Using Parallels instead of Crossover kfor Macbok

[BenjaminBraveheart]

Is anyone using Parallels to run LOTRO on an M2 Macbook? Is it working? Do you like it?

[Tralfazz]

Is anyone using Parallels to run LOTRO on an M2 Macbook? Is it working? Do you like it?

I do not know anyone who is using Parallels to run LOTRO on, specifically, an M2 MacBook.

I do know people who have used Parallels to run LOTRO on both Intel and Apple SOC Macs. They all eventually ditched Parallels for Crossover because:
–LOTRO runs better in Crossover.
–There is no need to deal with/pay for watermarks/Windows licenses with Crossover.
–Crossover is much less expensive than Parallels. Even taking into account the Crossover price increase that happened just last week.

Parallels is an emulator. It runs "virtual hardware" including a virtual CPU. This requires a lot of overhead. It also requires a full install of the Windows operating system.

Crossover is a GUI for a proprietary version of WINE, and Wine Is Not an Emulator. WINE converts Windows API calls to MacOS API calls. There is no Windows operating system installed on your Mac. There is no virtual CPU or other virtualization occurring. Integration with the MacOS file system via the Finder is mostly seamless.

There are some Windows applications which will run in Parallels but not in Crossover. I'm sure that Parallels is very useful for people who want to run such applications on their Macs. However, LOTRO runs in Crossover – very well, in fact. With a few minor exceptions, under Crossover the LOTRO game runs as well as a native MacOS application.

There is a free trial of Parallels Desktop (the non-professional/home/normal-person's version of Parallels) so as long as you have the disk space and time, why not give it a try? However, if you just want to get to playing LOTRO on your Mac, I recommend using Crossover 21.2 instead.

[Echoweaver]

I have played LOTRO with VMWare Studio in the last month, and I play other games using Parallels. I haven't done this on the M1/M2 Macs, however.

How well it works depends on how well their virtual machine works on that platform, but if it's not fine now, it probably will be soon.

I am currently using Crossover, but I've tried a lot of methods over the years. One of the major reasons I can see for using Parallels/VMWare is that it's just easier to understand. And, of course, if you happen to have the software involved for other reasons (which I do), then it's the cheapest option.

[JohnDalamar]

Is anyone using Parallels to run LOTRO on an M2 Macbook? Is it working? Do you like it?

I've used both. First crossover, and following the several threads and excellent step by step guides made by trafalzz (we can't thank trafalzz enough) on these forums it played absolutely great. Then I got parallels in order to run ms access and out of curiosity tried running lotro on parallels, and I found it was worse.

But that was my experience running on an M1 mini, maybe your experience will be different. The parallels route is easier to configure by a lot, also.