Chris Blume

Does Vanguard physically damage hardware? No. Does this impact hardware or software in any ways unrelated to Riot’s games? No. The IOMMU security protection does not impact hardware, and would only impact the ability of players using DMA cheat devices to play our games. Are normal players affected? Players not using DMA cheat hardware are unaffected. Why target DMA cheats? DMA-based cheats are among the most sophisticated forms of cheating because they attempt to bypass traditional software detection by accessing memory directly through external hardware. I’m affected by this. How do I fix it? To continue cheating in other titles with this device, you may simply disable IOMMU in BIOS in the same place that you enabled it. Of course, you still won’t be able to play our games with these cheat devices enabled. Why did Riot joke about “bricking” PCs? We didn’t. The “paperweight” comment was about VALORANT cheat devices that no longer work in VALORANT. No hardware is being damaged and no other functionalities are impacted.

congrats to the owners of a brand new $6k paperweight

Well, that escalated quickly. There’s been a wave of claims by cheaters about Vanguard “bricking” their PCs, so let’s clear that up: Vanguard does not damage hardware or disable your devices. The photo we posted is a picture of cheat hardware devices that are sold explicitly for cheating in VALORANT (not normal PCs or PC components). Through our latest updates, Vanguard now makes those devices worthless for VAL, but does not in any way brick PCs or PC components or PC software. Our latest update enforces standard platform security features, like the Input-Output Memory Management Unit (IOMMU), on accounts identified as using Direct Memory Access (DMA) cheating devices. These protections are already part of modern systems and when enabled, they block DMA cheat devices (such as those shown in the photo) from accessing memory in downstream applications, like our games. If a cheat setup continues attempting to cheat after those protections are enabled, the system may generate hardware faults or instability. This is expected behavior under IOMMU when attempts are made to read protected memory. Disabling IOMMU allows the cheat device to function again, but IOMMU will still be required to play our games. This means the cheat device won’t work with our games, but your PC isn’t “bricked.” We would not, and cannot, impact your PC’s functionality in any other fashion. This functionality only applies to systems attempting to use DMA cheat devices, and players who are not using DMA-based cheat setups are not affected. We’ll keep investing in anti-cheat to protect competitive integrity, and we’ll keep being as transparent as possible about how those systems work.