DMA setup for CS2: VAC, FACEIT and ESEA are three different problems
Counter-Strike 2 runs VAC in user mode, while FACEIT and ESEA ship kernel drivers and FACEIT requires Secure Boot and TPM 2.0. Your platform decides what a DMA build must satisfy.
Short answer
CS2 runs user-mode VAC, while FACEIT and ESEA ship kernel drivers and FACEIT requires Secure Boot and TPM 2.0. A DMA build needs a card in the game PC, a reader on a second PC, and an input device only for aim. For CS2, this store sells an external cheat (/products/cs2) and a DMA cheat with a Direct build (/products/cs2-dma).
On this page9
- Which anti-cheat does CS2 use?
- How do Valve matchmaking, FACEIT and ESEA compare?
- What FACEIT's IOMMU rule means above 3000 ELO
- What hardware does a CS2 build need?
- In what order should you start everything?
- Pre-match checklist for CS2
- Common questions about CS2 builds
- Is a CS2 build working right now?
- Sources
Which anti-cheat does CS2 use?
On CS2, where you queue decides which anti-cheat you face, and no other title in this catalogue works that way. Valve matchmaking runs VAC, which combines a user-mode client component with server-side analysis: VACNet and the live enforcement layer Valve calls VAC Live. FACEIT and ESEA are separate products, and each ships its own kernel-mode client, hardware requirements and enforcement. So when someone talks about a "CS2" build without naming the platform, they have not said which of the three they mean.
How do Valve matchmaking, FACEIT and ESEA compare?
The third column is the one that decides your build. Platform requirements have tightened steadily, and the dates below are the ones the platforms published themselves.
| Where you play | Anti-cheat | What it requires of the game PC | What it means for a DMA build |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valve matchmaking | VAC, VACNet and VAC Live | No kernel driver, no BIOS requirements, no platform security gates | The permissive environment. Enforcement is client-signature plus server-side behavioural analysis, which makes how you play the dominant variable |
| FACEIT | FACEIT Anti-Cheat, kernel-mode, loads at boot | Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 mandatory since 25 November 2025. IOMMU and Memory Integrity mandatory above 3000 ELO since August 2025. Windows 11 required from 14 October 2026 | The hostile environment. The IOMMU requirement above 3000 ELO is aimed at exactly this hardware class |
| ESEA | ESEA client, kernel-mode | Its own kernel driver loaded before the game, with its own platform checks | Similar shape to FACEIT. Verify the current published requirements on the platform itself, not from a forum post |
Third-party platforms invest in kernel clients because they have no access to Valve's server-side scoring. That is why their hardware demands are higher than the game's own.
Warning
What FACEIT's IOMMU rule means above 3000 ELO
In August 2025 FACEIT made IOMMU and Memory Integrity mandatory above 3000 ELO. From 25 November 2025 it also made Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 mandatory for everyone. An enforcing IOMMU mediates what a PCIe device may read from system memory. If you play high-ELO FACEIT, the architecture is under direct pressure, and no configuration advice here changes that. If you play Valve matchmaking, none of those gates apply to you, so decide which kind of player you are before you buy hardware.
What hardware does a CS2 build need?
CS2 is a title where a read-only build makes good sense. A radar on a second screen shows positions, which are a large share of the value, and it needs no input device, no fuser and no overlay on the game PC's display. Aim assistance adds an input device the game PC must accept as an ordinary mouse. If you want the overlay on your main monitor instead of a second screen, a fuser goes in the video path. CS2 players often run exclusive fullscreen for input latency, and through a fuser that causes more display-mode resyncs than a borderless player sees.
In what order should you start everything?
- Decide the platform first, because Valve matchmaking and FACEIT mean a different setup for the evening, not just a different server
- Boot the game PC and confirm the game or platform client launches cleanly with nothing else attached
- Boot the second PC and confirm the card enumerates
- Start the reader and attach to the card
- Launch CS2, reach the main menu, then attach to the game process
- If a fuser is in the path, match resolution and refresh on both machines and prefer borderless windowed
Pre-match checklist for CS2
- You know which platform you are queueing on tonight
- If you play on FACEIT or ESEA, you have read that platform's current anti-cheat requirements yourself
- You checked the status board row for this title today
- Valve has not shipped a CS2 update since that row was published, and updates come irregularly, sometimes several in a week
- The card is in its data port and the reader attached before the game opened
- The input device, if any, is seen as a standard mouse by the game PC
- Nothing on the second PC is sharing the USB controller with the card
Common questions about CS2 builds
Does VAC detect DMA cheats?
VAC runs in user mode on the game PC, so it cannot inspect what another machine is doing. That is not the whole picture, though, because Valve's server-side analysis judges the match rather than the client. Behavioural detection does not care where your software runs.
Can I use a DMA build on FACEIT?
FACEIT runs a kernel-mode anti-cheat loaded at boot, which requires Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 for everyone and IOMMU with Memory Integrity above 3000 ELO. Of our firmware tiers, Signature and the Sovereign tier above it list CS2 on FACEIT, but neither is sold as a guaranteed way past that anti-cheat. Check the live status board and ask before buying.
Is radar-only enough for CS2?
For a lot of players, yes, because in a five-versus-five game, position information on a second screen is most of the value. It is also the build with the fewest components: no input device, no fuser and no overlay on the game PC.
Does the Windows 11 requirement affect me?
It affects FACEIT players, because that platform requires Windows 11 from 14 October 2026, but the requirement does not come from Valve. If your game PC is on Windows 10 for build reasons, that decision has a deadline attached.
How often does CS2 break a build?
Valve ships updates on no fixed schedule, sometimes several in a week, and any of them can move the client. Treat every CS2 update as a possible break, and read the status board before a session rather than after a failure.
Info
Is a CS2 build working right now?
The anti-cheat architecture is verifiable and dated, but whether a build works right now on any of the three platforms is not. Live state changes faster than a page can be edited, so the status board carries two dates: when a status was published and when the game last patched. Read them together, because a status older than the latest patch is a stale row.
Sources
The VAC, FACEIT and ESEA rules come from our own testing rather than a published document, and Valve ships updates on no schedule, so any of it can date.
- 01Robocalypse Now: Using Deep Learning (GDC Vault)
an industry talk on deep-learning cheat detection; it backs the general behavioural point only, not the VAC, FACEIT or ESEA specifics
gdcvault.com
Read next
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- BIOS settings for DMA on the game PC
- How to read the build status board
- DMA setup for PUBG, a game whose publisher names DMA in public
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