Moving from a single-PC cheat to DMA
You use a single-PC cheat and are considering DMA. Find out what transfers, what you have to buy, what improves, what gets worse, and the reasons not to migrate.
Short answer
Nothing transfers, because a single-PC licence, its configs and its one-click launch are all worthless in a DMA build. That build needs a card, firmware for that exact board, a second Windows machine and a clean USB 3 path before it draws anything.
On this page11
- What carries over from a single-PC cheat?
- How a single PC and DMA compare
- What does moving to DMA cost?
- What gets better with DMA?
- What gets worse with DMA?
- What does the first evening with DMA look like?
- When should you not migrate?
- How do you control software on another PC?
- What moving to DMA does not change
- Questions about moving to DMA
- Sources
What carries over from a single-PC cheat?
Start here, because this expectation causes the most disappointment. Your licence does not carry over, because the architecture, the software and the provider relationship are all different. Your configs and your habits do not carry over either, since the thing you interact with is now on a different machine with a different screen. The one thing that does transfer is knowing what you want the software to do for you, which is useful but is not a part you own.
How a single PC and DMA compare
Some of these rows are reasons to migrate, and some of them are reasons not to.
| Single PC | DMA | |
|---|---|---|
| Machines involved | One | Two, and they both have to be working |
| Hardware to buy | None | Card, second PC, cable, and optionally an input device and a fuser |
| Time from paying to playing | Minutes | An evening for a first build, sometimes two |
| What runs on the gaming PC | The cheat software | Nothing cheat-related. A PCIe device, and that is all |
| Where the overlay appears | On the game screen | On a second screen, or on the main screen via a fuser |
| Aim assistance | Built in | Needs a separate input device you buy |
| What breaks it | An anti-cheat update blocking the software's approach | Firmware identity, the USB path, a game patch moving offsets |
| Failure style | An error message or a crash | A device that does not appear, which is harder to diagnose |
| Ongoing cost | Subscription or licence | Subscription or licence, plus hardware you already paid for |
What does moving to DMA cost?
This is the shopping list the move implies, given in classes rather than figures, because the figure depends on your region, the week and your currency.
- DMA card
- Entry, mainstream or high-headroom class. High-headroom runs to roughly double entry
- Firmware
- Priced by whoever publishes it, and must be for your exact board revision
- Second PC
- A used ex-lease micro desktop, or a new low-power mini PC
- USB 3 data cable
- The cheapest line in the build, and it genuinely matters
- Display
- Any spare 1080p panel, or a phone on the local network for radar
- Input device, if you want aim assistance
- Well under an entry card
- Fuser, if you want the overlay on your main monitor
- An entry card, up to several times one, by class
- A free slot
- Not a purchase, but a hard requirement. Open the case and check before you order
What gets better with DMA?
Two things improve, and they are real improvements rather than marketing. First, the read happens over PCIe rather than from inside the operating system, so nothing has to defeat the anti-cheat's protection of its own process to get at memory. Second, an anti-cheat scanning your gaming machine's disk, processes and drivers finds a normal machine, which is exactly what it is. Those two properties are the whole reason this architecture exists, and they are also why it has outlasted several generations of purely local approaches.
Warning
What gets worse with DMA?
Setup complexity, cost and the patience you need all go up. You are now buying at least four things, possibly from different sources, and each one has to match the other three. A wrongly connected cable costs an evening, and a board revision your firmware provider does not publish for costs an order. The failures also change character, because instead of an error dialog you get a device that does not enumerate, which is much less pleasant to debug. Two machines also means two Windows installs, two update schedules and two places where the problem can be.
What does the first evening with DMA look like?
This is not meant to discourage you but to set the right expectation, because people who expect the single-PC experience give up halfway through.
- Shut down the gaming PC fully, open it, and seat the card in a free slot with clearance
- Connect the card's data port to a rear USB 3 port on the second PC
- Install the driver on the second PC and confirm the device appears without a warning
- Flash or verify the firmware for your exact board, which uses the other port on the card
- Boot the gaming PC first, then the second PC, in that order
- Run a read-speed test and write the number down, so you have a baseline for future problems
- Generate a memory map before you conclude that anything is slow
- Only then launch the game software and configure it
When should you not migrate?
Any one of these is a good enough reason to stay with what you have this month.
- Your gaming PC has no free PCIe or M.2 slot, or no physical clearance for a card
- Your gaming PC is a laptop with its only M.2 slot occupied by the boot drive
- You do not want to own or house a second machine
- You want it working tonight, or in the next hour
- You are not willing to debug a hardware fault without an error message
- You play many titles casually rather than one title regularly
- The title you play has no live status row worth buying into
- You are migrating because you believe DMA cannot be detected, but it can, and nobody can promise otherwise
Tip
How do you control software on another PC?
On a single PC the software is a window you alt-tab to, but on a DMA build it runs on another computer. That means you need a second keyboard and mouse, a KVM, or remote desktop over the local network. Sort this out on the first day, because people who leave it unsolved end up reaching across the desk in the middle of a match. They then decide the build is annoying and blame the architecture for an ergonomics problem they never dealt with.
Warning
What moving to DMA does not change
Migrating does not buy you a guarantee, and it does not make you undetectable; anyone who tells you otherwise is describing a product that does not exist. It does not remove an input device's USB descriptor, if you add one, and it does not remove the PCIe device from the bus. It also does nothing about how you behave in a match, which is a signal no architecture addresses. Nor does it stop game patches from breaking things, because offsets move and builds go down after major updates wherever the software runs.
Questions about moving to DMA
Can I keep my current licence and use it on the DMA build?
No. Single-PC software and DMA software are different products built for a different architecture, so assume you are starting over on the software side as well as the hardware side.
Can I run both while I get the DMA build working?
Technically the DMA build does not depend on what is installed on the gaming PC. However, running single-PC software on the machine you are trying to keep clean defeats the reason you are migrating, so finish one and then stop the other.
Is DMA worth it if I only play one game occasionally?
Usually not. The hardware and setup cost is paid up front and is the same whether you play twenty hours a week or two, so occasional play is the clearest case for not migrating.
Will my existing ban history follow me?
A DMA build does not reset your hardware identity or your account history, because both are separate questions from architecture. Read up on ban types and hardware identifiers before assuming a migration changes anything about a prior ban.
Do I need a fuser to match what I had on one PC?
Yes, if you want the overlay on the same screen you play on, because that is exactly what a fuser is for. It is also the layer most people moving from a single PC forget when they budget.
Sources
The before-and-after table, the first-evening steps and the list of reasons not to migrate come from the team's own bench and support experience.
- 01
- 02Kernel-level anti-cheat overview (Wikipedia)
what an anti-cheat scans on the machine it runs on
en.wikipedia.org
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