Hi, I am using Cubase 12 and curious as to why s-gear opens like this. No other plugins I use open with this grey area around.. It is no biggie, a bit uglier, but just curious.

I used Cubase 12, Artist edition on MS Windows 11. Mine doesn't look like that.

I'm on mac m1 in Rosetta... Perhaps that's why?
Although I've noticed that other plugins do that as well.... Strange previous plugins didn't.

May be the grey area is the space needed to expand the view over 100%?

I understand that is a known issue in Cubase 12. Hopefully it will be addressed in the next Cubase update.

Yup, not just S-Gear, many others do this. Has been flagged by Steinberg as a known issue for the next update.