Epic Games has finally introduced ARM compatibility for Easy Anti-Cheat, featuring support for both Windows and Linux-based ARM operating systems. Epic Games issued new patch notes highlighting Windows and Linux support for EOS 1.17.1.3-CL44532354, and instructions for game developers to update EAC to the latest version.
Some other anti-cheat programs have already added support for Windows on ARM; however, Easy Anti-Cheat is one of the most popular anti-cheat engines used by video games today, and adding EAC will introduce compatibility for a plethora of titles. The icing on the cake is Epic's support for Linux ARM devices, which is a massive bonus for Linux players since Valve has incorporated ARM support for Proton, its Windows-to-Linux emulator.
Anti-cheat has been one of the largest barriers preventing gaming from going fully mainstream on ARM-based PCs, especially for ARM-based Copilot+ Windows devices. Anti-cheat apps require extra tooling to work on ARM, and for Windows specifically, anti-cheat tools also need to work with Microsoft's Prism x86 to ARM compatibility tool.
However, Easy Anti-Cheat is just one of several anti-cheat programs used by game engines today. EAC is one of the most popular anti-cheat applications and will make many games compatible with ARM devices; however, there are a variety of other anti-cheat programs used by many more games, including Riot Vanguard, Faceit, and Javelin, that will need to support ARM before anti-cheat incompatibility issues are entirely left behind. So far, only Easy Anti-Cheat, Battleye, Denuvo, and Wellbia Uncheater are supported on ARM versions of Windows 11.
Today's update from Epic also brings official Nintendo Switch 2 support: "This release adds support for Nintendo Switch 2. You can extend your game’s existing EOS SDK for Switch integration to run on Nintendo’s latest hardware with minimal changes," the release note states.
Microsoft has been aggressively developing tools and software needed to run games on ARM PCs since the introduction of Windows 11 24H2. Beyond working with developers to add anti-cheat support, Microsoft has been optimizing its own Prism x86 to ARM emulation tool to improve game translation performance. Auto SR has also been integrated, which is Microsoft's proprietary upscaler, helping boost performance by rendering the game at a lower resolution and upscaling it to the device's native resolution.
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