I wouldn't be surprised if a deal came out of this and they negotiated behind closed doors. He promotes their product in return for a statement that ensures he gets to keep his job.

[@glockmat]

ACC is loaded with cheaters, yesterday I got a race on Nürburgring, got a massive launch off the last corner, was catching the guy until the lap line and then he rocketed pass me, on the braking he was .2 ahead, and braked later than me, somehow made the corner and by the exit was almost 1 sec ahead, ironically he spun on the next corner, I overtook him again and he spun twice, once to try to catch me and another to kill himself My friend was with me on discord and he isnt a Sim Racing afficionado and he could clearly tell the guy was cheating

[@sambrown6426]

I only go sim racing for fun, I don't compete or anything, but the closest thing I've ever done to cheating was when I was just starting out, and I had a program that would play an audible note when I was pushing the limits of grip in a corner, and I only did this for a few months before I got rid of it. Literally the only reason I had it was because I was afraid of pushing to hard, and finding the car's limits, which meant that I was a really slow, overly cautious driver, and this program really helped me break out of that phase, and start actually pushing the cars. And as soon as I was actually comfortable pushing it, I got rid of that program, and I haven't used it since.

[@jaroca784]

"If you ain't trying to cheat a little, you ain't likely to win much." Richard Petty

[@harleyHDz]

I was thinking that the next (maybe) big anticheat, will come in the form of ai, so essentially the ai can detect foul play through replays and the data being written through the server, if it doesn't make sense, as in, "this car cannot perform those actions given its stats" it can detect it. but that's just an idea in my head, who knows if it could be a thing.

[@Splarkszter]

Cheaters are not Hackers, hacker is a praise word "A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means." Those cheaters that use hacks are just coward dumdums.

[@GregzVR]

Real money brings REAL shenanigans.

[@dinocadet77]

They turned my community driven hobby into a risk-reward casino.

[@alexb2298]

It's similar to doping in other sports like cycling or the Olympics. Eventually someone or some team will become the fall guy when viewing figures start to drop as a result of the bad press. Until then there will be no pressure to stop it

[@quora1820]

For stuff like F1 Esports I'm kinda suprised they aren't on LAN with a controlled setup. I know for some games thats just never going to happen but not the game with the biggest backing?

[@0Bennyman]

They do at proper events like the recent official F1 Esports where "Cheater" Thomas has just won and got pole.

[@sebfettel]

Never tolerate dishonesty

[@Don44Colione]

Hey Jimmer. It is actually quite concerning to see this "Trend" comming up in Sim-Racing as well. I highly encourage you to watch the Cheating-Discussion about "Escape from Tarkov" with Luke from Linus Tech Tips about that matter, hence they deaply discuss alot of ways to actually detect and prevent cheating. It seems the Devs can't handle this Problem on their own, especially when it comes to advanced cheating-methods, like inputs from a total different system, that eludes itself from any software detection on the main system at all. I think the best thing is to point out that Problem (like you did) and then vouche for a "community-control system", this way is often more approachable for devs as well. Let the community see and judge, its not perfect, but it has the most potential imho. As an example: "overwatch-casing" in Dota 2; people can be reported and then be judged by other players with a certain amout of game-experience and behaviour rating.

[@seb_iic5182]

trackmania has an anti cheat system since forever. It records inputs and car position and velocity and then validates if all of this is this in accordance with the games physics. It doesn't stop you from cheating, but it's easy to identify offline physics changes this way using an independent machine. This could be done for online play after the race

[@virtual_GaRy]

Impossible to do with sim games often because they are not deterministic sadly. Like in F1 the fps affects how you go over bumps as a simple example.

[@Simon-tr9hv]

I think it's relatively easy to detect cheating if they saved all the data from the race, being esport and all, all their input etc can be analysed, you know, cornering speed, wheels input, with all those data, they can even simulate exact input afterward in their dev engine, should easily identify cheater

[@MrBlackBradPitt]

The idea that it would be easy to detect cheating is both silly and ignorant. Look at the fps genre alone. There are multi million dollar companies dedicated to working on anti cheat software alone. They are nowhere near being able to catch all cheaters. If it were easy it would have been done because a foolproof anti cheat would be worth a billion dollars to the gaming industry.

[@Simon-tr9hv]

@@MrBlackBradPitt lmao, imagine being so uneducated, we are talking about racing game here, unlike fps game you mentioned, which most hacks read and modify memory for functions like wall hacks, aimbot, which is done locally then sync to their server, so it's harder to catch instantly. There are many variables like player response time, skills etc, but in racing game its different, you are limited by same factor, for example, with this cars performance and track condition, it is physically impossible for you to go around this corner at 140km/h no matter what,it's physically impossible to accelerate that fast, with all the data saved, its fairly easy for them to test and simulate exact how it will react at that exact moment

[@boccs]

@@Simon-tr9hv(double standards lol) no you can't just "simulate" physics. it's not deterministic, like at all. maybe in ancient games like trackmania, but sims aren't that simple. also, cheaters are never going to go super blatant to the point of exceeding the theoretical perfect.

[@Simon-tr9hv]

@@boccs lol I'm done talking to you, whats the saying? You can never wake someone up who is pretend sleeping? Whatever makes you happy man

[@The_BenboBaggins]

The comparison to doping in cycling is very much on point, and look at the damage done there!

[@littledan6994]

As one fine racer once said.... " don't cheat man, just get good " 👏💪😎

[@ianrobertson3419]

Ya, that's all great except you literally can't keep up with cheaters. Cheaters are ruining modern gaming. I haven't played a multiplayer online yet that didn't have cheaters, I stopped playing a couple of games because it's just not fun anymore and I'm not going to cheat.

[@littledan6994]

@@ianrobertson3419 you can't let it bother you, if anything it should make you feel good that people have to cheat to keep up with naturally talented people. You can still play games offline aswell though you don't have to give up racing completely but I do understand what you mean

[@littledan6994]

@@ianrobertson3419 private lobbies with friends is always another option and still fun if they're just as fast as yourself

[@Victorflange]

Only way to stamp this out is for their set-ups to go through scrutineering in the same way a physical car does. The PC is checked before the race for patches and packs, and can be accessed at anytime during the race by the judges to see what it is running.

[@GeoMiluti]

As a big ACC player, with 3000 hours overall and hundreds of races on LFM. I'm shocked how obvious Kirril video is. And it's disgusting to see how some can cheat without attracting suspicions. Kudos to Daire for throwing that. Kunos need to do something !

[@8688nick]

Good on you Jimmy. I hate cheaters and people with no integrity in general. The good thing is once these clowns get exposed nobody will trust them again. A tarnished name could be more effective than an anti-cheat mod (which would still be nice).

[@Nathan-is7li]

People suck. Where’s the fun in cheating. Get good or don’t play

[@DMalek]

Why don't they just do like trackmania? Record all inputs, run all the same car setup data and track conditions. Run though simulation, if the data tracked by server equal the simulated time its legit. If simulation get different result, its cheating. Have no idea why its a big task to check this. If a 20 year old game can do it, I don't see why a 1 year old game can't. All driver's have to accept this while playing competitive, problem solved.

[@rossstephenson9398]

Having a background in cycling I can fully understand your anger and frustration one way of stopping this is looking at the real world of sport. Every professional E-sports player submits their PC for scrutiny. Any up dates/downloads however minor need to be submitted to a impartial governing body to record what updates have taken place or changes that have been made. Prior to competition another scrutiny check is made to cross reference the history. During competition a background app monitors all operating applications and what they are if any having any effect on the game play. Just one idea to start the ball rolling of stamping out cheats

[@JohnTheodore]

One of my chatters pointed me to this video last night. I have never understood how anyone can derive joy or satisfaction from cheating. For my part, I've never been quick enough to be able to say "I'm at the limit, if that guy is X faster than me, he must be cheating." However, I have raced with folks who are that good. Their opinion on this carries far more weight than mine. Great video, Jimmer. Appreciate you continuing to be a force for good in this space ❤️😎✌️

[@joshuachipling6923]

Well, put Jimmy. Good to have a level-headed person give some honest thoughts on a firecracker waiting to explode. Keep up the great videos.

[@DawnOfTheOzz]

Oh no! Cheating in eSports! This has never happened before! Sarcasm aside, I'm not exactly shocked it's taken this long for cheating to spring up and suddenly get exposed in sim racing.

[@ChrisR673]

I saw all of these pop-up on various sub-reddits, but really just wanted to see the roadmap for ACC mentioned in one thread finally get shared per the community manager that did a AMA there. Still waiting for Williams and/or Button to chime-in tho'

[@MatthewWilliams19]

There should be some sort of ‘checking’ before events. Where someone random is given a check of their folders by an F1 game official.. through an app like splashtop. After the check, their game is opened, connected to the server and left like that.. without being able to restart the game.

[@Lukashoffmann94]

I doubt the grip hacks work by directly modifying game file and instead work by injecting the modified values during runtime. So just checking the game files does nothing.

[@CaptainMadAF]

I said this in a small spanish F1 competition back in 2020, they called me lier and kicked me out and the ones with cheats kept winning competition after competition. By the time I knew how to download and use that kind of shit, never done it to win ofc, it's self improvement what kept me playing that game but it's so frustrating knowing im 200% sure the guys who always won had grip cheats so obiously still the organizers of the event instead checking on it they basically kicked me for 'trying to disrupt the competition'. what a shit world we live on tbh

[@JonFestinger]

Great piece. Enjoyed it. Have heard the stories…but in a fragmented way. Thanks for bringing them together so coherently.

[@Nathan0A]

You could run random snippets of the game physics on a separate, dev controlled system. Could validates physics frames from the user’s PC to the server side “validation” physics every so often. Either that or have every racer’s replay file uploaded and validated for times / G forces / etc. when run in a different environment. “VAC” style bans for cheaters barring from any online race would be nice too

[@NielsHeusinkveld]

In 1997, they cheated with Microprose Grand Prix 2. In 2001, someone could apply more than 100% throttle in Grand Prix Legends. Cheating has been and always will be a thing some people gravitate to, in gaming, esports, real sports, work, everywhere. It is a temptation some people can't resist. You can make cheating harder, and you could argue the E-sports titles should invest in this, but somewhere, some smart person with dubious morals, will try to outsmart the anti cheat..

[@anexity.8417]

This is sadly a problem with very high level e sports in general at the moment, the problem mostly here that with so little room left to claim everyone is trying to get that small advantage to have so much more impact. people arent machines and as soon as someone edges closer and closer to perfection everyone else too wants to get there, and normally what tends to happen is people start cheating because they believe everyone else is also cheating in some way, and therefore very many people will end up cheating in the end. You will be able to watch this in so many e Sports weve seen it in csgo, league, soon to probably be valorant and now also in sim racing, and im sure im not aware of many other e sports currently facing the same problem. tldr : it is just sadly what happens when people push the limits of whats possible and have the ability to cheat easily.

[@sharpe3698]

I think one thing that's tough for e-sport sim racing is that it's spread out over so many different games/categories. Most other e-sport scenes are centered around a single game, or a single franchise so it's much easier to establish, communicate, and enforce standards.