The r1ch.net anticheat module provides cheat protection for Quake II. It is flexible enough to support multiple clients, currently R1Q2, EGL, AprQ2 and Q2PRO are able to use the r1ch.net anticheat to provide anticheat functionality to the engine. The r1ch.net anticheat differs from existing Quake II anticheat solutions by using an anticheat server which both the Quake 2 client and server connect to, ensuring an end-to-end authentication system rather than relying on client to client.
The anticheat module should be compatible with Windows 2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista / 7 / 8 / 10, both 32 and 64 bit.
The anticheat module may be downloaded here (~1.2 MiB). Once downloaded, place the anticheat.dll in your Quake 2 directory. The anticheat module will only work when using a supported client (R1Q2, EGL, AprQ2 or Q2PRO available below) and only on anticheat-enabled servers. When necessary, the DLL will automatically update itself on loading; this may take several minutes on a slow connection so please be patient if Q2 appears frozen at the 'loading anticheat' screen.
NEW! As of May 2016, an anticheat enabled version of Q2PRO r1504 has been built. Please note that this is an unofficial version of Q2PRO.
To use the anticheat module with R1Q2, you must be using R1Q2 b7587 (55 KiB) or higher. You must also use an approved renderer such as R1GL 0.1.5 or higher (available in the R1Q2 installer). It is recommended you use the R1Q2 Updater (included in the installer) which will ensure your files are the latest versions - simply run R1Q2Updater.exe from your Q2 directory or use the 'Check For Updates' link on the Start Menu. If you need the original anticheat-valid ref_gl or ref_soft files, you can find them here (190KiB).
EGL supports the anticheat module starting with EGL v0.3.1-R1.
AprQ2 supports the anticheat module as of AprQ2 v1.21.
This will show the anticheat status of all players when used on an anticheat-enabled server. The files column shows the number of failed file checks the client has. Use the acinfo command for more information about players who failed file checks.
Usage: acinfo [name/id]. This will show a list of modified files the player is using that do not match the server-configured hash list.
The anticheat module needs to make a connection to the anticheat server to function. Be sure to allow your Quake 2 client full access to the Internet to ensure that the anticheat can connect. Please note, if you update your client .exe, you may need to re-allow it access through your firewall application.
Many anti-virus programs and other security software may report an unknown / heuristic detection within the anticheat.dll file. This is a false positive caused by the way the .dll is packed and can be safely ignored. Please whitelist the DLL or exclude your Quake 2 folder to prevent problems loading the DLL. Note that when the DLL updates, you may have to re-allow it in your anti-virus software.
Please contact the admin of the Quake II server for support about file checks. The anticheat module itself does not check any files, it is up to the server admin to configure them.
If you use the latest NVIDIA drivers on a multi-core system, you may notice a considerable FPS drop when using anticheat. This is due to a multi-core optimization NVIDIA tried to implement that causes problems for some games. To disable this setting, open Display Properties and find Settings, Advanced, Performance and Quality, Advanced Settings, Threaded Optimization. Set it to "Off".