This blog outlines our schedule for the final rollout of Windows security settings (TPM 2.0, Secure Boot, IOMMU, and VBS) to keep improving our protection against different types of advanced cheats across all matchmaking and official matches hosted on FACEIT. The requirements described in this blog are not entirely new, as this rollout has been progressing in stages for months and years across different security settings. Today, most FACEIT players are already compliant with these standards, so they will not need to change settings in the near future.
We invite the community to read through this important set of information, double-check that they already meet these requirements, and if necessary, enable these security settings as soon as possible to ensure they can keep playing on FACEIT without interruption. The FACEIT Anti-Cheat will display an error message as soon as you are required to enable any new settings, and if you need help, please review the guides we have prepared for you.
TL;DR - Today’s update is grouped into three categories of requirements:
We want to sincerely thank all the players who patiently went through troubleshooting, booting troubles, and other issues in the past, which helped us map and address several recurring problems that the implementation of these security settings can cause. We are continuing to advance anti-cheat protection beyond the industry standard, but this level of complexity and the significant risk of crashing players' PCs require us to step intentionally and carefully. This is why we are enforcing settings like IOMMU in stages, and it's why in the industry these requirements are still being enforced on only a small portion of the player base currently.
We understand that enabling these requirements can be a real hassle for our players. For many, it’s a one-time BIOS/UEFI change, but for some it means troubleshooting drivers or boot issues, and in the worst-case it may require some players to replace outdated components or move to a newer PC, which is definitely not an ask we are taking lightly. However, we believe the universal implementation of these security settings is an important step for the greater good of the whole competitive ecosystem.
Below, we explain in detail how each type of requirement works, and finally share links to an FAQ and articles to answer any questions you may have.
Secure Boot and TPM create a verifiable report that guarantees your PC starts up without loading any unauthorized or modified software. The FACEIT Anti-Cheat can check this report before allowing a player to connect to a match on FACEIT as many advanced cheats attach to unauthorized or modified legitimate software to access the PC’s kernel.
On launch, Windows 11 automatically required TPM and Secure Boot for the operating system to function and shortly after we enforced them for all Windows 11 players on FACEIT. Currently, 95% of our players have these settings required, and only 5% do not, as they still use Windows 10 machines with older boot and firmware configurations (for example, Legacy BIOS/MBR or disabled firmware TPM/Secure Boot).
Today we’re giving a 1-month notice to all remaining players who haven’t enabled TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot, as starting the 25th of November 2025 these settings will be mandatory and fully enforced on every match.
You can check if you currently have these enabled by following the steps here. If you need help turning these on, we’ve prepared an enablement guide and a list of known issues to assist you through this transition, and if you require any further assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out to our customer care team here.
IOMMU acts as a hardware-level firewall for RAM, restricting what plug-in devices can access which prevents DMA-card cheats from reading protected game memory and we can pair it with VBS to ensure reliable enforcement. Both IOMMU and VBS have been in limited rollout on FACEIT since April 2025 and already 60% of our players are required to have it, and have been enforced in full to certain player groups, such as to everyone above 3,000 Elo since August 2025.
Turning on IOMMU is more than just a BIOS toggle. For an Anti-Cheat, it means configuring and managing every single PCI device on a PC to use it, which introduces significant compatibility challenges. Although most setups are fine, but a few with outdated drivers can experience edge-case issues like startup failures. These are often dependent on Microsoft and other hardware manufacturers who are actively addressing them through OS, BIOS and Driver updates, but are outside our direct control. Due to the potential increase in support needed, we’ll continue to roll out our coverage step-by-step as these updates land and user hardware configurations prove compatible and stable.
Enabling IOMMU and other security features may have an impact on FPS and PC performance. However, the security benefits of IOMMU, which protects against DMA-based cheats, are more significant than any potential, slight performance overhead.
If you receive a FACEIT notification that we now require you to enable IOMMU and VBS, please refer to our enablement guide and list of known issues to guide you through. If you require any further assistance, you can always reach out to our customer care team here.
While in this blog post we have touched on some high-level aspects of security settings and how they impact Anti-Cheat efforts, in November we will be publishing a more technical blog post to share deeper technical details on how our Anti-Cheat system works and how it evolved during the past years. Of course, the constant cat-and-mouse game with cheat developers prevents us from sharing every relevant detail; however, we recognise the importance and the need to share more transparently how we are thinking and acting on such an important topic for the whole competitive ecosystem.
Important links
If your issue persists, please contact our Customer Care team here for help during this transition.
