AMD's new anti-lag feature could mark you as a cheater in your favorite competitive shooter

best crossplay games: Horizon from Apex Legends slowly approaching a machine that glows with blue light
(Image credit: Electronic Arts)

If you’re in the online competitive shooter scene and own an AMD Radeon graphics card, you might want to turn off the AMD Anti-Lag+ feature exclusive to the Radeon RX 7000-series graphics card, as the results could be devastating. 

According to AMD, Anti-Lag+ is supposed to work by “applying frame alignment within the game code itself, allowing for a better frame syncing which leads to even lower latency and great gaming experiences.” And since AMD often makes some of the best graphics cards, this feature should have worked as expected.

However, it seems that having it enabled for the best AMD graphic cards will net you an automatic ban for several competitive shooters like Counter-Strike 2, Call of Duty, or Apex Legends. This is particularly nasty for CS2 since those bans are much more difficult to reverse, and even the developers warned players to have the feature turned off when playing.

TechRadar reached out to AMD for comment and will update this story once we’ve received a statement.

Why is this happening? 

It seems that this occurs due to the way the feature “detours engine DLL functions”, which resembles a cheat program. Basically, this means that the Anti-Lag+ feature reads the information between the game engine and the display adapter, then goes a step further and replaces/injects functions. It’s essentially like wiretapping a phone call, and then using that info to create things like an aimbot while bypassing the game's executable. 

Not only is it resulting in bans, but it’s also causing significant performance issues in other PC titles like the aforementioned ones as well as Fortnite and Overwatch 2. Luckily, you can disable the feature by ALT + L. You can also verify the hotkey assignment in AMD Radeon Software by clicking the gear icon > Hotkeys > customizing the hotkey for Anti-Lag Plus, according to Engadget.

But as it’s only available in some games through the Adrenaline Edition version 23.30.1 driver, you don’t need to worry about it affecting every game you play.

AMD is struggling 

AMD has been releasing new tools that work with Anti-Lag+, like the ability for its Adrenalin graphics drivers to show you the system lag holding back your PC. It’s meant to compete with Nvidia’s PC Latency measurement. 

However, not only do we have the aforementioned issues with the anti-lag tech, but there’s also the fact that all this tech in general doesn’t even work with the vast majority of the best PC games (only 12 support it so far). This means that Team Red still has a long way to go if it ever hopes to catch up with Nvidia in this regard.

You might also like

TOPICS
Allisa James
Computing Staff Writer

Named by the CTA as a CES 2023 Media Trailblazer, Allisa is a Computing Staff Writer who covers breaking news and rumors in the computing industry, as well as reviews, hands-on previews, featured articles, and the latest deals and trends. In her spare time you can find her chatting it up on her two podcasts, Megaten Marathon and Combo Chain, as well as playing any JRPGs she can get her hands on.

Read more
An angry PC Gamer sat at their desk looking unhappy
It looks like the Nvidia App could be doing more harm than good by tanking game performance – but there’s a fix
Valorant gameplay
How high do you want your frame rates? Nvidia boasts that RTX 5090 GPU can drive Valorant at over 800 fps with jaw-dropping low latency
Illustration of a generic PC graphics card
AMD's decision to make FSR 4 exclusive to its new GPUs is a disappointing compromise in a bid to beat Nvidia - I hope it's worth it
Two operators run out of a hangar firing weapons
Maybe AMD's Radeon RX 9070 series GPUs aren't midrange after all - early Black Ops 6 benchmark shows a 99fps average at 4K without even needing FSR
The RTX 4070 FE graphics card being held aloft by a grizzled hand in the pits of hell.
Buyer beware: Asus' Q-Release Slim feature is reportedly damaging GPUs like the RTX 5090
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 Series image
Nvidia's 572.70 Game Ready Driver promises a black screen fix - but unless you have an RTX 5070 it's probably best to avoid updating for now
Latest in Gaming Components
An AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT made by Sapphire on a table with its retail packaging
Where to buy AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070: the best retailers in the US and UK to check for stock
Image of the Resident Evil 4 remake & the RTX 4080 Super
I've spent 250 hours in the Resident Evil 4 remake using an RTX 3080 Ti - the upgrade to an RTX 4080 Super and Asus' 49-inch OLED ultrawide is worthwhile
best crossplay games: Horizon from Apex Legends slowly approaching a machine that glows with blue light
AMD's new anti-lag feature could mark you as a cheater in your favorite competitive shooter
BenQ Zowie XL2566K gaming monitor
BenQ Zowie XL2566K review: for pro gamers only
Promotional image for the Crucial T700 Gen5 NVMe SSD.
Crucial players – how this Gen5 SSD can unlock your gaming potential
G.Skill DDR5 RAM against a colorful pink backdrop
Good news gamers, Samsung is making 12nm DDR5 RAM easier to get
Latest in News
Two Android phones on a green and blue background showing Google Messages
Struggling with slow Google Messages photo transfers? Google says new update will make 'noticeable difference'
Elayne, Egwene, and Nynaeve dressed regally and on horseback in The Wheel of Time season 3
'There's a reason why we do it': The Wheel of Time showrunner responds to fans who are still upset over the Prime Video show's plot alterations
Google Pixel 9
Android 16 could bring an improved Samsung DeX-style desktop mode to more phones
An Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti
Nvidia could unleash RTX 5060 and 5060 Ti GPUs on PC gamers tomorrow, but there’s no sign of rumored RTX 5050 yet
AI writing
ChatGPT just wrote the most beautiful short story, and I wonder what I'm even doing here
Google Chrome dark mode
Google updates Chrome extension rules to ban affiliate link injection without user action or benefit