The Random Access Memory, or RAM, of a computer plays a quintessential part in allowing the computer to execute processes and programs. Unlike its counterpart, the ROM (Read Only Memory), the RAM’s memory is actually not permanent or volatile in proper terms. Hence, once the computer is shut down, the contents of the RAM will cease to exist. Therefore, the RAM is not used to store permanent information like the OS program, Input/Output systems, and other necessary utilities. Rather, it acts as the temporary space where the CPU can execute its computations and run your programs or games. This is why most gamers care less about the storage size of ROMs and more often emphasize the RAM when discussing gaming computers.

There are also two primary types of RAM in existence today, namely the Dynamic (DRAM) and Static (SRAM) RAM, with their own specific uses. Of course, this was not the case back in the day. In fact, the RAM has evolved and gone through many different iterations that have upgraded its power and simplified its structure into the minuscule yet complex hardware we know RAM of today. So, let’s take a look at the full history of the RAM, from its initial invention to the recently released state-of-the-art DDR5.

But before that, you will need some basic understanding of the job of RAMs in the computer. For RAMs to work, it needs to be able to read and write information. In other words, we must be able to store information and give that information back to the computer. The reason why we keep getting new iterations of RAM is to speed up each of these two operations. Simple enough? With that out of the way, let’s proceed.

Drum Memory

The first resemblance of a RAM was called Drum memory, invented in 1932 by Gusta Tauschek. Technically speaking, a Drum memory does not fully function as a modern-day RAM and is much more suited to be an HDD or hard disk drive. However, in those olden times, there was no reason to separate the main working memory or secondary memory, which is why we still could consider a Drum memory to be the first generation of RAM. 

So how does this ancient technology work? A drum memory’s outside surface is coated using a ferromagnetic material, which acts as the storage that saves binary information. Think of it as a disk or but 100 times larger. There are also read-write heads are positioned above the ferromagnetic surface to input or extract information. If you want to write information into the drum memory, an electromagnetic pulse is produced and the orientation of the magnetic particle in the surface is altered to store the binary information. If we want to perform a read, we can simply scan the intricate orientation of each magnetic particle along the surface. This is as simple as it gets when dealing with a Drum memory.

However, to optimize read-write speeds, we must have a great deal of knowledge of the structure of each hardware component. Programmers, in particular, were constrained to optimum programming, where they strictly position their code in the drum to minimize instruction loading time (also known as skip factor or interleaving). Despite all of these difficulties, drum memory was the primary choice of computer memory for more than two decades since the 1950s due to its efficient memory retrieval and low costs.

Vacuum Tube Memory

As mentioned previously, Drum memory acts much closer to a disk rather than a RAM due to its non-volatile nature. Thus, the first true grandfather of the RAM is actually the Williams Tube. The Williams Tube was invented in 1949 by Freddie Williams and Tom Kilburn. It utilizes the same exact technology as first-generation bulky TVs, which is the cathode ray tube. The memory writing works by sending an electron beam, deflecting it off with positively charged coils, and striking the phosphor surface to make the grid patterns shown below.

These patterns represent the binary information that can be read by the computer. Like modern-day RAMs, the Williams Tube is non-volatile since these patterns will fade over time and the electron beams can overlap read-writes in each pattern spot. However, the Williams Tube’s major flaw lies in the electron beam deflection process, which is highly sensitive to nearby electrical fields. If there are any charge imbalances surrounding the cathode ray tubes, write operations can severely be compromised. The Vacuum Tube memory was first implemented on the Manchester Baby computer, allowing the computer to successfully run programs in June 1948.

Magnetic Core Memory

The Magnetic Core memory was considered the commercial RAM for computers in the 1950s up to the 1970s, essentially displacing the use of Drum memory for random-access purposes. The hardware is comprised of many magnetic rings (or core), which can store information due to a phenomenon called Magnetic Hysteresis. Simply put, these rings can remember information by altering the direction of the magnetization. We can change the polarization of these magnets (or input information) by conducting an electrical current to the many wires that run through the rings. As for the read operation, there is a special sensing wire to detect the charge state of each core extract the corresponding binary data.

Before the meta-defining transistors became the norm, these humongous magnetic core memory was the only solution for random access. However, you might be surprised that core memory is actually non-volatile, unlike a normal RAM. Instead, it falls into the category with which we know today as NVRAM. Core memory is able to retain information when the computer is shut-down because the magnetic rings can maintain their polarization.

Static Random Access Memory

Things took a turn after the invention of the metal-oxide-semiconductor or MOS memory in 1964. In short, MOS Memory was able to significantly outperform magnetic core memory while consuming less power and being cheaper to produce. Most importantly, however, MOS memory was able to be shrunk down into small chips that can easily be fitted inside a computer. It quickly took over the market and drove core memory out of fashion

Following the development of MOS, Robert H. Horman invented the first static random-access memory (SRAM) in 1963. A year later the MOS SRAM was invented by John Schmidt. IBM finally utilized SRAMs commercially when they released the SP95 memory chip in 1965.

It is not really easy to explain how an SRAM operates since you will require some degree of knowledge in electrical physics. In any case, the most important thing to note here is that SRAMs typically use 6 (MOSFET) transistors to store a bit of memory (either a 0 or 1). You can supply an electrical current accordingly to charge up these transistors and store the binary information, which will stay persistent when supplied with power. The term Static comes from the fact that it does not have to be recharged or refreshed periodically, opposite its counterpart DRAM. Consequently, SRAMs also consume much less power and are used to store more persistent data such as caches or registers that require brief but fast access times.

You might already realize that SRAM is not the RAM that you are probably thinking about. If you are taking a look at computer specs and see the RAM details, that is referring to DRAM. SRAMs also do not get the same amount of attention or development as DRAMs, since it plays a less significant factor in increasing computing power. Furthermore, SRAMs are much more expensive and take up a great deal of space compared to DRAMs. The history of the SRAM’s development is also expectedly boring. For instance, the latest iteration of SRAM was released by Hyundai in 1995 and still uses the same exact same MOSFET technology that was created 3 decades prior.

Dynamic Random Access Memory

We can now discuss the nitty-gritty part of the topic, DRAMs. As mentioned previously, DRAMs are what we would describe today as RAMs. It functions as the main memory for most computers and provides the required space for programs codes to run properly. This is why DRAMs are more important when talking about PC specifications, as it essentially plays a significant part in affecting a computer’s processing power.

So what distinguishes DRAMs from SRAMs? And why can’t they both switch up their jobs on a computer? The answer lies in the structure of both hardware. While SRAMs mostly use 6 transistors to store one bit of information, DRAMs are able to only use 1. Therefore, DRAMs, by their design, are much smaller have a greater storage density. Its relatively simple structure also makes DRAMs much cheaper per bit compared to SRAMs.

Instead of using 5 extra transistors, DRAMs utilize capacitors to store the information. Capacitors are similar to rechargeable batteries. If the capacitor is charged, it means that it stores a 1. If it is uncharged, it stores a 0. The main caveat of DRAM’s design is that they must be periodically refreshed (hence the dynamic name) to retain information since capacitors slowly leak their charge away. This is the reason why SRAMs are more power-efficient in the long run. However,

The idea for creating DRAMs initially came up in 1966 when Robert H. Dennard was working on the SRAM technology. Dennard realized that a capacitor can be created using the same MOS technology and use transistors it up. And thus, DRAMs were born. The new memory technology was commercialized in 1969 by Honeywell, and, at this point, DRAMs were able to store 1000 bits or 1kbit of data. Unfortunately, this iteration of the DRAM, called 1102, had many problems that didn’t appeal to the market. Intel, which previously worked with Honeywell, eventually redesigned the DRAM and created a brand new chip on their own, called 1103. This was the first DRAM chip that was truly commercially ready and available for the public.

DRAM technology was upgraded in 1973 when Mostek released its MK4096 4000-bit chip. Designed by Robert Proebsting, the new DRAM made a significant breakthrough by utilizing an effective multiplexed addressing scheme. Essentially, this new design uses single address pins to access memory rows and columns by doing it in turn. In previous DRAMs, you would have to do this with two pins and address lines. Of course, reducing the number of pins also drops significantly down manufacturing costs, especially when memory size and density grow larger.

Mostek released the second iteration of its new DRAM chip called the MK4116, this time having 16 kbit of storage. The MK4116 chip proved to be very popular in those times and managed to own 3 quarters of the worldwide DRAM market share at one point. The last commercially produced chip was made by Samsung in February of 2001 with a capacity of 4 Gbit, and that seals the deal with the DRAM era.

But, of course, the RAM story did not end in 2001. Instead, it marked a transition towards a more advanced type of RAM called synchronous dynamic random-access memory or SDRAM.

Synchronous Dynamic Random Access memory

The primary difference between SDRAM and DRAM lies in their names. Regular DRAMs operate asynchronously with respect to the computer’s system clock, while SDRAMs will always stay synchronized. As a result, read-write operations of SDRAM are far more efficient and fast compared to DRAMs. The memory structure of SDRAM is also divided into a number of memory banks that allow for concurrent accesses, which improves speed yet again.

Samsung coincidentally was also the first manufacturer of the SDRAM chip called KM48L2000, which has a measly capacity of 16 Mbit. In June 1998, Samsung began experimenting with the DDR or Double Data Rate technology. DDR essentially allows data transfers to occur twice as fast compared to normal SDRAMs since it is able to send or receive signals two times per clock cycle. 3 years later, DDR2 was created, which doubles the speed of DDR1 yet again since it performs access four times per clock cycle. At this point, however, most large RAM manufacturers out like Sony and Toshiba there haven’t jumped into the DDR hype train, putting more effort into producing embedded DRAMs or eDRAMs. 

DDR3 was eventually developed in 2003 by, you guessed it, Samsung. Again, DDR3 doubled the read-write rate to 8 accesses per cycle. Despite all the increase in speeds, its progress is still heavily held back with latency or most commonly known as CAS latency. CAS Latency pertains to the delay between the RAM in responding to data access requests and, obviously, the lower latency the better. Unfortunately, the CAS latency increases as we continue to double our data rate, which means that slower SDRAMs might have a marginally lower “true” latency (latency that we experience).

Unlike the previous iterations of DDR, DDR3 gained widespread adoption by manufacturers and by the general users as well. Starting from mid-2008, Samsung began to commercialize DDR3 chips, initially with a capacity of 8192 Mbit. The chips were a massive hit and many computer systems in that time begin opting to use the DDR technology. Consequently, Samsung continued to upgrade the capacity and clock rates of the DDR3 to combat the aforementioned problem of latency. Another relatively new player in the RAM manufacturing business also began to jump into the DDR3 fray called SK Hynix. Both the Korean tech companies create the necessary competitiveness in the market to constantly improve the DDR3 technology to the next level.

Information about DDR4 was teased at Intel Developer Forum in 2008, which was expected to be released in 2011. Hynix struck first and released a DDR4 prototype in early 2011 with a capacity of 2048. The new double data rate tech promised a lot of things, lower power consumption (1.2v compared to 1.5v) and faster data transfers just to name a few. Samsung eventually commercialized its DDR4 chip in 2013, but most people have grown accustomed to its predecessor DDR3. Thus, the DDR4 technology only gained widespread adoption later in 2015.

As for the latest iteration of the DDRAM, we have DDR5. The JEDEC standards of DDR5 were already significantly delayed by 2 years after its initial expected release in 2018. Many manufacturers have also begun laying down their plans to release their DDR5 chips, some even already have put them out on the market for purchase.

However, you should probably not get your hands on a DDR5 as of now. Indeed, like all DDRAM updates, there is always a speed or performance gain. DDR5 also further decreases the memory voltage down to 1.1v compared to the 1.2v of the DDR4. Despite all these merits, DDR5s are probably not stable or compatible with most hardware or processors out there. The price of this new RAM also speaks for itself. DDR4, despite being more than 7 years old, is probably still the most suitable RAM to use as of now.

Conclusion

The DDR5 marks end of the history of the Random Access Memory, one of the most sought-after hardware components when discussing computing speed. If we take a look back again at the progress of the RAM, we were able to shrink giant-like magnetic core structures that used to fill up a whole room into minuscule pocket-sized hardware while exponentially increasing its storage capacity and access effectivity. That right just goes to show another feat of human intelligence and the immense power it beholds.

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Cheaters or hackers are definitely a unique species that are constantly frowned upon in the gaming community. Most of the honest players never even understood why they resorts to hacks in the first place. Are they bad at the game? Are they too lazy to learn, practice, and grind? How do they find enjoyment in accomplishing feats that they didn’t work for?

Although most of us categorize cheaters into one sociopathic, evil, and ill-driven personality, not all hackers are actually the same. It is 100% true that hackers, malicious or not, will always ruin the integrity and sabotage the true gaming experience, especially when their actions affect other players. I, myself, stopped playing CS:GO due to the insane abundance of hackers in my matches despite Valve’s constant effort to stop the cheating problem. Plus, cheating is always punishable by a ban, showing its illegal nature. However, like the cheaters who use them, not all hacks are the same. Thus, in this article, we will be taking a look at the different forms and “severity” of hacks, trying to answer why people cheat in games, and how to resolve the hacking problems that are prevalent in gaming today.

Different Types of Hacks

For us to understand the whole topic of hacking, we first need to distinguish hacks into two different classes and where they are commonly used. The first type of hack is called soft hacks. Soft hacks do not interfere with other players’ experience despite altering the gameplay to your advantage. If you use hacks in a single-player game, chances are you are using soft hacks. Take Grand Theft Auto, excluding its multiplayer elements, as an example. Money hacks, car hacks, infinite HP, and other cheats are always used in that game. People never complained about the abundance of GTA hacks and even deemed them necessary as part of the gameplay since it only affects one player: you yourself.

Of course, soft hacks can also be present in multiplayer games. Skin mods are incredibly popular in many mod-able games like Counter-Strike back in the day, but they can be highly punishable by the devs who want to rack up money from the legitimate skins. There are also money, level, and HP hacks in RPG games, which is definitely a multiplayer genre. However, they are rarely utilized in PvP and more in the PvE scenarios when players are trying to grind for loots or resources.

On the flip side, we have hardcore hacks, the hacks that truly matter in this discussion. These are everybody’s favorite, run of the mill type of hack. Hardcore hacks are infamous for frustrating the hell out of players and destroying their gaming experience. In the FPS genre, we have aimbots, which allows you to lock on the people’s heads automatically, and wallhacks, which allows you to see through walls and obtain free information on the enemy’s whereabouts. CS:GO is also known for its incredibly annoying spinbot hack. You essentially but an aimbot hack and add rapid 360 degree turns so that you will spot enemies from all different angles. There are also other FPS hacks like speed hack, anti-aim, but they are niche and rarely used.

In the MOBA genre, there are many, extremely undetectable scripts that can allow you to automatically cast abilities or incoming spells based on game events. Some hacks allow you to zoom out and give a larger top-down FOV. You might see a common theme in the examples of these games: competitiveness. FPS and MOBA are both multiplayer games that rely on PvP elements, which is why cheats that give an unfair advantage are detrimental to the game’s experience. Nobody really cares if you use infinite HP hacks when fighting a boss in World of Warcraft. However, use that same infinite HP hacks on Dota, and you’ll piss off every single player on the server.

The psychology of using hacks

So why do people use hacks? Well, it is for a variety of reasons, and is also unique to the type of hacks used. For instance, people use soft hacks to remove unnecessary burdens or blockades in the game. Not everyone has the time and effort to grind out money and resources for a game. These grinds, more often than not, are incredibly boring, stale, and hindering the real excitement that people play games for. Cheats, as result, has the capability to provide the necessary shortcuts to more freedom and fun in the game.

Furthermore, as a person who always seeks to play on the same playing field, I do sometimes justify the use of money hacks in pay-to-win games. These games rarely emphasized the players with the best skills and more often rewards players who have access to their mom’s credit card. Free-to-play players can, in turn, lift out the paywall set up by the developers through money hacks and show their true skill-level in the game.

However, the notion of using hacks to remove built-in barricades in games doesn’t apply to cheaters who use hardcore hacks. More often than not, people fall into the world of using hardcore hacks because they simply suck at the game and do not want to slowly improve. They want to get an easy advantage without having to practice or learn properly. It is not a strange fact that everyone starts out as a noob in every game. We cannot install CS:GO for the first time and begin one-tapping everyone on the server. We can’t queue our first Dota 2 game landing every single invoker combo. It is through thousands of hours of practice, experience, and losses that we can achieve all these amazing feats that we see from pro players. Perhaps, in the minds of hackers, they are some sort of talented chosen one who never needs to practice to be a pro. However, when they can be wrecked by better players who grind at the game, they turn to hacks to fulfill their misled purpose.

The next point ties closely to the previous one, which is that hackers can’t handle losses. Everyone who plays games will always face losses. Even the best players in the world lose their games. However, what separates normal players, pros, and cheaters is how they treat their losses. Normal players might not even think that big from losses, it is just part of the game. Pros get better from losses because they think critically about how they can improve and what aspects they could’ve done better to increase their chances of winning the next game. Cheaters, on the end of the spectrum, perhaps never want to learn from their mistakes. They do not recognize losses as a stepping stone for the future but as a setback on their goal to win. To them winning = good, losing = bad, simple as that. Thus, they turn to hacks to maximize their winning percentage and make it impossible to lose. Hackers want to get instant gratification from their wins without acknowledging that it does not come from their effort.

However, I also mentioned that not all hardcore hack users might have the same ill-intent and malicious behavior we all associate them with. In the depths of the hacking community, we also have ethical cheaters who consider hacks to be their own art-from. In the CS:GO landscape, there are often hack vs. hack servers where cheaters hang out and battle each other to show off who has better or more optimized cheats. They even develop a set of strategies specialized to combat other hackers. So, instead of playing CS:GO like a normal shooting game, they play the game like a mechanic tuning their race car. These ethical hackers simply enjoy the game in a different way than most of us, and that way just happens to involve one of the most illegal aspects in gaming. But what happens if these hackers queue up in a normal match with honest players? Well, true ethical hackers will simply turn off their hacks or even use unique cheats to cancel the game. For all they know, they are wasting their time queueing with the wrong players. There is a whole video about the topics of these hackers in the following video from CS:GO YouTuber under the name of 3kliksphillip.

Solutions to hacking problems in games

Whether or not a hacker is ethical, their presence is undoubtedly not always welcomed in the eyes of honest players. Many players have, consequently, even stopped playing certain games due to the immense cheating problems. Therefore, let’s take a look at existing several approaches that game developers have implemented to combat cheaters in their games.

The first and most straightforward solution to cheating problems is using anti-cheats. An example of this is VAC or Valve Anti-Cheat, undisputedly the most popular anti-cheat software in all of gaming. However, VAC and most anti-cheat software out there are also notorious for being highly ineffective in spotting cheaters. Expert or experienced hackers can effortlessly identify obvious weaknesses in anti-cheats and can develop hacks that are specialized to bypass these blindspots. VAC’s weaknesses, for instance, are already common knowledge in CS:GO hacking community, which could explain the rampant case of cheaters in the game.

Perhaps the best anti-cheat software in today’s era is Riot Games’ Vanguard, their cheat protection software for VALORANT. Taking from my experience when playing VALORANT, I could never recall getting matched up against a hacker. Even if there are hackers, none of them are blatant enough to fully ruin the game like CS:GO spinbotters. However, Riot’s ability to achieve such impressive security in detecting potentially malicious programs stems from Vanguard accessing our operating system kernel. Essentially, Riot has the capability to extract information about all of your computer’s ongoing processes and, to a certain extent, take full control of your device. Incredibly sus, but highly effective in spotting cheating programs nonetheless.

Unfortunately, anti-cheats still suffer from one major problem: creating new accounts. Although anti-cheats can spot hackers and ban them in place, the same cheaters can easily create a new account and modify their programs in the hopes of not getting detected in the future. Simply put, there is no significant consequence or punishment that will prevent hackers from returning to the game after being banned. One method of overcoming this loophole is establishing some sort of paywall, or making the game not free. CS:GO, for instance, costs $15, which is already decent in preventing a minority of “free-to-play” hackers. But again, there still exists blatant hackers in my CS:GO matches from time to time. Creating a price tag in a game will also sacrifice some of the honest player bases who aren’t willing to pay for the game.

A more weighty punishment is an IP ban, which bans you from fully connecting and playing with the game server. Even if you make new accounts, you still wouldn’t be able to play because you still use the same exact IP address from your home network. However, IP bans are not a common practice in this day and age because most IPs today are dynamic, meaning that they change from time to time. VPNs or are also widely available today to mask and “change” your IP. From what see, anti-cheats can be useful to a certain extent, but will never thoroughly eradicate the cheating plague because no significant consequence exists to stop hackers from disregarding their bans. Thus, another solution is required, one that does not need to remove the cheaters in the first place.

We can solve the cheating problem by essentially isolating the cheaters from the honest player base. Therefore, cheaters will play against cheaters whereas the honest players can have their own fun. Hiding the problem is not always the most elegant solution, but it is definitely necessary in this case. To isolate or cluster the cheaters, we need to first identify the cheaters using the anti-cheat software. However, instead of banning the cheaters, we will simply mark their accounts and force them to queue with other marked cheaters. Developers can also provide hack vs. hack servers where cheats are allowed, but I highly doubt that any dev will ever promote this sort of idea. Nonetheless, with this approach, cheaters are allowed to thrive on their own without interfering with the honest player base. A win-win solution in the end

The last approach to solve the cheater problem is to scam the cheaters themselves. This solution is inspired by the ScriptKid. If you do not know who ScriptKid is, he basically creates “bait” cheat software that will troll anyone who runs the program. In one of his early YouTube videos, he engineered a fake PUBG hack that will secretly chuck grenades underneath the player without their knowledge, resulting in many hilarious deaths. He also makes similar fake hacks in CS:GO and even Minecraft. Of course, these bait hack software will ruin the experience of noob cheaters who don’t know how to find or create their own high-quality hacks. In turn, this solution could be effective in pushing away potential newcomers to the hacking community.

Conclusion

Hacking, whether we like it or not, will always be a part of gaming. With the continuous development of technology, hacks are also getting more evasive and sophisticated against anti-cheats. For instance, a new next-gen cheat program was released a couple of months ago that utilizes AI and computer vision input movement that will assist your aim. This program doesn’t work like any normal aimbots and is virtually impossible to detect since there is no way of distinguishing between the AI movement with human movement. I suspect that similar or even more sophisticated cheats will be created in the future.

Despite this fact, we can still keep our chin up with our newfound knowledge of cheating and hacking. We know that not all cheats or cheaters are the same, how some of them may be “legal” or “illegal”. We also have seen several solutions that might be implemented in the future to combat the ever so worsening cheating problem. So, even if you and I all hate cheaters, just keep in mind that there are several ethical hackers out there who aren’t willing to annoy and waste your time. As for the non-ethical ones, we can hope that they can be clustered together away from our playground and have their own fantasy of being a “god gamer”.

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