> giving up some control over your own system

There could simply be a developer option that disables these integrity checks but subsequently breaks online games that rely on them. Valve could also offer a module that allows signed user-space binaries access to kernel space, which would be an improvement over Windows offers in that anti-cheat wouldn't need to live in the kernel.

I think that's a fine trade off.

Could reboot into secure mode for these types of games.

Some kinds of cheating can be mitigated that way, but it can't really stop cheats which just play the game more optimally than the user is able to, using the same inputs and outputs that a legit player would use. Aim assistance in shooters, perfect parries in fighting games, economy-breaking levels of automation in MMOs, and so on.

There's also practical limits to how much data you can filter out in complex 3D games, both due to performance constraints, and because culling information too perfectly can cause things to pop into existence too late under non-zero network latency. The effectiveness of ESP cheats can be reduced, but not eliminated.

However, this only solves the cheat problem to a minimal extent. There is a lot of important data that players should not be directly aware of, but which is important for the game. For example, it is important for calculating sounds to know where enemies are nearby, even though you cannot see them, which makes wall hacks possible, etc.

That only solves half of the cheating problem - illegal inputs from clients.

The other half is much harder to solve. For a simple example - my client knows that there is an enemy player around a corner. It knows exactly where that player is, because that player is walking, and making noise. A cheats could allow the cheater to see his opponent's player's model through the wall.

For a more blatant example, consider cheats in a first-person shooter that just snap your aim to the nearest enemy's head. This involves zero violation of the game's logic, and also makes the game completely unplayable for everyone in a lobby.

IMO the real solution is back in community servers and votekicking.. It works on old games with no anticheat measures..

Maybe add some blatant detection for people teleporting and doing other absolutely impossible things serverside, but I don't understand why my team has to ruin their 'reputation' teamkilling a cheater so he doesn't ruin the game completely in most current games when the anticheat only catches free, old cheats. Just let people votekick and find someone else in the matchmaking queue who's willing to join halfway through.. Once votekicked enough times you can escalate to the AI (always indians) for automated (manual) review.

Also, you don't even have to ban cheaters. Just isolate them to play with each other. Some might find it fun and keep away from the normal players.

Edit: The 'issue' with community server manual review and votekick is you can be kicked for being cracked or garbage at the game legitimately, but TBH at this point you're ruining the fun of everyone else, so you should probably get in another server/match.. Also that premades can have majority, but that's easily solved by reducing their vote weight.

Linux supports secure boot just fine, it's just happy (correctly, IMO) to give the keys to the user and not the developer.

> There is also complete lack of secure boot

That's not true, though?

I also strongly dislike requiring remote attestation for any kind of software I want to run. But what I also dislike is cheaters in my online games and I genuinely do not have a better suggestion on what to do.

Personally, I run Windows purely for gaming and don't let it near any important data. For the latter, I boot into Linux with separately encrypted disks.