Post #3659390

2026-07-07 20:01 UTC

I haven't confirmed this, but in trying to understand how these DMA game cheating FPGA cards work, I found it suggested that they pretend to be SATA storage devices or network adapters, and sneak access to the main memory that way. Anti-cheat systems seem to combat this by enforcing strict IOMMU policies (i.e. who can read/write what), and if a DMA card is found, flashing their own firmware to the card and "soft bricking" the PC it's plugged into. 😳 Dayum. 😳 So haha wow, DMA cheat firmware devs need to now security harden their hardware and software to stop anti-cheat software from bricking them. 🤣 This article claims the cheat hardware costs $6k!? Maybe the early cards did, but not so much anymore. 😋 https://www.tomshardware.com/software/valorant-dev-bans-players-who-spent-usd6-000-on-cheats-then-trolls-them-on-social-media-studio-tweets-congrats-to-the-owners-of-a-brand-new-usd6k-paperweight

Replies (1)

@pawv@tech.lgbt 2026-07-07 22:30

Okay, after some more digging, it seems the "$6000 DMA" was a very specific DMA card (Heino2) that performs a "man in the middle" attack, piggybacking its I/O alongside your real SATA hard drive to bypass IOMMU restrictions. It was supposed to be "even more impossible to stop". That's what riot was bragging about, that they nerfed "the impossible" DMA card roughly a month after it came out. I don't know if they made a new firmware that bypasses whatever Riot figured out, but it's fascinating to read about. 😋 I was hoping the price of these cards meant they featured a monstrous FPGA on board, but I don't yet know what's used (they apparently sanded off the identification and covered the FPGA in goop). My hope was that these cards might become doorstops to gamers, potentially making a powerful FPGA available to tinkerers for a steal. 🤷

Open ##3659389