while I agree about updating your PB client, all the song and dance about banning people who return blank screenshots will effect people who are not cheating too. Accusing people when they are banged to rights like the above picture is one thing, but when they are innocent is another. I have worked adminning in a big ladder site and we had a lot of close support from PsB and EvenBalance (makers of PunkBuster). Now this was 2+ years ago for Call of Duty, but the core PB client coding and workings/principles are common throughout all games covered by this particular AC system.
What I mean by this is that there's a lot of things dependent on whether a player will return a 'true' PB screenshot, or a blank/black screenshot.
The main one is player's bandwidth. The server requests a screenshot to be taken, and dependent on the player's bandwidth available at that precise moment, if it's too low, a black screenshot will be produced. So don't go banning people over this
People on 1mb and below connection and below are very prone to this. However, over a period of an hour, for example if 4 screenshots are requested by the PB server during this period, the LIKELYHOOD is that 1 will come back 'clean'.
However, if you have a regular user that has a strong connection, and they are returning black screenshots all the time, you can only be suspicious. You cannot class someone as a cheater because of this, as it's a quite weak case to uphold on a server admin's part. Although it's your server, and you are free to ban or suspect who you wish.
Don't forget, there are cheat programs out there that return screenshots that are 'clean', and the cheat turns itself off for 2 seconds while the ss is taken. Then there's ones out there that continualy block the feedback of the player's PB client to the server. Then there's the ones that are not caught by PB automatically but you can nail them by inspection of PB Screenshots (like above).
All I'm saying is be careful and ensure you have sufficient proof before labelling someone or banning someone from your server, for your clan's reputation's sake.
Any threads made by anyone classing someone as a 'cheater' because of black screenshots will be removed from these forums as it's not proof enough to class someone as such tbh.
Hope this helps a little
Gaz
EDIT: Updating your client usually happens automatically, and you will very rarely notice it (unless you are an avid reader of the console
). However, there are rare occasions where you will have to update PB manually. Doing so WILL NOT affect you connecting to other servers. If anything, having an updated client means you are safer than most other players if they havent already been updated automatically to the same version of protection.
1:what htis update does
It updates your client to check for new or previousl undetected hacks and processes running on your computer while playing a PB protected game.
2:will punkbuster auto update it anyway
98% of the time, yes. Though manually doing it just means you dont have to wait until PB decides to auto-update everyone to their newest version. No reason not to if you don't have any 3rd party apps running while playing PR, is there?
3: will this affect other servers
Not at all. As long as you have the same or newer version of the PB client for your game installed it can communicate effectivley with the server. Although having an older version of the client will cause you to be kicked if joining a PB protected server that has a newer server version. It cannot communicate with your client.
) I meant the post.
: Is it possible that the PR folks could facilitate a neutral "space" for an official task force on cheating? discussion? 
ops: Ive never had any probs with Punkbuster but should I still manually update? or is it only specific players? 