Success with Mac M1, crossover 21.1 and macOS Monterey 12.0.1

[Windolin]

Wanted to share these results, LOTRO is running great on my M1!

Updated with feedback from Tralfazz

Versions:
macOS Monterey 12.0.1
MacBook Air M1 (8 core GPU), 8 GB, 512 GB
Crossover 21.1

Steps
1. Install Crossover 21.1 (https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover).

2. Install LOTRO
a. Create a new bottle with Windows 10 64bit
b. Right click the new bottle and activate the DXVK back end. This enables Crossover to translate DirectX -> Vulcan -> Metal (for optimal performance).
c. In the new bottle, "Install a Windows program" and type "DirectX for modern games" and install that.
d. Download the LOTRO installer (lotrolive.exe) using Safari on your Mac and copy to the LOTRO bottle
e. In the new bottle, select to run a command and select lotrolive.exe. Complete the install wizard and allow it to launch
f. Click "Yes" to download high resolution data
g. At the end of the long download, I had to close the launcher and start it again and then it asks for permissions to the Document folder and then completes.

2. Start the LOTRO launcher
a. Select to use the 64bit client. NOTE: The checkboxes selections are not displayed but click on the 64bit option. Guide: https://lotroplayers.com/2019/06/04/...-short-guides/
b. Login
c. If the screen goes all black, ALT TAB and check if macOS is showing the app security window (e.g. allow access to a certain macOS location or feature)

3. Adjust the options in game
a. Change from "full screen" to "full screen windowed". This is in order to enable quick alt-tab, if running in full screen the alt-tab takes ca 15 seconds.
b. Advanced graphics: Disable "Sync to refresh rate" to maximize FPS
c. Troubleshoot: Set FPS cap to 60 frames per second. I did this since my external monitor is 60Hz but also to reduce the risk of overheating.

No manual changes in UserPreferences.ini or UserPreferences64.ini

Notes:
- I've read that LOTRO is a single core app, but when viewing the CPU and GPU History it's using 4 cores at around 50-80% and the GPU at around 80-90%. Possibly Crossover is using multiple cores as one big CPU?


Result:

Running through Bree town: 35-60 FPS at 1440x900 Ultra and 2x AA
Running through Minas T.: 35-45 FPS at 1440x900 Ultra and 2x AA
The laptop is a bit warm but completely silent.

Running through Bree town:
1080p Ultra (x2 AA) ca 30-35 FPS

Running through the courtyard of Minas Tirith:
4K ultra (no AA) 15-18 FPS
1080p Ultra (no AA) ca 30 FPS

West Gondor outdoors, Lamedon, Maegond:
4k Ultra (no AA): 25-35 FPS
1080p very high (no AA): ca 60 FPS

West of Esteldin:
(I think it was full HD medium settings): 110+ FPS! With Sync disabled, the FPS dropped to around 60 FPS, then back up to 110+ when enabling Vsync. This was very interesting, I expected the other way around. My monitor is 60Hz.

[Tralfazz]

Great report, Windolin! Thank you for all the detail. I'm sure it will help other people.

1. Install Steam pre-configured bottle in Crossover (this results in (Windows 7 64bit)
2. In the Wine configuration of the new bottle: Selected Windows version 8.1

Installing from Steam is fine but I think you meant you used the Crossover Crosstie.

This is fine for now but in the future you might need to create a new Windows 10 64-bit bottle. That's why I recommend doing that from the beginning instead of letting the automated "Crosstie" set up a different type of bottle for you.

2. Install LOTRO from Steam (didn't select the high textures)

The high-resolution textures are about 10gb more to download so that's OK if you're in a rush to get done for some reason. Otherwise, you'll enjoy the game a lot more with the high-resolution textures. I recommend you install them at your earliest convenience.

3. In the LOTRO launcher, selected the 64bit client

The checkboxes in the LOTRO launcher application can be used but since, when running on a Mac using any version of WINE (including Crossover's version), the check marks don't show it can be hard to know if you have successfully enabled an option or not. I'm glad this worked for you but because of the checkmarks not showing whether an option is enabled or not, I always recommend editing the UserPreferences.ini file directly. The LOTRO launcher application always reads its settings from UserPreferences.ini even if you are using the 64-bit client. Only the 64-bit client reads its settings from UserPreferences64.ini, the 32-bit client and the LOTRO launcher application read their settings from UserPreferences.ini.

5. Inside the game: Enabled Vertical sync. I left it as Full Screen.

VSync synchronizes the output of the LOTRO client engine to your monitor's refresh rate. This does not improve performance; quite the opposite, in fact, although it can help to resolve some issues such as "screen tearing". VSync should not be enabled unless trying to work around some problem like that. Allow your FPS to float as needed, cap it in the OPTIONS->TROUBLESHOOT section of the in-game options if you want to help your computer to run a bit cooler or prevent visual artifacts which sometimes result from FPS bouncing around from very high to very low values as you move around the game world.

- I've read the LOTRO is a single core app, but when viewing the CPU and GPU History it's using 4 cores at around 50-80% and the GPU at around 80-90%.

I'd like to see this. It's not impossible that you're getting some benefit from Rosetta2 translation. It might be treating 4 of your SOC cores as a single core. But the LOTRO client is not a multithreaded application so it can't use more than a single physical core of a CPU. I have no Apple SOC Mac of my own to generate such reports or run such tests myself. You have made me very curious about this!

- ALT-TAB is VERY slow, takes about 10-15 seconds to reach the desktop.

If you change your screen mode from FULL SCREEN to FULL SCREEN WINDOWED you will get instant response to commands to change focus to another application or to move to a different virtual desktop space. Before Crossover 21, attempts to change focus to another application from LOTRO with the game in Full Screen mode would result in an inability to bring focus back to the LOTRO client, necessitating a force quit and relaunch of the game.

[Windolin]

Thanks for your feedback Tralfazz. I will update the steps to make them more clear, and will try adding your recommended settings one at a time.

Yesterday I was just happy that it worked with such high frame rate, I was getting poor results earlier with Parallels and Crossover earlier versions.

I did take a screenshot of the CPU/GPU usage history, but I need to upload the picture to a web site before I can attach it to the post, I will look into that.

[Windolin]

Here is a link to a screenshot showing the CPU and GPU usage when playing.

https://ibb.co/zPN241w

[Tralfazz]

Here is a link to a screenshot showing the CPU and GPU usage when playing.

https://ibb.co/zPN241w

Great, thanks!

Those graphs are showing you the load on each of your cores. Your Mac is running many processes simultaneously even if you aren't running any user applications: Bring up Activity Monitor and you'll see them all, there will be at least dozens. If the LOTRO client is running you will see multiple instances of "wine64-preloader" in Activity Monitor. That is WINE performing its many API translation tasks in the background. All of that is getting spread out among your cores – the so-called "performance" cores, anyway, I don't know enough about how the Apple SOCs allocate tasks to the "performance" cores vs the "efficiency" cores to say how the latter are used for tasks like this. But the LOTRO client task itself uses only one core. The reason your Mac runs the game so well is that, even though there are multiple translation layers involved, the SOC manages all the parallel tasks among its cores very well and allocates its available resources extremely efficiently – even so, the game itself does one thing at a time on the CPU, on just one of the CPU's cores.

Regardless, great job getting the game running on your machine. Have fun in Middle-Earth!

[mbfabulian]

are there any issues running LOTRO on Crossover after upgrading to OS Monteray on an 3.6 GHz 10 core Intel i9 processor?

[Tralfazz]

are there any issues running LOTRO on Crossover after upgrading to OS Monteray on an 3.6 GHz 10 core Intel i9 processor?

Hi, mbfabulian! I am running LOTRO in Crossover 21.1 under MacOS Monterey 12.1 on two different Intel Macs and the game works great. I don't have any data regarding the game running on your specific 3.6GHz 10-core i9 Processor but there is no reason you should have any aberrant results. The only question is whether your graphics hardware will behave with DirectX 11 – and if the game won't run in DirectX 11 for you it's really not a problem, you just stick with DirectX 9 instead.

Give it a try, then create your own thread to report your results or to ask for help if you need it.

[Phoenix303]

Hi, mbfabulian! I am running LOTRO in Crossover 21.1 under MacOS Monterey 12.1 on two different Intel Macs and the game works great. I don't have any data regarding the game running on your specific 3.6GHz 10-core i9 Processor but there is no reason you should have any aberrant results. The only question is whether your graphics hardware will behave with DirectX 11 – and if the game won't run in DirectX 11 for you it's really not a problem, you just stick with DirectX 9 instead.

Give it a try, then create your own thread to report your results or to ask for help if you need it.

Hi Tralfazz,

I keep getting failures for the task to install DirectX for Modern games and most importantly the task to install LOTRO isn't working. Any chance you can help? Thanks!

-Phoenix

[Tralfazz]

I keep getting failures for the task to install DirectX for Modern games and most importantly the task to install LOTRO isn't working.

Let’s keep this in one thread, there’s no point in posting the same thing multiple times. Go to the other thread, provide the information requested, and add any other data you think might be relevant.

[Jorgito75]

Wanted to share these results, LOTRO is running great on my M1!

Updated with feedback from Tralfazz

Versions:
macOS Monterey 12.0.1
MacBook Air M1 (8 core GPU), 8 GB, 512 GB
Crossover 21.1

Steps
1. Install Crossover 21.1 (https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover).

2. Install LOTRO
a. Create a new bottle with Windows 10 64bit
b. Right click the new bottle and activate the DXVK back end. This enables Crossover to translate DirectX -> Vulcan -> Metal (for optimal performance).
c. In the new bottle, "Install a Windows program" and type "DirectX for modern games" and install that.
d. Download the LOTRO installer (lotrolive.exe) using Safari on your Mac and copy to the LOTRO bottle
e. In the new bottle, select to run a command and select lotrolive.exe. Complete the install wizard and allow it to launch
f. Click "Yes" to download high resolution data
g. At the end of the long download, I had to close the launcher and start it again and then it asks for permissions to the Document folder and then completes.

2. Start the LOTRO launcher
a. Select to use the 64bit client. NOTE: The checkboxes selections are not displayed but click on the 64bit option. Guide: https://lotroplayers.com/2019/06/04/...-short-guides/
b. Login
c. If the screen goes all black, ALT TAB and check if macOS is showing the app security window (e.g. allow access to a certain macOS location or feature)

3. Adjust the options in game
a. Change from "full screen" to "full screen windowed". This is in order to enable quick alt-tab, if running in full screen the alt-tab takes ca 15 seconds.
b. Advanced graphics: Disable "Sync to refresh rate" to maximize FPS
c. Troubleshoot: Set FPS cap to 60 frames per second. I did this since my external monitor is 60Hz but also to reduce the risk of overheating.

No manual changes in UserPreferences.ini or UserPreferences64.ini

Notes:
- I've read that LOTRO is a single core app, but when viewing the CPU and GPU History it's using 4 cores at around 50-80% and the GPU at around 80-90%. Possibly Crossover is using multiple cores as one big CPU?


Result:

Running through Bree town: 35-60 FPS at 1440x900 Ultra and 2x AA
Running through Minas T.: 35-45 FPS at 1440x900 Ultra and 2x AA
The laptop is a bit warm but completely silent.

Running through Bree town:
1080p Ultra (x2 AA) ca 30-35 FPS

Running through the courtyard of Minas Tirith:
4K ultra (no AA) 15-18 FPS
1080p Ultra (no AA) ca 30 FPS

West Gondor outdoors, Lamedon, Maegond:
4k Ultra (no AA): 25-35 FPS
1080p very high (no AA): ca 60 FPS

West of Esteldin:
(I think it was full HD medium settings): 110+ FPS! With Sync disabled, the FPS dropped to around 60 FPS, then back up to 110+ when enabling Vsync. This was very interesting, I expected the other way around. My monitor is 60Hz.

I have followed all the steps from your post and read all the other posts from people and it seems no one has had the issue I am having. After completing all the steps to make my bottle and start the install process, once I get to the LoTt launcher window it just states “loading launcher configuration” I let that run for up to 30 min and it doesn’t change. If I close out the launcher and launch it again then that first phrase disappears and it says “installing pre-reqs”. Again I’ve let that run for 30 min and no movement. If I log out and try to start the launcher again the “installing pre reqs” message keeps coming up.

I am currently running a

Mac mini M1 2020
OS= Monterey
8GB of memory
Display= lG ultra gear 31.5 inches 1920x1080 (i made the resolution adjustments you posted)

Thank you for any guidance you can give me

[Tralfazz]

I have followed all the steps from your post and read all the other posts from people and it seems no one has had the issue I am having. After completing all the steps to make my bottle and start the install process, once I get to the LoTt launcher window it just states “loading launcher configuration” I let that run for up to 30 min and it doesn’t change. If I close out the launcher and launch it again then that first phrase disappears and it says “installing pre-reqs”. Again I’ve let that run for 30 min and no movement. If I log out and try to start the launcher again the “installing pre reqs” message keeps coming up.

Jorgito, if you followed all of Windolin's "install" instructions correctly and as he wrote, your issue is most likely related to either permissions or your local network; most likely your local network. So let's start by resetting your local network:

Shut down your computer and all your network devices. Wait 2 full minutes. Then, starting with the most “upstream” device (for most people, that is their cable modem), start to turn things on. Do not turn on the next device “downstream” until the last device reactivated has fully booted. If you can’t tell when a device has fully booted, wait 2 full minutes after turning it on before turning on the next device. Your computer is the most “downstream” device so turn it on last. Just restarting your computer or sending a remote command to reboot your router isn't good enough. Follow the procedure here.

Then try the install procedure again. Hopefully that does the trick. If it doesn't work, please follow the instructions here to fully delete your bottles and Crossover from your Mac using the Finder:
https://www.codeweavers.com/support/...rial/uninstall

Then start over from the beginning: Install Crossover, create a Windows 10 64-bit bottle, install DirectX for Modern Games into your bottle, be sure your bottle settings are correct, download the lotrolive.exe installer, and only then use Crossover to run the lotrolive.exe installer – do NOT use the "Crosstie". If you have to uninstall Crossover and start over but run into this or another problem again, please report back with as much detail as you can including screenshots showing your bottle type/contents and your bottle settings.

[macpete]

I confirm what was written by WIndolin. On my 8Gb Mac Mini M1 with macOS Monterey 12.6, LOTRO runs surprisingly well (I'm using the Crossover 22 trial).

I must point out that I am not really "playing" the game .... I just wanted to give Crossover Mac 22 a try and I thought of using LOTRO as a test (I participated in the beta eons ago). So, to be honest, I just walked around Thorin's Gate with a dwarf Liv. 1 and Refuge of Edhelion with a high elf Lv. 1.

Curiously, when set to ULTRA the framerate was more stable than on HIGH and VERY HIGH (for now I have limited myself to setting the maximum framerate of the game to 60 fps).

I guess that by continuing in the game it will inevitably be mandatory to further customize the graphic settings to maintain a stable framerate ... but I find it surprising that it works so well on an entry-level M1 (evidently, in this case at least, the DirectX 11> Vulkan> Metal translation in WINE is working great).

[Tralfazz]

Curiously, when set to ULTRA the framerate was more stable than on HIGH and VERY HIGH (for now I have limited myself to setting the maximum framerate of the game to 60 fps).

As you probably know, the OPTIONS->GRAPHICS->OVERALL GRAPHICS QUALITY setting isn't really a setting. It's a group of presets for all the actual settings.

Most likely, the difference between VERY HIGH and ULTRA which is making the positive difference for you is the OPTIONS->ADV GRAPHICS->TEXTURE FILTERING scheme. Most likely in ULTRA this is set to ANISOTROPIC while in VERY HIGH or HIGH it is set to something else such as TRILINEAR or SHARP. Even though the ANISOTROPIC filtering scheme is more advanced and produces better results, on some hardware it is also much more efficient than the others as long as the anisotropic filtering level isn't set too high. (4 usually produces very nice results without stressing low-end or modest hardware.)

I'm glad that LOTRO is working well for you and I hope you'll "really play" now that you're able to do so!