***********
Experienced driver writers can go on to the next message. This is another
(probably useless) attempt to impart some concept of reality to the OP.
***********
No, the goal of your assignment is vague to the point of uselessness.
There is zero value in doing a screenshot from the kernel just because it
seems like a cool thing to do. There is a reason for doing this. You
have hinted that the larger problem is to detect cheaters. As already
pointed out, there are so many ways to fake this out that software to game
it will appear within days. A friend of mine is fond of saying, “This
makes the game a real bargain. You get two games for the price of one.”
There are few projects sillier than those that have as an overall goal,
“If I could just do X, I will solve all problems
with our product”. The value of X changes, the purpose changes, and the
result is
A piece of software that fails to accomplish the task
A piece of software that interferes with legitimate use
A piece of software that is a Denial-of-Service attack
A piece of software that gives the illusion that it has met its
design goal, but can be defeated in a few days by s savvy 12-year-old
A piece of software whose intrinsic failures can be spotted by the
experts in this list before they’ve even finished reading your post
A piece of software that creates a back door for malware (e.g., the
Sony debacle)
A piece of software indistinguishable from malware
All of the above
This is why we keep asking newbies, “What problem are you trying to
solve?” In any real OS, there are many problems whose solutions are so
far from anything the OS can support that they cannot be implemented;
there are those that might work if you spend enought time and money on
them; there are those that work perfectly, but have nothing to do with
solving the problem; there are problems so complex that they cannot be
solved at all; and there are those so complex that they can be solved, but
not in a time frame that is less than the Heat Death of the Universe.
Those of us with decades of experience can usually detect if the OP is
proposing a solution that can’t work. We aren’t trying to be obnoxious
and discourage people from getting enough experience to Join Our Hallowed
Ranks, to keep people “Out of the club”, but if we were a swim club and
someone proposed to swim across the North Atlantic, or even don a hardsuit
and walk across, we’d point out all the potential failures, such as
hypothermia, nitrogen narcosis, oxygen toxicity (did you know that pure
oxygen under high pressure will kill you?), etc. Same here. If your goal
is to see an Opera in New York or London (depending upon what side you are
starting on), somebody might suggest that a ship or airplane is a better
choice. If price is no object the Concorde is the best choice
(wait…support for that was discontinued several releases back…)
The goal is to help you (and your employer) from wasting resources to
solve impossible problems. It’s in your best interest to pay attention;
wht do you think your performance review is going to look like a year from
now when you have still not delivered the impossible solution? Or
shipping dates have slipped because your impossible solution is in the
critical path of product release? Or the company’s reputation when a user
reports how bad your latest release is, causing BSODs, and five hundred
others chime in with a “me, too” response, just because you did not test
what happens when the machine has a MumbleGraph 700Z card (the
ninth-most-used card, popular because, although it is by no means the
fastest, only costs $10.99 at Wal-Mart) installed? Whose job, and whose
product reputation, is on the line here? I can tell you, none of ours.
We aren’t telling you any of this to cover our own asses.
So if your task is just to create a screenshot, go ahead. But don’t be
surprised if this ultimately fails to accomplish the task (“vunce rockets
are up, who cares where they come down? That’s not my department” says
Werner von Braun–google for Tom Lehrer and von Braun; you’ll probably
find a YouTube performance). Don’t rely on tbe “I was just following
orders” defense to save your job.
Been there, done that, almost. My satisfaction was in being able to say
“I told you so”. As I handed in my resignation and walked out the door.
joe
>>Sure it will. What if the cheater has a second computer, which you can’t
>> possibly know even exists,
>>and is using it to snoop on the game’s UDP traffic? Same effective result
>> as the wallhack on your
>>website; the cheater could be displaying the coordinates/location and
>> health/weapons/readiness of all
>>the other players in real time on the second computer and there’s no way
>> you could possibly know.
>
> OMG. Have you ever played fps??? It’s all useless displayed on a separate
> monitor. There are other blanks in your story.
>
>>Sorry, don’t think you’re going to solve anything this way.
>
> My task is not to eradicate cheaters, it’s to write a driver that takes a
> screenshot.
>
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BTW, cheaters can use second video card on the same machine to display the extra items.