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Cheating in VirtualBox

Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2014 7:52 pm
by scblockout
Some time ago I found a way to create fake scores using Virtual Box. I thought that it would be interesting to post that here.
This is the setup:
- Windows XP virtual machine
- Blockout II version 2.4
- Virtual Box guest clock slow down to 50%, with the following command (see Vbox manual section "Accelerate or slow down the guest clock"):

Code: Select all

VBoxManage setextradata "VM name" "VBoxInternal/TM/WarpDrivePercentage" 50
(should execute command when VM is off, it does nothing if it's already running)

See for example this fake score, I managed to "play" at 99 BPM in 3D Mania level 9:
http://www.blockout.net/blockout2/advst ... reid=41511

Is it actually possible to detect this kind of fake? What about a more subtle clock tuning?

Re: Cheating in VirtualBox

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2014 3:09 pm
by jlp_38
Hello,

Theoretically, if you run the game in a virtual environment that perfectly decreases the machine timing, it won't be possible to detect cheating. The only solution would be to do an online check while playing.
The score you registered has a good timing check but not perfect, so it is possible to detect it. However, without cheating, you might have a small error on the timing check due to unexpected CPU overload (for instance) while playing.
I'll try to improve this on the next release.