Valorant gamers claim that the anti-cheat software is making their PCs overheat.
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Why Is This Happening?
Riot Games have implemented their anti-cheat software similar to what they use for League of Legends, but with a twist, it's still turned on even when the game isn't running. Thankfully, they made it possible to disable the anti-cheat software when they're not playing the game anymore. Regardless of it being disabled, the software seems to be causing another problem for the users.
PC gamers have complained that it's not causing their units to overheat, and it might be Valorant's fault. Some players have reported that the anti-cheat software called Vanguard, is interfering with software as well as drivers tied inside the PC hardware like cooling systems, GPUs, keyboards, and mice. One player even recounted his struggle in a Reddit thread with over 20,000 upvotes. From the thread, he described it as a hellish experience saying: "I just spent the last 3 hours figuring out why I couldn't get into Windows because my keyboard and mouse wouldn't work," they wrote.
"Just before that, I started smelling hot plastic-my graphics card was running +90°C because again, Vanguard disabled my cooling software (my PC case got very bad airflow, I have to decrease my GPU performance to keep it cool enough). Vanguard needs to prevent us from launching the game while X software is active-and [it needs to ask] us to close it, even if we need to reboot just after-instead of disabling everything silently."
That wasn't all; other users also told their own stories with similar results involving many PC components. Jonah Wallschlaeger, a Kotaku tipster, said that his Vanguard has also been wreaking havoc on the software he uses, which controls his PC's external lighting. He said, "I couldn't get my RGB software to work until I chatted up support on Monday," and added, "And the guy just said, 'uninstall Valorant' without even asking if I had it."
Everyone’s favorite not-at-all-scary anti-cheat lead @Arkem lays out the what, why, and how of VALORANT anti-cheat. Learn all about it here: https://t.co/Nn0FpoRsm2 pic.twitter.com/HGmpAYOor3 — VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) May 6, 2020
More Regarding The Reddit Thread
Riot's anti-cheat lead, Paul "RiotArkem" Chamberlain, has given a brief, yet a nonspecific response to the players' concern.
From his explanation, he had this to say, "We're working on ways to make the experience better ... Our current notification pop-ups aren't as good as they could be, and we're looking for ways to give you more control over how Vanguard works."
He also went on ahead and said that the players should expect much-needed improvements "before launch." The game Valorant has no official release date as of yet and remains a closed beta where only a limited number of people get to try it out.
If you thought the game was still a work in progress, even its anti-cheat system Vanguard is also still undergoing rough patches and maintenance.
Despite a lot of people already concerned about the overly invasive anti-cheat system, it still appears to be pushing through despite the concerns.
