AMD's new Anti-Lag+ issues aren't limited to CS2, also Call of Duty and Apex Legends

Valve has only had its huge release of Counter-Strike 2 in the last couple of weeks, but it's just surfaced that AMD Radeon RX 7000 series graphics card owners enabling AMD's new Anti-Lag+ technology will see themselves VAC banned.

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Why is this happening all of a sudden? AMD's new Anti-Lag+ technology has been messing around with DLL files, and that's a big no-no for Valve and why the VAC banning is taking place for Radeon RX 7000 series GPU owners using Anti-Lag+ technology on Counter-Strike 2. But now, it's not just Counter-Strike 2, with Anti-Lag+ technology causing issues for Call of Duty: Moden Warfare and Warzone, as well as Apex Legends.

Anti-cheating technology has evolved over the years, and now has a direct feed into the graphics pipeline, meaning that game developers have had to be stricter with their anti-cheating methods and toolsets used to find any weird things going on with game files. Well, AMD's new Anti-Lag+ tech does just that: messes with game files (in this case, DLL files).

• Read more: Valve: so, yeah.. AMD Anti-Lag tech on Radeon GPUs = VAC banned on CS2

Anti-cheat technology is mostly used in multiplayer games, which is why we're seeing the issues now starting with Counter-Strike 2, which has now extended into some of the biggest games on the planet, affecting gamers that play multi-player juggernauts like Call of Duty and Apex Legends.

Is it just AMD's Anti-Lag+ tech? What about NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency tech? Nope, NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics card owners don't have to worry about this at all, because NVIDIA's own Reflex tech doesn't work at the driver level. Reflex is distributed as a separate library that is added by game developers individually, so no VAC bans can take place.

AMD's answer? To not use their new Anti-Lag+ technology in Counter-Strike 2 right now, until a fix is pushed out -- most likely in a hotfix driver for now, and then a fresh driver after that, where these issues should hopefully be fully resolved -- which isn't something Radeon RX 7000 series graphics card owners should have to do.

Is this problem new? AMD Radeon RX 7000 series gamers have been complaining for a few weeks with issues in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, where disabling Anti-Lag+ technology inside of AMD Software solved the issues. AMD staffers have said for weeks now that they're actively looking into this.

This problem ONLY affects Radeon RX 7000 series GPU owners! Which is a good thing, as it means it's not across the entire stack of Radeon GPUs... only the new Navi 3X-based Radeon RX 7000 series graphics cards. Simply disable Anti-Lag+ technology, and you should be fine. I know you shouldn't have to do that -- totally on your side there -- but it seems you'll have to until AMD sorts its sh*t out, and hopefully very, very quickly.