I can't remember, it's been a while since my Q3A days but was punkbuster actually incorporated into the Q3A engine or is it used as a 3rd party program (like Cheating-Death for HL) ?

It's my understanding that, if it's built into the game PB will automatically be turned on for all servers and clients. Thus the situation where you try to join a non PB server wont exist.

I wonder how this will screw up Desert Combat and EoE mods

LOL. Good headline

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22

Punkbuster has been the bane of my existance almost every time I try to play Quake 3 Arena multiplayer. I can't help but cringe when I hear that Punkbuster is being added to yet another game. Has anyone else had difficulties with it? Is the support more transparent in other game titles?

I only have Punkbuster experience via Quake 3 Arena, so I may not be getting the full picture.

There are two main frustrations I have with the software.

First of all, you have to EXIT the game in order to turn it off! If I'm playing on server A (with punkbuster enabled) and then want to switch to server B (without punkbuster), I can't just hop on... I have to completely exit the game and restart it. That's a completely unacceptable user experience.

Second of all... I have NEVER seen Punkbuster successfully update itself. Every single time they release an update, I can't play Q3A until I go off and manually update it. And it's not like I'm running some obscure configuration, here. Just a normal Q3A installation and the latest point release installed on top of it.

Do those two issues plague other titles? If so, I still don't think Punkbuster is ready for prime time... I'd rather compete with the occasional cheater than go through all the frustrations caused by the anti-cheat software.