Question About Screenshots

Alright like most ffxi players i check ffxi ah more than i should...but what i was curious about is, when checking out some of the screenshots I have noticed that there are timers for magic or JAs in a crude black box on the left middle side of the screen.

Is this an outside program to download? is this a command i dont know about?

Is this legal according to ToS? .. since it would seem odd to make a screenshot of your character with this feature and post it on the site if you are violating something.

another question would be are there an allowable or unallowable mods to ffxi that would add more than 6 lines to a macro?

I have read previous posts where some holier than thou ppl say that using any mod that gives more than six lines is cheating, i just dont understand how clicking 1 button instead of 2 is considered cheating..

They are using an application called Windower. Windower allows the use of several plugins that can display anything from Monster HP, Party TP, Alliance MP/TP to Job Ability Recast timers.

Windower is considered cheating because it gives PC users an "unfair advantage over XBox 360 and PS2 users".

Windower also allows the use of what is known as "scripting", allowing inifite line macros that don't interrupt if you hit multiple ones.

e.g:

/p Hello!
/wait 5
/p How are you?!

If you hit another macro during the "/wait 5" period, the rest of that macro would be cancelled and you wouldn't see "How are you?!", that wouldn't happen on Windower and both macros would process fully.

Windower does violate the ToS.

so are the ppl that post screenshots on this site with timers on their screenshots openly admit to violating the ToS? if so this cant be an insta-ban violation right?

It could, but SE have said in the past they can't take screenshots as proof of a violation because they are so easily edited.

With the windowing ability of FFXI now, it's still possible to press the Print Scr/Sys Rq button, alt-tab out, and paste the screenshot onto Windows Paint, right?

Affirmative.

Get yourself a copy of Fraps from somewhere, I love it and take screenies and vids with it all the time, it doesn't slow the game down, and you get a handy framerate counter in the corner of the screen, so it's easier to tell when you're lagging out lol

i didn't very well like fraps >.o its recorded vids from game would go to some format i coudlnt edit, (didnt know how) lol an took up Way to much space in that format, like 5 mins would take nearly 400 mb i think, (this may be a slight exaguration i havent used fraps in 2 years)

Really? My vids all show up in .avi

They are large, though, cause they're raw files (i.e., no compression)...but after importing and editing with windows movie maker and such and saving to your computer they are much much smaller (more like 60 to 100 megs after the fact).

I dunno, I really like it, but to each their own :)

They ain't raw files, they're encoded using the Fraps codec... You have no idea how a RAW video file weight really :/

Fraps codec is really fast and almost lossless, but still, there's an encoding process.

RAW : 1 minute of uncompressed RGB video, 640x480x24 @ 60fps = ~3.1GB.



Fraps : The same minute of video encoded with Fraps (well 1 less frame) : 1.86 GB.



And yeah to play Fraps encoded video, you need the fraps codec, which install itself automatically with fraps.

As far as I know, FRAPS doesn't violate the TOS because it has no affect on game play. Windower does.

I want FRAPS or Hypercam.. but I don't want to pay for it. I'm a cheap skate.

I asked a GM about that, he was unable to give me a clear answer and asked me to call again for a GM after the Xmas period is over... (tried contacting SE using email, still unable to answer and they asked me to /tell a GM online lol ><).

Even if Fraps doesn't affect directly the gameplay, it's still a 3rd party tool that's hook to the FF XI process. But yeah no chance of getting banned for this.

Ok so not 100% raw, but raw enough for anybody making video that won't look like crap after the fact, and that a 4 year old, single core computer can encode with minimal drop in frame rate (~5 fps) recording at half size (640x512). Plenty good enough for Youtube purposes, as well as local playback or burning to DVD and watching in Standard Def.

I'm not surprised that the GM's didn't give a straight answer...I mean, look how long it took them to allow us to have an official windower so we could browse the internet while we played. S-E's always been paranoid, I think the standard answer to any third party program is "NO" regardless. Fraps runs locally on your machine, there's no way that I can think of that a GM would even be able to tell you were running it. I don't even think it touches the FFXI process, I think it hooks into your own video card, kinda like having a webcam pointed directly at your screen while you played.

The third party windower, on the other hand, DOES hook into the games process and, with the plugin's, gives access to information that players wouldn't normally have, so that's cheating imo. I mean, people SAY they just use it to window the game, but now that there's an official window function there's no reason to use it anymore unless they ARE cheating.

I've used windowed mode.. it's ugly and laggy >.> or was 2-3 weeks after they released it anyway.

Not all people use Windower so they get an edge. I'm not sure how many people are aware of "Windower-Lite" that doesn't allow the use of Plugins/Scripting and purely windows the game using the same graphics and almost lagless.

While Windowed mode is "the same", it lacks a lot of the quality Windower provides because it doesn't window in full screen mode, or at least didn't.

Windower basically puts things in the game via plugin that the game needs, like showing the TP for your party, it had auto sorting for items before it was added, and Draw distance makes the game look so good.

If SE was to start banning people for using windower, about 60-70% would be on the ban list. I know some people that would stop playing if they couldn't use it.

It does hook to the game process like windower does, well it's even worse.

Just think about the framerate counter of windower, well its like with fraps, D3D hooking.

http://www.ring3circus.com/gameprogramming/case-study-fraps/