CSGO's new Trusted Mode is causing major problems for players

M Alzamora Published 12/07/2020

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s trusted mode is turning out to be a huge headache for players.

When CSGO released its new “Trusted Mode,” it was meant to prevent cheats from interacting with CSGO through blocking anything from interacting with the game that wasn’t approved by Microsoft’s Digital Certificate system. But it looks things as simple as mouse movements can cause the new system to glitch out.

In CSGO’s updated Trusted Mode FAQ, developers admit that moving a mouse can cause performance issues. The developer says they are currently working on a version of Trusted Mode that will address these issues, but players are reporting that nearly all programs are causing some sort of performance degradation in the popular first-person shooter.

We have updated our FAQ regarding Trusted Mode with common questions we’ve received since its release. You’ll find up-to-date information here: https://t.co/uqveYN164h
— CS:GO (@CSGO) July 11, 2020

“Sometimes applications attempt to inject during low-level Windows mouse events, which results in noticeable performance degradation when the mouse is moved. We are internally testing a mechanism that has virtually zero overhead, even for the most zealous of injecting software. Once this new approach ships, players should no longer notice a performance impact from running in Trusted mode, even when moving the mouse,” CSGO’s FAW explained.

Players are receiving bans from CSGO’s new Trusted Mode

The developers admit that CSGO’s new trusted mode issues might take some time to fix, but that means that players may receive a cooldown if the system detects something it doesn’t like, even after the game is already running. These cooldowns, CSGO developers say, cannot be removed from players’ accounts, much like the cooldown that players are slapped with when quiting a competitive game before it ends. This has resulted in a frustrated player base, especially when players receive competitive cooldowns despite not cheating.

The developers still haven’t given players a list of programs that are acceptable for running the same time as CSGO, meaning that players are rolling the dice every time they start the game with any other application running. With no clear indication of whether the other software on their computers could trigger the temporary ban, it’s a risk every time they start the game.

Trusted Mode draws comparisons to Valorant anticheat

CSGO competitor Valorant also shipped with an aggressive anticheat that caused problems on some users’ systems, but at least that problem was identified and fixed fairly quickly. But Valve runs on its own schedule, and there is currently no telling when a corrected version of Trusted Mode will ship for CSGO.

While the fight against cheaters in first-person shooters never ends and understandably requires new avenues of detection, ending games early and giving legitimate players a cooldown for things outside of their control is a bit over the top.

Trusted Mode launched in beta earlier in July before it came to live servers this week. According to mass reports from players who have found the game unplayable since Trusted Mode was released, an updated FAQ and some accompanying explanation from the developers of CSGO is little comfort.

M Alzamora

About M Alzamora

There are few things that writer M Alzamora loves more in life than Pokemon. And there are even fewer things that she loves more than her favorite Pokemon, Eevee. But M’s appreciation for gaming isn’t just limited to Nintendo’s famous pocket monsters. She’s interested in every type of game across every genre of gaming, and she has the credentials to prove it. M’s work has also been seen on Working Classicists and gaming sites.

View full profile