Beware of Cheat Engine and Punkbuster

[Takatu]

Hey,

I use a self compiled version of Cheat Engine for memory debugging and to figure out how to create VRBoost profiles. Punkbuster just give me a global ban in Battledield 4 because of this. Cheat Engine was not running and was never attached to Battlefield 4 so be careful. I'm tryng to get in contact with Punkbuster to figure out what is the exact problem. I don't know if there are remainings of cheat engine in the memory or if they check if cheat engine is on your system.
To be sure uninstall and reboot your system before playing a punkbuster protected game.

[Neil]

I've never heard of such a thing happening. For example, even Novint used Cheat Engine as a development tool for the Novint Falcon (and they had a BF3 profile).

However, it is best to be cautious with software like this, so I'm making this a sticky.

Regards,
Neil

[Neil]

Hi Takatu,

I got in touch with Even Balance to determine how they handle Cheat Engine. This is what I was told:

PunkBuster does have a hard drive scanning facility that is optional for server administrator use in looking for files on the player's hard drive. These scans are limited to the folders used by the game itself. So if you place cheat engine files in a Battlefield 3 folder or subfolder for example, then yes some BF3 servers you join will find those files and possibly cause the admin of that server to ban you (and even maybe share the ban info with other admins and/or admin groups).

As for us and our global detections/bans, our cheat violations only come from memory signatures, not from anything sitting on the hard drive not loaded into memory while playing.

I don't know what to tell you. You may have had a remnant in memory at the time. It's best to just be extra cautious when working with utilities like this.

Regards,
Neil

[Takatu]

Thanks for your support.

Yes the ban is not a Punkbuster global GUID ban. But violations will be submitted to so called "streaming services". They ban you on all servers and in all games they support. Bans from "streaming services" will only be lifted if EB say it was a false violation. In EU many servers use this "steaming services". So be extra cautious!

It might be possible that I still had the tutorial running in the background. Another explanation is not possible to me. It is reproducible with the tutorial running. But normally I'm closing my development tools before starting multiplayer games because I already had once trouble with a memory debugger and anti cheat systems in the past.

It don't triggered any new violations in the last weeks and CE is on my system again. You don't need to uninstall it. But if you want to be sure restart your system after using it and before playing a punkbuster protected game.