Is LotRO increasing the game specs?

[podgie_bear]

I don't know if anyone has aked this yet (it's hard to find somethings on here) but is the 'Hardware survey' on the Launcher a precurser to raising the minimum specs for playing the game? I did the survey and found that my specs are right at the lower edge of the available answers. I would hate to have to stop playing this game if it suddenly required higher specs than I have, but I can't afford to buy another computer.

[cdq1958]

I don't know if anyone has aked this yet (it's hard to find somethings on here) but is the 'Hardware survey' on the Launcher a precurser to raising the minimum specs for playing the game? I did the survey and found that my specs are right at the lower edge of the available answers. I would hate to have to stop playing this game if it suddenly required higher specs than I have, but I can't afford to buy another computer.

This has been repeatedly brought up in the 20 questions discussions. From memory, Turbine is surveying players to see what changes will be (if any) to the minimum spec, other than XP being dropped (like the dotnetfx 1.1, Microsoft no longer supports XP ... and when Windows 9 comes out in a couple of years or so, they'll drop Vista).

[Castorix]

Microsoft no longer supports XP ...

Yes, it is supported, until 08/04/2014

[cdq1958]

Yes, it is supported, until 08/04/2014

Okay, update post to read will not be supporting XP much longer.

[podgie_bear]

Okay, update post to read will not be supporting XP much longer.

They may not supprt it, but it will be in use for a long time yet with an awful lot of people. For example, I work for a certain government department and all their systems use XP and they have no intention of upgrading for years to come. Infact most of their programs have been written specifically for XP and are not Win7 compatable. I know a lot of people who have gone back to XP from choice, I know I did and wouldn't change just for one game even if it is LotRO, nor would several other players I have talked to ingame this afternoon.

[Kaynith]

. I know a lot of people who have gone back to XP from choice, I know I did and wouldn't change just for one game even if it is LotRO, nor would several other players I have talked to ingame this afternoon.

I would be one of them.

I run XP because it's stable and I like it. I'm a career IT guy. I don't run XP because I'm outdated or don't know any better. I run it by choice, and I know the OS like the back of my hand.
My system crashes roughly 0% of the time when not running LOTRO. When running LOTRO, mileage may vary, depending on what client version and new bugs were introduced THIS particular month. But even taking that into account, it runs remarkably solid.

My wife's Vista PC? Crash-o-matic. My buddy's Win 7 Machine? Even worse. And Win 8? Let's not even talk about that monstrosity of a clusterfarked OS, shall we?

If I wake up one day and can't log into the existing game with existing content that I PAID FOR, because someone changed the client so it no longer recognizes XP, well then...

That's the day I'm done with LOTRO, and Turbine, and WB, forevermore.

[TheMule1983]

I would be one of them.

I run XP because it's stable and I like it. I'm a career IT guy. I don't run XP because I'm outdated or don't know any better. I run it by choice, and I know the OS like the back of my hand.
My system crashes roughly 0% of the time when not running LOTRO. When running LOTRO, mileage may vary, depending on what client version and new bugs were introduced THIS particular month. But even taking that into account, it runs remarkably solid.

My wife's Vista PC? Crash-o-matic. My buddy's Win 7 Machine? Even worse. And Win 8? Let's not even talk about that monstrosity of a clusterfarked OS, shall we?

If I wake up one day and can't log into the existing game with existing content that I PAID FOR, because someone changed the client so it no longer recognizes XP, well then...

That's the day I'm done with LOTRO, and Turbine, and WB, forevermore.

I've had a Windows 8 machine since Dec '12. Never crashed once. Couldn't say the same for my XP machine.

[Macroscian]

I'd rather see a way back to a few years ago - more bits of the environment in one piece rather than eleventy tiny little bits. For functionality or looks, there is no need for new Bree to make any system lag (mine doesn't but I hear talk and read posts).
There is also no need for very, very simple raid like bfe to make anyone's fps drop. It's basically a turtle, yet people freeze (or at least appear to do so: not moving or keep attacking). No idea what makes it behave so oddly - I have a very smooth run in complicated Rift but bfe drops me to 5-10 fps...strange!
Get rid of absurd specs if it's not needed for the function. Most I gamed with a while nowadays use their computers mainly for work rather than mainly for games. This is a very good crowd to cater to, cash-wise.

[manstan]

Funny I had no issues with W7 at all; vista was trash and W8 ain't any better. But at the moment I am stuck with this cellphone version of windows; W8.

But I use quite a few CG art apps and they might run on XP 64bit, but were built to run on Vista/W7; one is so finicky I have to run it in W7 compatibility to get all the features working on W8.
None the less; and I am in your boat, technology steadily advances and it's an ether keep up or get left behind thing. And before my old dinosaur of a gateway finally gave up the ghost; well just got to old to run much, a few years back, I had to give up or just not start playing several games simply because the computer was antiquated. Even though XP was still very much in use.

Even now with this new; 3 month old comp, games look very bad. Why? Because of the oh so great intel 2500 HD built in graphics chip. My old graphics card{4 years}; from the comp the mobo fried on, fits but for some reason it immediately shuts down this comp. It's a mystery to me because it is supposed to be compatible. I mean it's the right card for the slot so I don't get why it shuts the computer down practically before it starts.

Thing is you can get a decent comp for $400 or less. If you look around you may even be able to find a not very old; 2 years, used comp for practically a song.

[Klaarg]

They may not supprt it, but it will be in use for a long time yet with an awful lot of people. For example, I work for a certain government department and all their systems use XP and they have no intention of upgrading for years to come. Infact most of their programs have been written specifically for XP and are not Win7 compatable. I know a lot of people who have gone back to XP from choice, I know I did and wouldn't change just for one game even if it is LotRO, nor would several other players I have talked to ingame this afternoon.

I use Windows 7 because I got it free, but to be honest, I'd have bought it eventually because time after time, XP Pro was losing support of programs I liked and it saved me from using that travesty, Vista.

The government has never been big on upgrading and their inefficiency shows just what a mistake that is. People refusing to upgrade can't be the reason progress on software is halted. Holding back the rest of us, when programs get to a point they need to move ahead, is simply wrong. Why should I, or anyone else, be limited to what your system can support? If you had the money to upgrade, you'd never consider what my system could support, yet here you seem to be making the case that the rest of us should suffer, because you can't afford to upgrade. That is pretty selfish, if you ask me. Companies can't always keep making things backwards compatible, because it hinders progress when it costs too much to support. While I hope your system will always be able to support LOTRO, you shouldn't expect the rest of us to suffer, just so that can happen.

[Rainith]

I don't know if anyone has aked this yet (it's hard to find somethings on here) but is the 'Hardware survey' on the Launcher a precurser to raising the minimum specs for playing the game? I did the survey and found that my specs are right at the lower edge of the available answers. I would hate to have to stop playing this game if it suddenly required higher specs than I have, but I can't afford to buy another computer.

FYI - Just because they raise the minimum requirements, that doesn't mean you won't be able to play. There is unlikely to be a check at startup that says, "WindowsXP?!? Nope, sorry, please see microsoft.com to upgrade." All that will happen is that if you run into problems and complain on the forums, people will be able to point out that your OS isn't supported and therefore you shouldn't be surprised that you're lagging in Mordor.

[bongart]

If I wake up one day and can't log into the existing game with existing content that I PAID FOR, because someone changed the client so it no longer recognizes XP, well then...

That's the day I'm done with LOTRO, and Turbine, and WB, forevermore.

You could always use Linux... http://lotro.stratics.com/technical-...line-on-linux/

Is LotRO increasing the game specs?

Actually, they have been all along... or rather they have been regularly adding content which requires more computer muscle than was previously required. A comparison of Rohan versus any of the intro areas will prove this out. Notice the way that grass is handled in the Shire? 2d, long sprites, dropped sparsely in a random cross-hatched pattern. You walk through it, and a long stretch will be disturbed. In Rohan, grass covers the ground in small clumps... and covers the ground quite extensively. It takes longer when entering an area to render all the grass, and the clumps will all move independently in the wind, requiring more processing power. There are multiple players who can play in the older areas of the game without an issue, but as they progress further into the game they notice increased performance issues.

[Sapience]

We have been having the discussion, if I'm being completely honest, since we launched the Mines of Moria expansion. If you recall we even did a "performance upgrade" giveaway with new processors and video cards as the prizes. For Isengard we partnered with ATI to give some deals to players on new cards then as well.

Honestly, every expansion has added a little weight to the overhead required to run the game. So it should be obvious that the game takes more horsepower now than when we launched to get the maximum out of it. We launched with DX9, added DX10 and then DX11, for example.

We know that gamers are known to 'keep up' with fairly modern rigs. Our beta survey showed that, but we also recognize that beta players may not be the best group to get 'real world' hardware information from because they are usually a group more inclined to upgrade and stay closer to the 'bleeding edge' of tech than most players.

So, while we're getting ready to run some pretty indepth compatibility tests we thought it would be a good idea to get a better understanding of what players were actually running on.

[mmogaming]

We have been having the discussion, if I'm being completely honest, since we launched the Mines of Moria expansion. If you recall we even did a "performance upgrade" giveaway with new processors and video cards as the prizes. For Isengard we partnered with ATI to give some deals to players on new cards then as well.

Honestly, every expansion has added a little weight to the overhead required to run the game. So it should be obvious that the game takes more horsepower now than when we launched to get the maximum out of it. We launched with DX9, added DX10 and then DX11, for example.

We know that gamers are known to 'keep up' with fairly modern rigs. Our beta survey showed that, but we also recognize that beta players may not be the best group to get 'real world' hardware information from because they are usually a group more inclined to upgrade and stay closer to the 'bleeding edge' of tech than most players.

So, while we're getting ready to run some pretty indepth compatibility tests we thought it would be a good idea to get a better understanding of what players were actually running on.

Something that puzzles me, how can we sell an expansion to the player base and not have the "cpu specs required information" associated with it. It feels weird, usually when your buying a PC game, you know exactly what the required specs are. As I said, feels weird......

[manstan]

And why some areas lag worse then others .

[Egilric]

Something that puzzles me, how can we sell an expansion to the player base and not have the "cpu specs required information" associated with it. It feels weird, usually when your buying a PC game, you know exactly what the required specs are. As I said, feels weird......

^ This.

The reason I've held off parting with cash for HD is the disturbing lack of info on the new Min/Req Specs.

All The Best

[DanteIL]

We know that gamers are known to 'keep up' with fairly modern rigs. Our beta survey showed that, but we also recognize that beta players may not be the best group to get 'real world' hardware information from because they are usually a group more inclined to upgrade and stay closer to the 'bleeding edge' of tech than most players.

But do LOTRO players keep up with fairly modern rigs at the same pace as gamers more generally?? While some do, I suspect the answer more broadly is 'no,' and so I'm glad that you are at least trying to survey the playerbase to find out what kinds of machines are actually being used in this game (even if the survey was poorly designed). I'm someone who doesn't keep up with the latest and greatest computer (my mediocre performance in LOTRO is a testament to this), so I'm dearly hoping that this doesn't open the floodgates to spec me out of existence.

[EmyrSelyf]

On a related note, here's a couple of useful charts if, by chance, anyone is already looking at an upgrade of any kind.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ck,3106-5.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ew,3107-7.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...rk,3269-6.html


I updated my old E8400/Nvidia 9600GT with win 7 64bit and LOTRO installed on 50% partitions on a 128Gig SSD last year, and it made a fairly dramatic difference even with just 2Gigs of RAM on board.

[J_Howell]

But do LOTRO players keep up with fairly modern rigs at the same pace as gamers more generally?? While some do, I suspect the answer more broadly is 'no,' and so I'm glad that you are at least trying to survey the playerbase to find out what kinds of machines are actually being used in this game (even if the survey was poorly designed). I'm someone who doesn't keep up with the latest and greatest computer (my mediocre performance in LOTRO is a testament to this), so I'm dearly hoping that this doesn't open the floodgates to spec me out of existence.

Well, yes, we have to. Take a look at the official minimum and recommended system requirements: http://support.turbine.com/link/port...ents-for-LOTRO

I defy anyone to play in Rohan with the "recommended" system, let alone the official "minimum" system. My old computer was substantially better than the recommended system and I had to quit LOTRO for nine months after RoR came out. Rohan was completely unplayable - crashes every 30-60 minutes - due to the memory leak bug (which AFAIK was never fixed, despite first appearing in ROI).

From what I understand, Turbine is finally putting the wheels in motion to update the system requirements to bear a passing acquaintance with reality.

If you have an older computer, it's entirely possible that HD could prevent you from playing LOTRO until you buy a new computer. Unless you're very tolerant of frequent crashes, I guess, or limit your play to lower level characters who don't encounter the new content. Based on the past two expansions my rule of thumb would be that if you're running Rohan/Wildermore just fine now, you may be fine in HD or may have to dial some settings down (I was fine in Mirkwood/Enedwaith, had to mute game sounds to keep the memory leak from crashing me once I hit the Gravenwood in Dunland). If you already have to reduce some settings to make the game playable, the risk that HD will be unplayable is significant. At this point only Turbine and the beta testers know how much of a performance hit HD will cause. Hopefully not much, unlike RoR...

Based on my own experiences, I'd characterize LOTRO's true system requirements as "64-bit OS, 4+ GB RAM". Recommended - an SSD drive makes a big difference in loading times but is by no means necessary. Any vaguely decent video card should be fine. CPU seems largely irrelevant at this point.

[enginekid88]

I see people saying they will stick with using Windows XP.

This is certainly your prerogative but do not cry foul when your machine won't run 2013 game releases, such as the new expansions of LotRO: you only have yourself to blame.

Windows XP was first released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001. It is a very old O/S that terribly limits your computer in many ways; one way being it cannot run more than 3 gigs of RAM (if I am not mistaken).

If you choose to limit yourself to using a really old computer and/or really old software you are simply asking for trouble.

[Khafar]

They may not supprt it, but it will be in use for a long time yet with an awful lot of people.

Probably not for too long. Once XP becomes officially obsolete next spring, there will be a rapid move away from any sort of support for it by a lot of software companies. No more security patches, no more OS bug fixes, and it's been over 5 years since it was shipped on any new PC. It's a very old operating system, originally shipping 12 years ago. And to make matters worse, the much-improved newer versions of IE don't run on it. IE8 (the last version to run on XP) really, really sucks, and anyone doing web development is just itching to drop support for it.

XP has had a truly remarkable run, but it's going to drop off quite rapidly in the next year, year and a half. In fact, that's already started. If you look at trends from here, you can see that it's fallen off from 37% to 31% in just the past 3 months. At that rate, it'll be below 15% by next summer.

Khafar

[podgie_bear]

Probably not for too long. Once XP becomes officially obsolete next spring, there will be a rapid move away from any sort of support for it by a lot of software companies. No more security patches, no more OS bug fixes, and it's been over 5 years since it was shipped on any new PC. It's a very old operating system, originally shipping 12 years ago. And to make matters worse, the much-improved newer versions of IE don't run on it. IE8 (the last version to run on XP) really, really sucks, and anyone doing web development is just itching to drop support for it.

XP has had a truly remarkable run, but it's going to drop off quite rapidly in the next year, year and a half. In fact, that's already started. If you look at trends from here, you can see that it's fallen off from 37% to 31% in just the past 3 months. At that rate, it'll be below 15% by next summer.

Khafar

Well similarly, LotRO is an old game so should its playerbase drop off too? If being update spec-wise is so important, why is there so much attention
paid to revitalizing retro games and hundreds (literally) of sites devoted to backwards compatability? Just because some people always want to have top of the range, doesn't nean everyone needs or wants to. If that was the case LotRO would have nobody playing it as they would all have moved on to newer, higher spec games.

[Edrogar]

My old graphics card{4 years}; from the comp the mobo fried on, fits but for some reason it immediately shuts down this comp. It's a mystery to me because it is supposed to be compatible. I mean it's the right card for the slot so I don't get why it shuts the computer down practically before it starts.

Sounds like either your PSU isn't powerful enough for the card or the card itself is knackered.

I've found over the years that store bought PC's tend to be fitted with components that are bare minimum for the spec you buy, so if it's a store bought pc (or name brand like HP, Dell etc) and it only shipped with onboard graphics then there's a very high chance it has a low end PSU, probably 250 watts, which just wouldn't be enough for some more modern graphics cards.

If you post a full spec of the pc including the wattage of the PSU and what graphics card you are trying to put in there someone might be able to tell you if you just need to upgrade the PSU.

[Eliahnus]

In my little family we have Windows XP 32-bit, Windows Vista 64-bit, Windows 7 64-bit and Windows 8 64-bit, all happily interconnected in our own home data network. We play LOTRO with three people, often at the same time.

LOTRO runs fine on Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8, I mean without crashes, not ever, not even once.

LOTRO did also run fine on Windows XP 32-bit, until RoR came, then it became unplayable (only 3GB inside, no possibility to upgrade to 4GB, I tried everything else).

[goldensilence]

Sounds like either your PSU isn't powerful enough for the card or the card itself is knackered.

I've found over the years that store bought PC's tend to be fitted with components that are bare minimum for the spec you buy, so if it's a store bought pc (or name brand like HP, Dell etc) and it only shipped with onboard graphics then there's a very high chance it has a low end PSU, probably 250 watts, which just wouldn't be enough for some more modern graphics cards.

If you post a full spec of the pc including the wattage of the PSU and what graphics card you are trying to put in there someone might be able to tell you if you just need to upgrade the PSU.

The PSU is the most overlooked component in a gaming rig. Many less-techy people think they can just change/upgrade components willy-nilly and everything will work just fine. I mean, come on, the card/CPU/stick fits in the slot right? A solid PSU should be the foundation, the starting point almost. Without it you can have all sorts of issues including damaging that new expensive upgrade you just got.

It's a shame that gaming companies can't include it in the minimum/recommended specs but that would be a bit much with the variety of other components out there. It would be nice to see them start at least mentioning that it's important to make sure you have a good power supply to run whatever specs you might have in your system though.