setupAll guides
How to set up a DMA card
From the card in the PCIe slot of the game PC to a loader that reads the game: the cable, the drivers, the memory map, and the two mistakes that account for most "my card is not detected" posts.
What you need
- A DMA card (Squirrel, Enigma X1, CaptainDMA, 35T, 75T or any board on the same stack)
- A free PCIe slot in the game PC, and a USB-C cable to the second PC
- A second computer, which is where everything actually runs
Contents
01What the card is doing
A DMA card is an FPGA board that sits in a PCIe slot and asks the motherboard for direct memory access - the same thing a sound card or a network card does to move data without going through the CPU. It then forwards what it reads over a second link, usually USB-C, to another computer.
Nothing is installed on the game PC. The card is hardware the chipset already knows how to talk to, the game machine loads no driver for your cheat, runs no process for it and writes no file for it. Everything you install, you install on the second PC.
02Plugging it in
The card goes in a free PCIe slot of the game PC. Any slot the board exposes works: a x1 card runs fine in a x16 slot, and the lane count does not change what it can read. Shut the machine down properly before opening it, and seat the card until the retaining clip closes on its own.
The USB-C port on the card goes to the second PC. Use the cable that came with the board if there was one: a charge-only cable carries no data and is the single most common reason a brand new card never shows up.
- Game PC: the card in PCIe, nothing else.
- Second PC: the USB-C cable, the drivers and the loader.
- Aim device (MAKCU, KMBox Net, Ferrum): on the second PC too, with its own cable to the game PC.
03Drivers on the second PC
Most boards appear as an FTDI USB device. Install the FTDI D2XX drivers on the second PC, then check in Device Manager that the board is listed without a warning triangle. If Windows installed its own serial driver over it, uninstall that one and let the FTDI package take the device.
Nothing of this touches the game PC: it never knows the card is connected to anything.
04The memory map
A DMA setup reads physical memory, and physical memory has holes in it - regions the chipset reserves, which are not RAM at all. A memory map tells the reader where the real RAM is, and reading without one is both slower and, on some boards, enough to hang the machine.
The elusive loader generates it for you the first time it runs, and reuses it afterwards (it is kept as elusive_mmap.txt). You do not have to produce one by hand; if you already have one from another tool, it is simply not needed.
A memory map belongs to the machine it was made on. If you change the RAM in the game PC, let a new one be generated.
05The first run
Start the game on the game PC, then the loader on the second PC. The loader signs in to your account, fetches the build encrypted, decrypts it in memory, opens the FPGA device and attaches to the game.
If it opens the device but finds no game, the card is fine and the problem is elsewhere - usually the game was not running yet. If it cannot open the device at all, the guide on a card that is not detected works through the causes in order.
06About firmware
Boards ship with a stock firmware that identifies itself as what it is. Many people flash a different one so the device reports different identifiers on the PCIe bus. Whether you need that depends on the board you bought and on what you are reading, and it is a decision to take with the seller of the card, not from a generic guide: a bad flash leaves a board that no longer enumerates.
Our products do not require a particular firmware. They talk to the card through the usual stack, whatever it reports itself as.
07Step by step
- 01Seat the card in the game PCPower the machine down, put the DMA card in a free PCIe slot and close the retaining clip.
- 02Connect it to the second PCRun the USB-C cable from the card to the second computer. Use a data cable, not a charge-only one.
- 03Install the drivers on the second PCInstall the FTDI D2XX drivers and check the board appears in Device Manager with no warning.
- 04Let the memory map be generatedStart the loader once. It builds the physical memory map and keeps it for the next runs.
- 05Start the game, then the loaderWith the game running, the loader opens the FPGA device, attaches to the game and starts the overlay.
08Questions
Which PCIe slot should the DMA card go in?
Does the game PC need drivers?
Do I need to generate a memory map myself?
Which DMA cards work?
Do I have to flash a custom firmware?
Every elusive product runs on this setup, from one account and one loader.
See the products