Kernel-level anti-cheat
Also called: ring 0, driver level anti-cheat
Kernel-level anti-cheat is anti-cheat software that loads as a Windows driver and runs at ring 0, the same level the Windows kernel itself runs at. Your game sits above it in user mode. A driver down there sees more of your machine than a user mode scanner can, including hardware and firmware identifiers.
Vanguard and Ricochet both run at kernel or driver level. Both read firmware identifiers that a session spoofer does not touch. For you that means two things. Detection happens deeper in your machine. Hiding your hardware identity on those titles needs a firmware level spoofer rather than a session one.
A kernel level anti-cheat sits below your game rather than beside it. That gap is the whole point. One user mode program can hide from another user mode program fairly easily. Hiding from a driver at ring 0 is a much harder job. People also call this ring 0 anti-cheat or driver level anti-cheat. It is the same thing.
Which games use one
Arctic states kernel or driver level operation for two anti-cheats. Vanguard powers Valorant. Ricochet powers BO7 and Warzone. Other titles run other anti-cheats. Fortnite uses Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye. Rust, Arc Raiders and Apex Legends use Easy Anti-Cheat. Rainbow Six Siege uses BattlEye. If you want to know how one of those behaves at driver level, ask support rather than guessing.
Why it changes your spoofer choice
TRACE 2.0 is a session spoofer. You run it once per session, after injecting your cheat. Nothing is written to firmware, so a reboot returns your real hardware. It covers Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye titles. It does not cover Ricochet or Vanguard.
Verse is permanent and firmware level, and it works below Windows. It rewrites SMBIOS, UEFI variables, the TPM identity and the EFUSE MAC, so the identity survives every restart. It covers Vanguard and Ricochet as well as Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye. Its SMBIOS fixer picks from over 1,250 real motherboard profiles, so the spoofed board is one that actually exists rather than a random string a kernel anti-cheat can flag. ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte and ASRock boards are covered. Lenovo, Acer and Dell prebuilts are not covered at the moment. Verse sells in limited batches and is often out of stock, so use the restock alert on its product page.
Before you run either
Turn off Memory Integrity under Core Isolation and disable Windows Defender. The setup guides walk through every toggle. After a Verse spoof, reboot fully instead of using sleep or fast startup, so the game reads the new firmware values.
A spoofer does not unban the old account and does not remove the ban record. It gives a clean account a clean machine. No cheat is ban proof, so read the live board at /status before you play. Hardware is only half of it. Keep aim smoothing at 5 or higher, leave the visibility check on, and level a fresh account before you turn aim features on.
