Mac Client: Graphics information

Mac Client Related Information

With the release of the LOTRO Mac Client (Beta Version) there are many overlapping areas of information between First time users and on-going activities. The information is split to improve readability. Mac Client Akamai Installation Graphics information Problem resolution information! Mac Client Communications notes - Port Forwarding, UDP and other notes Problem resolution information! General Trouble Shooting Techniques File Locations - Where files reside and where you need to put things like Plugins, Skins and Music files. Messages - Screenshots of various messages generated by the Mac Client and an attempt to intuit their meanings and explain them. Known Issues -- A compilation of known problems with the Mac client. Gatekeeper Information -- Screenshots of Apple's Gatekeeper control panels and instructions. Mac Client Beta Client Information Mac Client Keyboards Release by release Instructions for moving the Splash Screens Steam Installation - Steam Installation notes Happy Cloud Installation - a description of the Happy Cloud Installer obsolete

Various Mac Client Graphics Issues

Apple Knowledge Base Articles

These articles ae oriented towards the MacBook Pro or MacBook Pro with Retina display computer.

Recent Macbooks

• MacBook Pro: How to determine which graphics processor is in use

"When using a Mac that supports automatic graphics switching, the system will switch to the best graphics processor (integrated or discrete) for the applications running on your computer. Some graphics intensive applications will always use the higher-performance discrete graphics processor."

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202053

• Set graphics performance on MacBook Pro

"How to adjust graphics performance on your MacBook Pro or MacBook Pro with Retina display computer."

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202043

Do you have NVIDIA graphics?

This driver implies some impressive performance improvements. They are appaently current, last updated in Mach of 2016.

• NVIDIA graphics driver - Blog posting (Posted August 31, 2015)

Note that this was posted for Yosemite (OSX 10.10.x), not El Capitan (OSX 10.11.x)! It is highly probable that it has already been incorporated into El Capitan

"Make the Most of Your Mac: New Driver Delivers Big Performance Gains"

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2015/08/31/mac-driver/

• WOW Mac Technical support forum post on this driver

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/18300616773

Older Macbooks

MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2008), (17-inch, Early 2009), (15-inch and 17-inch, Mid 2009): How to set graphics performance

"How to adjust graphics performance for the MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2008), MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2009), and MacBook Pro (15-inch and 17-inch, Mid 2009) portable computers with NVIDIA 9400 and 9600 graphic cards."

This article has been archived and is no longer updated by Apple.

• https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201851

How to reset the Mac Client to the Default Graphics settings

• The Mac Client (especially all Mac models from 2013 and later) works best when run with the default graphics settings.

1. Launch the Launcher - do not enter your userid and password!
2. In the upper right corner of the main window click on the down arrow and select "Options."
3. On the General tab, select "Use high resolution game data."

   If this is your first time, you will wind up waiting for another approximately 4 Gb of High Resolution files to download.

   If you already have the High Resolution files downloaded, nothing will happen.

4. Click on the "Repair" tab and check "Reset the game display settings."
5. Click the "Restore Defaults" button at the lower left.
6. Switch to the Proxy tab and verify that you have "No Proxy" checked.
7. Click the "OK" button.
8. Enter your userid and password and login.

   You will be asked if you really want to reset the graphics.

9. Starting at character select go into the options menu
10. Under graphics set the "Graphics Quality" option to Low
11. Under adv graphics section disable any of the following items that remain active:
    • - Shadow Settings
    • - Glow Mapping
    • - Post Processing
    • - High Quality Lighting
    • Open the troubleshoot section and put "Engine Speed" down to medium
12. Exit the game client and restart it, so it saves and applies the settings

13. At this point please log back in to test using these settings

If there is no change and if you previously installed the game using the "Play Instantly' option for Mac then uninstall Happy Cloud and then the game and reinstall but using the 'all at once' Mac download instead.

Update 17 special Information

Note that this sections reflects El Capitan 10.11.x and LOTRO 17.0

• Note that as of Update 18 (Far Anórien) 14 April 2016, this issue has been mitigated, but not completely resolved.

Update 17 has seen some significant graphics issues in the new areas of Minas Tirith and Old Anórien in particular.

These manefest themselves in a "constant" crash to the desktop -- about every 15 minutes!

During the recent stress tests dialog with Turbine support has come up with one series of steps to mitigate the problem.

• The "Fix" primarily involves setting all graphics options to LOW.

NOTE HOWEVER: This does NOT completely fix the problem, it only extends the time between crashes from 15 minutes to 45.

Start out by resetting the Graphics options as above.