Fortnite adds IOMMU to PC tournament security requirements, builds on Secure Boot and TPM
Epic Games says it will expand Fortnite’s PC anti-cheat requirements to all tournaments starting February 19, 2026. Players will need three security features enabled: Secure Boot, TPM, and IOMMU.
This is a Windows security baseline move as much as it is an anti-cheat change. Secure Boot helps protect the boot process from low-level tampering, TPM is used to attest trusted system state, and IOMMU adds hardware-backed control over how devices access system memory. Epic says IOMMU helps protect game memory from access by cheat hardware.
On February 19, we’re expanding Fortnite’s Anti-Cheat system requirements for PC players to all tournaments, requiring three security features to be enabled: Secure Boot, TPM, and IOMMU.
IOMMU is a security feature that helps the operating system control how hardware devices access system memory. This technology allows us to better protect our game memory from being accessed by cheat hardware.
If your PC is Windows 11-compatible (~95% of Fortnite players on PC), you likely already meet these requirements or can enable them without new hardware. Instructions on how to determine if your PC is compatible can be found here for Secure Boot, TPM, and IOMMU.
— Epic Games
Epic frames the impact as limited for most PC players. The company says around 95% of Fortnite PC players are on Windows 11-compatible systems, and most users already meet the requirements or can enable them without buying new hardware.
What’s IOMMU? It’s short for Input Output Memory Management Unit , is a CPU and chipset feature that lets the operating system control how PCIe devices access system memory using DMA, direct memory access. When it is enabled, Windows can restrict a device to only the memory ranges it is allowed to use, which helps reduce the risk of DMA-based attacks and makes it harder for external cheat hardware or compromised devices to read or modify protected game memory. On Intel systems it is usually called VT-d, and on AMD systems it is often listed as AMD-Vi or IOMMU in UEFI settings.
Epic has required TPM and Secure Boot for some higher-level tournaments since February 27, 2025. The February 2026 update expands the scope and adds IOMMU as an explicit requirement for tournament play on PC.
The post also includes an enforcement update. Epic says it recently took legal action against a player accused of cheating and conducting DDoS attacks, and issued a lifetime ban across Epic’s games and services. Epic also lists 2025 actions, including a $175,000 judgment in one case plus lawsuits and settlements tied to cheat developers, sellers, and account theft.
Source: Epic Games
