Steam Input vs VMProtect

Steam Input is a controller configurator built into the Steam client. It processes supported device input according to a player's settings before passing it to a game or application. Supported controllers include Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch Pro, PlayStation 3, and DirectInput gamepads. Players can create multiple per-game configurations and share them online, with settings available through the Steam desktop client or Big Picture mode. For games using the Steam Input API, Native mode supplies named actions and lets games check which physical controls are assigned. For games without API support, Legacy mode maps controller input to keyboard, mouse, or gamepad input. That can cause glitches in games that expect mouse and gamepad activity to remain separate, and on-screen control glyphs may not match the assigned inputs. Developers can use the action-based API to define game actions and action sets. Steam Input is free; Steamworks is a free suite of tools for developers making games or software on Steam.

VMProtect protects software code against reverse engineering, analysis and cracking. It transforms selected code so embedded virtual machines execute it using their own instruction set, without additional libraries or modules in the protected application. Protection options include virtualization, mutation, or mutation followed by virtualization, alongside controls such as packing, virtual files, debugger and virtualization-tool detection, memory protection and debug-information stripping. VMProtect supports x86, x86_64 and ARM64 binaries and.NET assemblies, with PE, Mach-O, ELF and.NET formats across Windows, macOS, Linux and Android. Its licensing system uses RSA-based asymmetric cryptography for serial number creation and verification; online trial activation can issue time-limited serials without storing anything on the user computer. Lite, Professional and Ultimate editions are available. A free trial is offered, but there is no free plan. Personal one-time licenses include Lite at $399, paid once, Professional at $599, paid once and Ultimate at $999, paid once; updates renewals are also listed for existing licenses.