Lord of the Rings Online Forum

After upgrading to Big Sur, my Catalina LOTRO installation obtained by following the Catalina thread (https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/crossover/forum/lord-of-the-rings-online?msg=223225) started abruptly quitting after the launcher exits and before any game screen.

It was easily fixed by 2 things: 1) using EasyRes to change the resolution back to 1152x720 (on a 2020 MacBook Air...your particular resolution may vary), and 2) deleting the UserPreferences.ini file (in Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online). After a successful 'first' game launch I was able to go back to native resolution and relaunch the game without issue.

Hopefully these steps will work for anyone else experiencing similar behaviour.

Mark

This issue has been forwarded to the Official CodeWeavers Ticket System. If you have observed this issue and would like to report it as well, please open a support ticket or send an email to info@codeweavers.com with a description of what you are seeing and a link to this post.

Thank you!
The CodeWeavers Team

Thanks for the tips. I'll forward this issue to support so potentially it can be filed as a bug to be fixed in a future release.

I have been playing LOTRO for a few months using SSG’s own Mac client (actually it’s their Windows client which they package with WINE). I keep an APFS volume to boot Mojave so that I can use 32-bit apps when needed and the LOTRO client works very nicely there as well.

Yesterday I decided to try Crossover to run LOTRO while booted into Big Sur. Downloading and running the trial of Crossover was easy, using it to install the Windows version of the LOTRO client was time-consuming thanks to the 40gb download but proceeded without incident and the game runs very well.

When I began the LOTRO client install, Crossover claimed that it would install but not run. It definitely does run, I played for about an hour today and it was at least as smooth as it is when using the WINE client under Mojave and I did not experience any crashes. Only thing I wish I could change is the location of that 40gb of data, it is sitting in my ~/Library/Application Support folder and I’d prefer to have it somewhere other than my user Library folder, in Applications perhaps.

I’m definitely considering a Crossover license purchase because it is more convenient than having to reboot to Mojave to play this game then reboot back to Big Sur to get back to work, plus I’m sure there are other Windows applications I might find enjoyable or useful. If LOTRO continues to work well and without issues over the next few days I’m pretty sure I will purchase a Crossover license.

Very pleased so I bought a license.

Here are a couple of things I've noticed with Crossover 20, Big Sur, and LOTRO:
1- I can't get the lotroclient64.exe to run. If I set the client type in LOTRO's UserPreferences.ini file to...
GameClientType=3
...the game's launcher app runs, then asks me to choose the executable, and if I choose lotroclient64.exe then the game client fails to run. If I set the GameClientType to 1 then it launches lotroclient.exe (at least, I think that's what it does...) which runs perfectly fine but I don't see why the 64-bit client won't work. I'm not sure but I think that setting GameClientType to 2 launches lotroclient_awesomium.exe which I think is another 32-bit client designed for older Windows flavors.

2- If I set the game to use DirectX 10 everything works fine and the game then allows some extra eye-candy graphics options to be enabled. However, if the game was run using DirectX 10 then when the game is quit and one tries to quit Crossover, Crossover complains that it can't quit LOTRO and offers to force-quit it for me at the risk of losing unsaved data. It seems that it's just the compatibility layer that refuses to quit properly, the game isn't running so there's no risk of losing unsaved data, but it does require a few extra clicks and a few seconds of extra time to pack away Crossover if the game was run with DirectX 10. With DirectX 9 that doesn't happen, Crossover closes itself nicely, and except for those couple of eye-candy graphics options that become unavailable I see no difference in appearance or performance in the game between using DirectX 9 and DirectX 10.

3- I'm pretty sure the reason some people have trouble running LOTRO with Crossover (and SSG's own Mac/WINE client which will only run on Mojave or earlier) is related primarily to issues with graphics settings and possibly what I described in (1) above. On first run the game is extremely persnickety about whether or not it's in windowed mode or full screen mode and what resolution has been set. After the game is run successfully one time the user can go into the game's own options panel and set whatever they want and it will work, but of course if the game is failing to run because the default graphics settings are causing it to fail you can't actually get to the options panel to make changes. Therefore, if the first run of the game fails, quit out of the game (force-quit if you have to), quit out of Crossover, then open the UserPreferences.ini file to make changes there directly. The UserPreferences.ini file is located here:
~/Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online/UserPreferences.ini
Open it up with TextEdit. It will be pretty spare if you've just tried to run the game for the first time and it failed. There are several lines that need to be added or edited, look to see if they exist and if they do, just change the values; if they don't exist, create each line needed:
AllowDesktopCompositing=True
AllowFakeFullScreen=True
AllowWindowResizing=True
ConfineFullScreenMouseCursor=True
FixedOutputScaling=Default
ForceFakeFullScreen=False
FullScreen=False
RefreshRate=Auto
Resolution=2048x1152
ScreenMode=FullScreenWindowed
SyncToRefresh=False
WindowedResolution=1680x944
Couple of notes: First, Resolution should be set to whatever your monitor's actual resolution might be, mine is 2048x1152. Second, WindowedResolution just has to be a value smaller than whatever you set in Resolution, 1280x720 should be a good first choice for almost any Mac (you can increase it later if you want to).
edit: Based on some further playing/testing I have changed the suggested ScreenMode setting from FullScreen to FullScreenWindowed.

I moved my ~/The Lord of the Rings Online folder out of ~/Documents to test what would happen if someone were to install and run the game for the first time in order to determine how to work around the problems I've seen reported by others trying Crossover 20 with Big Sur and LOTRO. What I describe above in (3) works to fix it and allow the game to run. I didn't have to do this myself when I performed the initial install because I moved my ~/The Lord of the Rings Online folder into my ~/Documents folder from an earlier install that I had running on a Mojave boot volume using SSG's own Mac/WINE client.

4- I really don't like putting gigabytes of data or full applications into ~/Library/Application Support or anywhere within ~/Library. That should be reserved for preferences and settings and caches and similar things that don't take up gobs of space. So I followed the instructions here...
https://www.codeweavers.com/support/wiki/mac/faq/cxofficemacbottlelocation
...to change the location Crossover looks for bottles to ~/Applications (note that's ~/Applications, the one in my /Users/MYUSERNAMEISNONEOFYOURBUSNESS folder, not /Applications). It can be put anywhere, of course; that's just where I prefer to put things like this that I don't want on the protected startup volume nor buried inside the ~/Library. So my bottles are now here:
~/Applications/CrossOver Bottles/Bottles
This makes it easier to put the Bottles folder on the Time Machine blacklist or otherwise manage it in a handy way while keeping the ~/Library folder fairly lean.

It would be very nice if the Crossover application had a simple preference item to allow the user to set the Bottles folder location on first run or to move it later. Not everyone is comfortable using the Terminal, a simple fatfinger typo can ruin everything.

5- The checkboxes in the LOTRO launcher app for various options don't work. They don't work for Macs using the Mac/WINE client under Mojave or earlier and they don't work for Macs using the regular Windows client with Crossover under Big Sur (or Catalina). You can click on a checkbox and it looks like a check appears for a fraction of a second but then the checkbox appears empty again. It seems that if you click a checkbox ONCE that the option will be saved even though the checkbox appears empty but I am not sure that is true for every option; I know it works for "Stay Logged In For 8 Hours" but I'm not sure about any of the other options. Fortunately, anything you can change with a checkbox in the LOTRO launcher app you can adjust in the UserPreferences.ini file using a text editor, but everyone isn't comfortable doing this. I don't know if this is something that the LOTRO engineers at SSG need to fix or if it's something Codeweavers and the WINE monkeys need to work on; I do know that actual Windows boxes running LOTRO do not have this problem.

Final note: All of the pinned threads here are very out of date. There is no longer an actual Mac client application for LOTRO, Turbine Games no longer has anything to do with the game – it's Standing Stone Games/SSG now, and both Crossover and the Windows client for LOTRO have changed so much in the last couple of years that I'm not sure any of the information in those pinned threads is applicable anymore.

There might be a good reason to run in Full Screen (Windowed) mode rather than in Full Screen mode so I've changed the suggested [Display] settings in (2) above:
a- If your Mac decides there's a Very Important Notification it is going to minimize your game if it's in Full Screen mode. (Normal notifications do not cause this to happen.) That has happened to me with incoming phone calls. No big deal, right? Well, if you click on wine32on64-preloader in your Dock, which is where the LOTRO client is running, the full screen game will flow back onto your screen but the game will be completely frozen – you will be able to move your mouse cursor around but the game will accept no input. Each time this happened I had to quit Crossover which of course quits the LOTRO client app and the LOTRO launcher when it closes. So just this morning (2020-11-20) I put the game into Full Screen (Windowed) mode instead and now when calls come in I can go back to the game without a problem.
b- Naturally, you might not have your Mac set up to take incoming phone calls or you can choose to suspend the acceptance of incoming calls on your Mac while you play. But switching to another Desktop Space has the same effect which means I have to command-return to non-full-screen Windowed mode before going to another Desktop Space to avoid the freeze glitch upon returning to the game anyway. Running in Full Screen (Windowed) does not cause the game output to be minimized to the Dock when a Very Important Notification comes in or when switching to another Desktop Space so that's probably the way to go for most people. If you don't use multiple Desktop Spaces you can still get to a smaller window by either going into the in-game options or by hitting command-return.
c- Note that if you use command-return to go from Full Screen (Windowed) mode to Windowed mode and then hit command-return again, it will take you to Full Screen mode. To get back to Full Screen (Windowed) mode after being in Windowed mode, you need to go into the in-game options and set Full Screen (Windowed) mode that way.

Here are my current suggested [Display] settings for the UserPreferences.ini file. Remember that the Resolution and Windowed Resolution settings depend on your monitor's actual available resolutions, and Antialiasing and TripleBuffering settings depend on your Mac's horsepower and your personal preferences for eye candy vs performance:
[Display]
AllowDesktopCompositing=True
AllowFakeFullScreen=True
AllowWindowResizing=True
Antialiasing=2x
ConfineFullScreenMouseCursor=T rue
FixedOutputScaling=Default
ForceFakeFullScreen=False
FullScreen=False
RefreshRate=Auto
Resolution=2048x1152
ScreenMode=FullScreenWindowed
SyncToRefresh=False
TripleBuffering=False
WindowedResolution=1680x944

Still running fine, I played a bit both yesterday and today (Saturday and Sunday 2020-11-21/22) and had no significant issues.

One odd thing is that the version of the Windows client which SSG supplies with a WINE wrapper for Macintosh users (and which will only run on Mojave or earlier versions of MacOS because WINE has some 32-bit components) runs the 64-bit version of the game client, lotroclient64.exe, by default and with no significant issues. However, under Crossover, as I described in a message above, I can't get the 64-bit client to run, I have to use the 32-bit client lotroclient.exe. I think it's related to the fact that Crossover insists on running the game client in wine32on64-preloader rather than some 64-only preloader (assuming one even exists, I am just talk-splatting past my actual expertise here). I can set the game's preference file to have the LOTRO launcher app launch lotroclient64.exe but as I described above, it just doesn't work.

Not that big of a deal although it's my understanding that the 64-bit client is better if one can use it at all, and it SHOULD work since it works with plain-vanilla/free WINE under Mojave. So it should work with Crossover under Big Sur.

I discovered the reason I couldn't get the 64-bit LOTRO client to run: When I installed LOTRO into Crossover I allowed Crossover to create its bottle and do the installation without making any changes to its default settings. Apparently, when creating a new bottle one of the defaults is that the bottle type created is Windows 10. That's 32-bit Windows 10. Naturally, in order for a 64-bit Windows application to run, the bottle type must be Windows 10 64-bit. I created a new Windows 10 64-bit bottle and can run the 64-bit LOTRO client using the new 64-bit bottle's "Run" command pointed at the LotroLauncher.exe application, so even though the game is installed into the 32-bit bottle it runs within the 64-bit bottle.

Is there any way to change a bottle from Windows 10 to Windows 10 64-bit? It's not that big of a deal but it would be nice to not have to use 2 bottles to run one game.

Moral of the story is, if you are installing LOTRO into Crossover, be absolutely sure the bottle type is Windows 10 64-bit and not just Windows 10. If you do screw up as I did, you can either run the 32-bit executable (which runs fine, not sure there are any significant functional differences between the two) or use the workaround I am currently using which involves leaving LOTRO where it is in the 32-bit bottle but running it from a second bottle set up as 64-bit.

I added the option to use a 64-bit win10 bottle to the CrossTie. Now, you should be able to select that option when you first install into a bottle. You may still need to watch out to make sure CrossOver selects the right one, but it will show up (as of tomorrow when the CrossTie files update).

Thanks,
Anna

That’s great.

Do you think the rating for this game should be changed? It’s currently at 2 stars and listed as “installs, won’t run”.

Is there a way to convert an existing Windows 10 bottle to a Windows 10 64-bit bottle?

I've been having trouble with LOTRO locking up a lot and I have to term the app and start over. It seems to happen when I have the graphics settings up higher. I only run in windowed mode. The lower the graphics settings are the longer it will run without hanging. I just deleted the bottle and created a new Windows 10 64 bit bottle and am now installing a new copy of the game in it. I also made sure to delete all UserPreferences.ini files and other data files as well. I'm well aware of the full screen launch issues on the first run so I use EasyRes to switch down to a very common resolution like 1024x768. Then I run the game, switch to windowed mode, then return to my regular screen res.

Any ideas why the game would lock up like that on me? If you run with highest graphics settings how long does it run for you?

Allistah- I played for a few hours this past evening and had no issues. My Mac is a 2019 iMac (21.5") with a 3.6GHz i3, Radeon Pro 555X w/2gb, 32gb of RAM, 2tb SSD. The game is extremely stable for me with Big Sur 11.0.1 and Crossover 20.0.2. I have all the graphics settings maxed out (except for Antialiasing which I keep at 2x and Anisotropic Filtering which I keep at 4). I do use the in-game options "Troubleshooting" section to cap my framerate at 30fps, probably don't need to but I don't see any difference between 30 and 120 so I see no need to stress my system. I boot into Mojave sometimes because I have a number of old 32-bit Mac applications and keep an installation of SSG's WINE-packaged distribution of LOTRO in that volume, it also works extremely well and the only significant difference is that the WINE version can't use DirectX 10 – which is just as well because while it has some extra eye-candy options I find that DirectX 10 causes some very severe graphical glitches in certain locations in the game whereas DirectX 9 has its issues too but they are far less severe and immersion-breaking.

If you are experiencing some instability it's possible you are running the 32-bit client. If you examine your UserPreferences.ini file which you will find in ~/Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online you will see a line that looks like this...
GameClientType=X
...where X is the numeral 1, 2, or 3. 1 is the regular 32-bit client, lotroclient.exe. 2 is a 32-bit client designed for older versions of Windows, lotroclient_awesomium.exe. 3 is the 64-bit client, lotroclient64.exe. If X is anything but 3, change it to 3.

I also recommend that you look for the line...
ScreenMode=Y
...where Y is FullScreen, FullScreenWindowed, or Windowed. Don't run in FullScreen, that's what causes most people to report the client failing to fully launch past a black screen. I run in FullScreenWindowed. Windowed is fine but I'm not sure why you'd want to run in a window that's smaller than your full screen resolution. If you want to use another application while the game client is running, set up another Desktop Space and switch to that, then back to the Desktop Space which is running the FullScreenWindowed LOTRO client.

I also suggest setting Resolution=Z so that Z is equal to the actual resolution of your monitor and WindowedResolution=Z- so that Z- is any value smaller than Z.

You report that the higher your graphic settings, the sooner you have problems. It is possible that your Mac is getting too hot while you play. If your Mac has vents (all do except for the newest M1 MacBook Air) you might clean them, if your Mac is one that is at least semi-serviceable you could open it up and blow it out as well as you can so that air will flow through it better. You might also consider capping your framerate as I do using the in-game options panel's "Troubleshooting" section, that can help to keep both your CPU and video card running cooler. I'm curious how much RAM you have in your Mac as that can make a big difference, sloppy applications such as LOTRO like a lot of elbow room.

Ah its not the temp of the Mac at all. One are in particular that is causing problems is Minas Tirith. When you swift travel in and out of there, there are a number of people that complain about crashes, even outside of Crossover. I read somewhere that MT is so large that it has memory problems due to the limitations of a 32 bit program and the result is these lockups/crashes. I am installing it again right now on a Win10-64bit bottle and I will set it to 3 as you had suggested. I tried that last night but it didn't run for some reason. I made sure I was installing it on a Win10-64 bit bottle as well so not sure why it didn't want to run. Maybe I'll try your display settings and see where that gets me. When you are running the 64 bit client, are you able to run it in windowed mode where you can freely resize the window and such? Thats how I use it but not sure if that is what you do. Would you be able to try it for me at all? You don't have to play at all, just see if you can get into the game - I couldn't. It's about 60% complete through downloading the game now so I'll give it a try again here in a bit and report back. Thanks for the reply!

Ok, I set it to the 64 bit client with the setting of 3. It failed again with just a rectangle in the upper left side of the screen. Thought it could be another video problem - even though I had it set to windowed mode. I used EasyRes to set my desktop mode to 1024x768 - one of the most common desktop resolutions for many years. Tried to start it up again and boom - got video! Hit Alt-Enter and went into windowed mode and it worked. Now when I quit/restart with client set to 3 for the 64 bit client, it works perfectly. I did some quick tests to see if it would crash - swift traveling into Minas Tirith and worked without a problem. Pretty sure this was a limit of the 32 bit client because I think that Windows 32 bit can't use 4gb of memory, it can only use I think 3.2 or 3.5 GB for a program or something. Right now as I sit in Minas Tirith in this game, wine64-preloader is using 3.12 GB of memory but it's running perfectly. That would have tapped out the 32 bit client's memory space. No wonder it was crashing all of the place.

I just learned why it failed when I switched to 64 bit mode even though I had it set to Windowed mode. It uses a different UserPreferences.ini file! I now have UserPreferences.ini and UserPreferences64.ini. Ah ha, now I know why I had to go down to 1024x768 to get the game to launch again.

So for others running this game in Crossover - this is what is important.

• Install it into a Windows 10 64 Bit Bottle - change the settings so it does not install any extras - only install the game. The game installs what it needs.
• Run the game and let it patch all the way until it is asking you to log in and then quit the game.
• Download the program called EasyRes. Change your screen resolution to 1024x768.
• Launch the game once and then quit so that it creates all the settings in the UserPreferences.ini file. Exit the game.
• In the UserPreferences.ini file, change GameClientType=3. This is what tells the launcher to load up the 64 bit client.
• Still while you're in 1024x768, launch the game up again. It should be in 64 bit mode now. It will launch in Full Screen Mode.
• Once you're in the game, press Alt-Enter to switch to Windowed mode.
• Set your screen resolution back to your regular one for your Mac.
• Exit the game. Now when you load the game up next time, you will be using the 64 bit client and you will be in windowed mode. Resize the window to however big you like it. It will be awesome and the crashes due to memory limitations seem to now be gone.

For the Crossover people, if Crossover just changed down to a screen resolution that was common like 1024x768, then the game would launch for everyone out of the gate. This has been the biggest problem in getting this game to run. Everyone should indeed make the above changes as well to run it in a 64 bit bottle and to run the 64 bit client so it won't crash.

Just did another run to Bree in the game and then back to Minas Tirith. Memory usage jumped up to 3.65 GB. But now it's actually fast and just works. I have graphics settings high "Very High" as well which is fantastic! 😊. CPU usage is only around 35% when I play as well which is awesome. Thanks to everyone that posted here about the 64 bit client. That was indeed the second golden ticket to get this game to run great! (The first was changing to the low screen resolution to get the game to run in the first place). Would love to hear any comments anyone else may have.

When you are running the 64 bit client, are you able to run it in
windowed mode where you can freely resize the window and such?

Yes, I can do that. I tested it just before writing this to be 100% sure. I prefer to play in FullScreenWindowed, however. I don't see the point of playing in Windowed mode. I suggest you try putting Crossover and LOTRO into a dedicated Desktop Space, then you can control-leftarrow/control-rightarrow to another Desktop Space to use some other app or glance at your Mac's menu bar or whatever. You probably know how to do this but for others who might not:
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/work-in-multiple-spaces-mh14112/mac

I just learned why it failed when I switched to 64 bit mode even
though I had it set to Windowed mode. It uses a different
UserPreferences.ini file! I now have UserPreferences.ini and
UserPreferences64.ini.

Yes, and sorry, I should have mentioned that. Be aware that UserPreferences.ini has all the LOTRO launcher app and some other preferences and such will always be saved there even when using the 64-bit client which will keep all its graphics and a few other preferences in UserPreferences64.ini. SSG really ought to keep everything in one prefs file regardless of the client being used; but they don't.

Download the program called EasyRes. Change your screen resolution
to 1024x768.

You don't need to use EasyRes. Go to System Preferences->Displays and click on SCALED while holding the option key. Scroll down the list and choose the smallest rez shown. When needed for such things I use 1280x720 because it's the smallest 16:9 resolution my Mac's monitor has available although there is a smaller non-16:9 resolution. Which is why I also suggest getting the Resolution and WindowedResolution settings edited into the prefs files.

You might want to edit your instructions to include:
a- When asked if you want to download the high-resolution graphics, say YES.
b- When asked if you want to use DirectX 10, say NO.

There is no good reason to turn down the high-rez graphics, even a very old Mac can handle them fine and they do look a lot better. (Remember the age of this game.) Given how large a download the game as a whole is, the extra couple of gigabytes for the high-rez graphics is not that big of a deal.

As for DirectX 10, it's much more likely you'll get to a successful first run of the LOTRO client if you use DirectX 9. DirectX 10 can be set later if you want it. DirectX 10 does provide a bit more eye candy options but has really significant, immersion-breaking glitches in some zones such as Rivendell and Evendim and The Shire. DirectX 9 has its own issues, mainly with nearby shadows and drawing distant UI elements such as target circles, but they aren't a big deal once you get used to them and are nowhere near as annoying as the issues with DirectX 10. In fact, if you play using the "Mac"/WINE client provided by SSG which runs only under Mojave or earlier, you can't even select DirectX 10 using the in-game options; DirectX 10 is greyed out.

And finally, if you have a properly set up UserPreferences.ini and UserPreferences64.ini file at the ready, from a prior successful installation for example, you can avoid a lot of the hoop-jumping required to get the game to successfully run for the first time. Without instructions otherwise, the game's default output is FullScreen and it doesn't know how to deal with Apple's retina-style resolutions on its own when it's attempting to match your monitor's output with autodetect.

For the Crossover people...

Nothing Codeweavers can do about this. They can't change your monitor's resolution for you. This is something SSG will have to work out – all they'd have to do is set the game client to default to Windowed mode or FullScreenWindowed mode rather than FullScreen mode and the problem would be solved.

Great info on not having to use EasyRes. Didn't know that so thanks! Also thanks for the reminder about the HighRes graphics, I installed over the top of my current install and it prompted me to install them. Wow, big difference in visuals when you have it set all the way up to Very High. Pretty cool. I get 10 fps in places but it still looks amazing. I'll see how actual gameplay is and drop it if I need to. I played yesterday and kept an eye on the memory usage. It went well above 4gb and ran perfectly. That would have crashed the 32 bit client for sure as it can't even do 3.5gb so I'm super stoked about this. Thanks for all the tips!

So just for fun I thought I'd try running LOTRO using DirectX 11.

If you have time on your hands and read my entire thread about Crossover and Big Sur here...
[url]https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?684532-Success-with-Crossover-20-and-MacOS-Big-Sur-11-0-1[/url]
...then you know that LOTRO runs great with Crossover and Big Sur.

Once the game is installed and you've gotten it to run successfully at least one time, you can enable DirectX 10 if you want to. If your choice is between DirectX 9 and DirectX 10, I suggest you stick with DirectX 9. DirectX 9 has a few minor graphics glitches mostly related to drawing distant target circles, nearby AoE squares (such as a Lore Master's tar patches), and some shadows and lighting effects get cut off in odd ways when moving through some areas. It's not a big deal in any way, you get used to it and none of it breaks immersion. DirectX 10 doesn't have those issues but it has really major ugly glitches in certain areas that cause landscape objects to flicker between their normal appearance and bright white (in Rivendell and the Shire and, to a lesser extent, Evendim based on my testing so far), and it doesn't handle water very well causing some river beds such as in Evendim to appear less full of water than they should or completely empty depending on the position and angle at which they are being observed plus things like the mist at the Rivendell waterfalls at the bridges just aren't handled well at all. DirectX 10 is a better choice when not in one of the areas where those glitches happen, but you can't switch between DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 without quitting and restarting the game so it's really better to just stick with DirectX 9. Things look beautiful with DirectX 9, I have no major complaints with it.

Even so, I thought I'd try DirectX 11. LOTRO has it available, it's just a matter of getting Crossover set up so that LOTRO will detect that DirectX 11 is an available graphics mode for it to use. And getting Crossover set up for DirectX 11 is trivial.

1- Launch Crossover.
2- In the list of "bottles" in the Crossover window, look for the bottle into which you have installed LOTRO. Right-click on that bottle name.
3- Look for SETTINGS, hover over that, then look for DXVK BACKEND FOR D3D11 and choose that.
3a- If you don't have an option to enable DXVK BACKEND FOR D3D11 then you need to install "DirectX for Modern Games" into your bottle first. Also note that your bottle must be a 64-bit bottle in order to use DirectX 11; you should have set it up that way anyway since you can't run the 64-bit LOTRO client unless the bottle is 64-bit.

That's all there is to it. On next launch of the LOTRO launcher app it will detect that DirectX 11 is available and will ask if you want to use it instead of whatever you were using (DirectX 9 most likely, but possibly DirectX 10). Just say YES and when you get into the LOTRO client you will be using DirectX 11. Note that DirectX 11 requires more "horsepower" than DirectX 9 or DirectX 10 so your framerates might be lower – they were not for me, I have mine capped at 30fps anyway. You can then go into the advanced graphics options and turn on even more eye candy.

The best part about DirectX 11 is that it doesn't have any of the glitches I've noted with either DirectX 9 or DirectX 10: No issues with distant target circles or nearby shadowy things such as Lore Master tar patches, no issues with tree flickering or disappearing river water, no issues with mist at waterfalls... no problems at all so far everywhere I've tested. And things look really nice. Things look really nice with DirectX 9, too, but they are a just that tetch better with DirectX 11.

Remember that the "Mac"/WINE client provided for us Mac users by SSG which runs only in versions of MacOS which are Mojave or earlier will run only DirectX 9. And that's fine, DirectX 9 works great and the minor graphic glitches are not a big deal and you might not even notice them much. But if you're running the normal Windows client installed into Crossover, do try DirectX 11 because it has none of the problems of DirectX 9 or DirectX 10 and looks amazing at the cost of only a little bit of framerate.

Thank you for all the effort you went through.

I now have a M1 MacBook Air that uses Rosetta 2 for Intel translation. Weird thing is, though, that it works really crappy especially for older games, whereas newer games run much better (when using CrossOver, of course). So LotRO is a stuttery mess for me, no matter what resolution or graphics settings I use.

Any ideas on that? Thanks a lot again.

Andreas Weik wrote:

I now have a M1 MacBook Air that uses Rosetta 2 for Intel
translation. Weird thing is, though, that it works really crappy
especially for older games, whereas newer games run much better
(when using CrossOver, of course). So LotRO is a stuttery mess for
me, no matter what resolution or graphics settings I use.

Hi, Andreas!

I know of a number of other folks running LOTRO on M1 Macs using Crossover. One of them complained about slow performance but only in busy areas such as raids or Minas Tirith. It sounds like your game is unplayable so you seem to be having a worse issue than that person.

My first thought is to ask how much RAM you have in your M1 Mac. If it's only 8gb that might be your issue right there. The M1 Mac uses memory much more efficiently than an Intel Mac but remember that your 8gb of RAM has to run your OS, whatever you might have running in the background, and then not only the LOTRO application but some of that RAM is going to be treated as VRAM. Older games with lots of iterative changes like LOTRO often have sloppy programming that uses/demands a lot of memory and once the OS, background stuff, and the "VRAM" is allocated there isn't much of that 8gb left for the LOTRO application to operate.

My second thought is to be sure you are running the 64-bit client. I know people playing the game with actual Windows boxes, with Macs running the WINE client, and with Macs running the Windows client via Crossover who see a huge improvement with the 64-bit client. That is because the 64-bit client can address a larger amount of memory (of course, your computer needs to have that larger amount of memory installed to address it...). Go to the file ~/Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online/UserPreferences.ini and look for the line...
GameClientType=X
...where X will be a numeral: 1, 2, or 3. If it's 3, that's the 64-bit client. If it's 3, leave it alone. If it's 1 or 2, change that value to 3. Note that you must have LOTRO installed into Crossover in a Windows 10 64-bit bottle to use the 64-bit LOTRO client. A Windows 10 bottle (without the 64-bit qualifier) will not do.

John M. Hammer wrote:

Do you think the rating for this game should be changed? It’s
currently at 2 stars and listed as “installs, won’t run”.

The rating shown is based on what users have reported. Submit the rating you think it should have, and if enough other people agree, the displayed rating will update at some point.

Joshua Root wrote:

John M. Hammer wrote:

Do you think the rating for this game should be
changed? It’s currently at 2 stars and listed as “installs,
won’t run”.

The rating shown is based on what users have reported. Submit the
rating you think it should have, and if enough other people agree,
the displayed rating will update at some point.

Sure. The point of that comment (which was in reply to a Codeweavers person) was that most of the ratings are based on versions of LOTRO that are so old they don't have any bearing on the ability to install or the performance of the current version. And the "installs, won't run" comment is just plain wrong.

The way the ratings work is that the main page shows the average rating for the most recent CrossOver version. Since there is only one rating on CrossOver 20.0.4 on Mac and it is 2 stars, that is what you see. If you put in a new rating on 20.0.4, it will bump the rating up significantly.

Oh whoops. I see someone from CodeWeavers staff has also given it a 2 star rating, so it won't bump quite that easily (although I would still recommend submitting a new rating :). I'll take a look.

Anna Lasky wrote:

The way the ratings work is that the main page shows the average
rating for the most recent CrossOver version. Since there is only
one rating on CrossOver 20.0.4 on Mac and it is 2 stars, that is
what you see. If you put in a new rating on 20.0.4, it will bump
the rating up significantly.

I did not know that, thank you.

Is it possible to get the OVERVIEW tab information updated? For example, Turbine is no longer involved with this game, it was taken over by Standing Stone Games some years ago.

Is it possible to submit an article for the TIPS section? There is a bit of a trick involving resolution and screen mode settings, or editing the game's .ini files, to work around the game's inability to properly detect and work with the "retina" resolutions of modern Macs when it is first run after installation. I detail this in my messages in this thread above and could produce a more concise step-by-step process for a TIPS article.