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[Ella Brooks]

Great topic. The key thing most people miss is that UDP is chosen for competitive titles precisely because retransmission latency is worse than an occasional lost packet. In a fast-paced shooter, waiting for a NAK/retrans cycle can add 30-50ms of input delay, which is a dealbreaker. So the question isn’t “how do we eliminate packet loss” but “how do we minimize its perceptible impact while keeping latency flat.” That’s where PLC and FEC each play a distinct role. PLC (interpolation, last-packet repeat, or simple muting) masks the gap after the fact—cheap and latency-free, but you’re stuck with whatever fidelity the algorithm produces. FEC, on the other hand, lets the receiver reconstruct lost packets on-the-fly without any round-trip, so it’s strictly better for the packets that actually matter (input state, hit registration), but it burns bandwidth and CPU. My take: run forward FEC at a modest redundancy level (8-15% is a reasonable sweet

"⚠️ When asking for FPS/stutter troubleshooting, please include your exact RAM specs and PSU model!"

[Ella Brooks]

Great question mate. From an architectural standpoint, here is how this works: Vanguard doesn’t just scan your running processes — it needs proof your machine boots into a known-good state, and that’s where the TPM comes in. When your PC powers on, the UEFI firmware starts measuring each boot step (firmware → bootloader → kernel → signed driver) and ‘extends’ each measurement into separate Plataforma Configuration Registers, basically PCR 0-7. Extending means it hashes the old value together with the new one, so you get a tamper-evident chain you can’t backpatch.

Before you queue, the Vanguard driver asks the TPM to ‘quote’ those PCR values. The TPM signs that measurement blob with a device-unique Attestation Identity Key (AIK) that’s baked into the chip and can’t be exported. That signed quote is nonce-bound — Riot slaps a fresh random number on it so a recorded quote can never be replayed later — and ships it to their server over QUIC. The server checks the signature, confirms the nonces match, and compares your PCR chain against a whitelist of known-good configs. If it lines up, it issues a short-lived token that lets you in. The whole point is that a kernel-level cheat can’t fake the PCR values or the AIK signature, which is why software-only hash checks got bypassed so easily back in the day.

As for your practical worries: yes, flashing a BIOS or changing certain hardware can shift the PCR measurements and trip the check — that’s the intended behavior, not a bug. Enabling Secure Boot in ‘Native’ mode (not User/Custom) and turning TPM/PTT/SPPT on in BIOS fixes the launcher block. If you dual-boot Linux, the usual workaround is to enroll your own MOK keys or run in a configuration Riot whitelists, since Secure Boot in User Mode technically means no signatures are being enforced and your attestation chain won’t validate.

"⚠️ When asking for FPS/stutter troubleshooting, please include your exact RAM specs and PSU model!"

[Ella Brooks]

Here’s the reality of what actually happens under the hood at 8000Hz: your mouse switches from a standard USB interrupt endpoint sending one 1-byte report per millisecond to sending eight of them per millisecond.

Every single report triggers a hardware interrupt request (IRQ) that the CPU’s ISR picks up, so you’re essentially multiplying your interrupt load by 8x compared?

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