Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Only a very small part of the rendering needs to be done on the server; notably, the camera could still move, and the client could still make the usual heuristic predictions about where things are, so it wouldn't feel laggy. This is just nonsense. The data that the client uses to make those heuristic predictions is the same data the cheats, so once you send that extra data over you've undone the benefit of not send…
> The data that the client uses to make those heuristic predictions is the same data the cheats, No, it's not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lag#Make_clients_extrapolate > plus youve added an intermediate network hop for your remote rendering I never said anything about an intermediate network hop. It's not that expensive to cull a few tris, diff the geometry and then send it – especially if you can compress the info…
> It's not that expensive to cull a few tris, diff the geometry and then send it
Multiplayer games are doing this aggressively already. This is an out of the box feature in UE4 and Unity. The second the client gets this information, the cheat has the information too.
> all you need to do is turn locating obscured players into a computer vision problem. > I don't know where this “intermediate network hop” comes from.
You either send the positions to the client, along with an association for what it belongs to, or you render the _entire_ scene on a remote "client", which means streaming the video back to the end users device. The video streaming introduces an extra hop on the network as you now need to go from end user to streamed client to server, rather than end user to server. If you don't render the whole thing, at some point the client gets sent the information that it needs, and the cheat has it.
> An HDMI splitter, a USB HDMI capture card, a Raspberry Pi and a USB cable. Not that expensive.
Apolgoies, when you mentioned a "streaming rig", I thought you were talking about having a secondary gaming PC hooked up. Just because it's _theoretically_ possible doesn't mean it's actually happening though.
> It's functionally equivalent.
I fundamentally disagree. One of these (kernel level cheats) are readily being sold on the internet, available to anyone with a debit card/paypal/btc and a computer, and the other requires dedicated hardware, along with the knowledge of how to write these cheats in the first place.
> stopping a lot of people from being able to play the game entirely, because it was easier for the developers.
The numbers of people who are legitimately stopped from being able to play the game entirely are very small, but those people do exist, and it sucks for them. Your blame of `it's easier for "the developers"` however is untrue. It's not because it's easier, it's because (at least right now) it's necessary.