With today’s release of Windows 7 we know many of our players are considering upgrading, and are wondering about software compatibility.
Our Quality Assurance department is continuing their evaluation of the performance of The Lord of the Rings Online™ on the new Windows 7 operating system. At this time, LOTRO has proven to be compatible with Windows 7 in most cases. While our QA department is confident that any issues are minor or likely to affect a very small number of players, they have not yet reached a point where they feel Windows 7 can be officially supported.
If you are upgrading or plan to upgrade to Windows 7 our staff suggests the following:
- Use the 64 bit Version of Windows 7 if at all possible. This will help avoid issues also present in Windows Vista where processes lose more address space to the Windows driver model. The more video RAM your card has, the larger the loss to the game and the space is particularly tight with 32 bit versions of Windows (Vista and later). If you have a card with 512MB or more memory, it is highly recommended to go to 64 bit Windows to avoid memory issues.
- Windows 7 has the same issues as Windows Vista with Creative X-FI sound cards. We suggest you use software settings instead of hardware.
- With any new operating system, drivers take several revisions to catch up. Many initial issues may be the result of beta or first generation Windows 7 drivers -- particularly those involving display issues on ATI or NVIDIA video cards.
If you have upgraded to Windows 7 and are experiencing an issue, please use this thread to report it. Because we are still not in an official support state, we cannot guarantee when your problem will be addressed but having your reports will help us identify the leading issues more clearly.
We will only be taking reports from the final release version of Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate). If you’re using a beta, release candidate, or RTM version, you should first upgrade to the final commercial release before submitting a new report.