Question/concern/gut wrenching fear about Local.dat

[Rex The Wolf.2460]

greetings, i am new to gw2, started playing mid december 2023 and i have a question/huge concern regarding the ingame settings and this "Local.dat" file people talk about online

lets start with why i need to know the following questions
in the elder scrolls online, players can alter their settings not only by using the ingame menu but also by using the games "UserSettings.txt" wich opens up a wide viarity of different options one cant change in game because theyre all bundled in 1 slide menu (for example, shadows, by setting shadows to high or ultra, the player automaticaly gets hq shadows alongside long distance shadows, wereas in the txt file you can set the shadow distance to ultra but set 0 instead of 1 under usehighresshadows, the low res shadows look quite alot better too AND cost much less fps)

my question being, is it allowed to alter the local.dat file? ive already found out its under %appdata% but the thought of altering it if possible scares me because i already spendt quite alot of money on the game and would like to avoid getting banned, i know players have their own opinions so if one of you know 100% for sure that its allowed alongside evidence, much apreciated, what would help the most is if a developer confirms wether or not this is allowed

my goal? to disable post processing things individualy, bloom affects my machine horrendously wereas godrays doesnt do anything but make light look more prettier by making it give of rays, i love post processing effects, i also use reshade, but whats keeping me from disabling this option is the godrays and that it automaticaly disables ambient occlusion

i play gw2 mainly for pve content and screenshotting purposes so having as much quality in balance with fps (my goal is 75) is a must, i simply cant cut corners with boxed up settings like post processing

apologies if those questions are stupid
 

Edited February 28 by Rex The Wolf.2460
needed more title tetail to express my extreme fear

[Ashantara.8731]

36 minutes ago, Rex The Wolf.2460 said:

my goal? to disable post processing things individualy, [...]

It is now only a matter of weeks until ANet will finally separate the effects packed into the Post-Processing in-game feature. You will then be able to control all the effects you listed separately, as announced here.

Furthermore, there is ReShade, a great tool to make the game look exactly as you want.

Ergo, there is no need to temper with the Local.dat. And to answer your initial question, I doubt it is permitted to alter the file.

[Rex The Wolf.2460]

2 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

It is now only a matter of weeks until ANet will finally separate the effects packed into the Post-Processing in-game feature. You will then be able to control all the effects you listed separately, as announced here.

Furthermore, there is ReShade, a great tool to make the game look exactly as you want.

Ergo, there is no need to temper with the Local.dat. And to answer your initial question, I doubt it is permitted to alter the file.

frkn amazing!! i didnt know that was going to happen!!! 😄 thanks for the info!

and ye i use reshade, tekkit to be precise, i love reshade on eso too, btw do y know of any other great reshade presets?😄

edit: forgot to mention that i hope theyll split the shadows too, shadow distance and shadow quality, that would be a litteral machine saver in my case xD

Edited February 28 by Rex The Wolf.2460
forgot a line

[Ashantara.8731]

7 hours ago, Rex The Wolf.2460 said:

btw do y know of any other great reshade presets?😄

I use my own preset configuration, so I can't give you any recommendation, sorry.

Edit: Not sure what was confusing about that statement. 😉

Edited February 28 by Ashantara.8731

[TheQuickFox.3826]

Local.dat is a binary file. You cannot easily edit settings there like in a .cfg or .ini file. If you open it in a text editor you just get gibberish (and if you save that you get a corrupted file)

However, I heard that ArenaNet is planning to release a game update that offers more granular control over postprocessing settings. So perhaps I would just wait for that to be released.