Is GShade allowed?

[juicybug]

it's basically no, however as long as it doesn't infringe on other players experience or give you an outright advantage.

Don't go around saying that you use Gshader while also streaming your Gshader, and you'll be fine.

[Packetdancer]

Even the old post wasn't accurate in relation to Gshade though. It was about a specific ENB injector tool. What they say about that does not equate to a different tool or program, even if they function similarly. So realistically, you're still in the same position as you were before lol.

While it wasn't about GShade -- which I'm not sure actually existed in 2013; I'm pretty sure Marot forked ReShade after that point -- the 2013 thread was asking about shader injection in general. There is another later thread referencing that one which does confirm that would cover ENB, ReShade, GShade, etc.

(Sadly, this forum's search tool is terrible, so I can't find the second one to link it.)

None of which is super relevant, because it's been nine years since the original thread. And like... 7? ...since the one that referenced it and elaborated on it. The TOS has demonstrably changed multiple times since then, so we can't really rely on that thread being a current answer any longer.

Obviously, as someone who contributes to GShade and uses it extensively for artistic work, I would prefer that it could be taken as an authoritative and still-applicable answer. I like being able to turn the game into a pencil sketch, or an oil painting, or a flat-shaded cartoon, or slice it apart into layers to do complex operations and overlays/underlays, etc.

I just know that realistically, we cannot treat that thread as still being current/valid information, as it's very old.

And what of Nvidia Freestyle? XIV is on approved, official list of games supported. A company as big as nvidia wont just randomly add games to that list without approval, surely. SE has therefore approved XIV - they must've. But if we take what its said by random GM or parts of TOS, its not allowed despite being approved by SE??

Again, while Freestyle is very similar to ReShade/GShade from the end-user viewpoint -- and you can even add your own custom shaders to it, albeit with some effort -- under the hood it functions in an extremely different manner.

ReShade/GShade rely on injecting their code into the host program by hijacking DirectX; as a result, they do modify the actual game process. GShade doesn't run as a separate program, in other words; GShade is contained in a DLL which FFXIV is tricked into loading instead of DirectX, and from a technical standpoint all of GShade's code thus executes as though it were part of the FFXIV client code.

Freestyle does all of the shader modifications down at the Nvidia driver level; it never interacts with the FFXIV client in any way. From the game's point of view, it's basically the same as monitor color calibration -- something that affects the final graphics output between game and screen, but which happens at an operating system level and which the game has no direct interaction with. (The hotkeys to enable/disable Freestyle are not handled by the game being post-processed, either; they're handled by GeForce Experience, which is why Freestyle does not work when GeForce Experience isn't running.)

This is not something GShade et al can do. As they do not, y'know, control the Windows graphics drivers, as Nvidia does.

To put it another way: GShade et al are shader injection, because they inject the code that actually executes the shader post-processing logic into a host process. Freestyle is merely shader-based post-processing, minus the injection. And the injection is the real problem, as that's the portion which directly interacts with the FFXIV client (and modifies the program's execution once it's running).

So even if they wanted to strictly enforce the letter of the law, Freestyle would still almost certainly remain fine to use; from FFXIV's viewpoint it's basically akin to changing your Windows display settings.

(I believe the same is true of AMD Adrenaline -- that the processing happens at the driver level -- but I haven't ever played with it to confirm that.)

[Welsper59]

It is in this case not clear whether you violate the TOS or not. But if it is a violation then using Windows or Linux or MacOS would also be a technical one.

How is it not clear though when there is a blanket statement? You would factually/legally be in the wrong to think it isn't. Remember, this is legal text. Feelings and misinterpretations do not apply here lol. Harassment is harassment, assault is assault, etc. There are no degrees to violating legal text that literally makes things broad. The only people who, at their discretion, can decide to not enforce something is SE here.

If it does look like Gshade then someone could report you. Even if it was Photoshop. And if a GM comes to the same conclusion then your account could be banned.

Right, but how is that any different than it is now? Literally nothing has changed. I wasn't aware about that post before this ordeal, but even after reading it, it literally changes nothing about what people have been doing up to now. If anyone takes an objective look at the thread, they'd know this. That post was factually not about Gshade. It did not detail exactly what was approved either, other than that specific ENB injector. People are in the wrong if they think approval of one thing automatically approves another without them specifically saying it does (which they haven't).

Again, nothing has changed from back then till now. Even if people were always unaware of it till now, that doesn't change the fact they were risking things by posting. Personally, I wouldn't worry about it at all. It's the exact reason why posting admission of use of 3rd party addons here wouldn't cause you to be banned in the game. Text admission is not good enough to actually ban someone. Similarly, they can't prove it was specifically you that did anything to get the screenshot, even if you did admit to it in a post. Actions in the game are separate from actions on the forums or Reddit or Discord or whatever. Your terms of service are different using the forums than they are playing the game, which is something I think a lot of people don't realize.

This is why I firmly disagree that this affects others. People have always been operating under these same circumstances, they were just too ignorant to realize it. This applies to streamers too, it's just a matter of SE finally cracking down on it or not. Live broadcasting of admission is very different from someone simply sharing a photo. As I said, there has always been a risk, people were just falsely believing otherwise. Hence, we probably won't get a confirmation if it's okay or not. It'd be great for people, don't get me wrong, but they would obviously just be inviting more problems if they do, akin to the rise in all those complaints about PvP addons and the fallout that is happening now. Foresight of negative outcomes is not a strength of many people, including the devs.

[Welsper59]

While it wasn't about GShade -- which I'm not sure actually existed in 2013; I'm pretty sure Marot forked ReShade after that point -- the 2013 thread was asking about shader injection in general. There is another later thread referencing that one which does confirm that would cover ENB, ReShade, GShade, etc.

Was there an official response in that later thread to cover the broader application? If not, that is of absolutely no help as proof it was okay. The original thread wasn't about shader injection in general, just specifically ENB related to that post. There's a big difference between isolating one example and using that example to apply it across the board lol.

[Packetdancer]

Was there an official response in that later thread to cover the broader application? If not, that is of absolutely no help as proof it was okay. The original thread wasn't about shader injection in general, just specifically ENB related to that post. There's a big difference between isolating one example and using that example to apply it across the board lol.

There was a second thread... I want to say in 2015? ...which linked back to the 2013 thread asking if Tool X and Tool Y and so on were all okay, where a SQEX rep weighed in to note that their reassurance that graphical alterations via post-processing that didn't alter the actual game files were okay was a blanket statement and that people didn't need to ask individually about every single possible tool that let you make graphical alterations via post-processing without altering the game files.

(Unfortunately, as the forum's search tools are terrible, I cannot seem to find that thread to link it here.)

But that was ~7 years ago (or whatever), and the original thread was 9 years ago; the TOS has changed multiple times since then. And moreover, SQEX support themselves noted in a reply to someone that statements like that were very old and did not necessarily apply any longer regardless.

[Welsper59]

There was a second thread... I want to say in 2015? ...which linked back to the 2013 thread asking if Tool X and Tool Y and so on were all okay, where a SQEX rep weighed in to note that their reassurance that graphical alterations via post-processing that didn't alter the actual game files were okay was a blanket statement and that people didn't need to ask individually about every single possible tool that let you make graphical alterations via post-processing without altering the game files.

(Unfortunately, as the forum's search tools are terrible, I cannot seem to find that thread to link it here.)

But that was ~7 years ago (or whatever), and the original thread was 9 years ago; the TOS has changed multiple times since then. And moreover, SQEX support themselves noted in a reply to someone that statements like that were very old and did not necessarily apply any longer regardless.

That is interesting if truly the case. As you said though, the ToS has changed multiple times and they have established further blanket emphasis lol.

[GaiusDrakon]

There was a second thread... I want to say in 2015? ...which linked back to the 2013 thread asking if Tool X and Tool Y and so on were all okay, where a SQEX rep weighed in to note that their reassurance that graphical alterations via post-processing that didn't alter the actual game files were okay was a blanket statement and that people didn't need to ask individually about every single possible tool that let you make graphical alterations via post-processing without altering the game files.

(Unfortunately, as the forum's search tools are terrible, I cannot seem to find that thread to link it here.)

But that was ~7 years ago (or whatever), and the original thread was 9 years ago; the TOS has changed multiple times since then. And moreover, SQEX support themselves noted in a reply to someone that statements like that were very old and did not necessarily apply any longer regardless.

So what exactly IS the status of GShade? I think this is the most important question we all want to know.

[GaiusDrakon]

It's equivalent to turning the brightness or contrast up on your monitor.
Well, more equivalent to changing the colour space or LUT but I wanted an easy juxtaposition.

I am very prominently anti-add-on, I don't use it myself. But it's a stretch to consider it cheating, it's not even game specific!

Literally no one is saying it's cheating.

[Syln]

Don't talk about it, don't stream it and you'll have nothing to worry about.

[Klytania]

Literally no one is saying it's cheating.

A ton of people are lumping all add-ons together as cheating