Best way forward for macOS High Sierra?

[Anaxapart]

OK, after any number of crashes and numerous other irritations using the 32-bit LOTRO version of Wine, and given the imminent demise of that system, I have decided to bite the bullet, follow Tralfazz's advice and install Crossover on my mac, which is running macOS High Sierra, v. 10.13.6 and cannot be updated any further.

Is there a relatively idiot-proof guide to the process as of now?

[Bothketbog]

OK, after any number of crashes and numerous other irritations using the 32-bit LOTRO version of Wine, and given the imminent demise of that system, I have decided to bite the bullet, follow Tralfazz's advice and install Crossover on my mac, which is running macOS High Sierra, v. 10.13.6 and cannot be updated any further.

Is there a relatively idiot-proof guide to the process as of now?

Tralfazz has posted a great guide on this forum. https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...ig-Sur-11-0-1.. Installing Crossover is the easy part. It's available with a trial run, too. Installing LotRO can take a while, depending on your internet speed. Good luck.

[Tralfazz]

Hi, Anaxapart!

You know I am a big fan of Crossover. It is both easier to use and more powerful than the open-source version of WINE.

However, in your case, I think you will be better off by using open-source WINE. If you are sticking with a Mac that can't be upgraded beyond MacOS High Sierra anyway, the latest version of open-source WINE will allow you to run the 64-bit LOTRO client perfectly fine. You will miss out on almost nothing relative to the quality of LOTRO play you'll get with Crossover and it won't cost you anything. Also, while the current version of Crossover is compatible with High Sierra, I expect that the next version to be released later this year will not be. So you won't get a lot out of your one-year subscription to Crossover should you pay for it. Although you can keep using the current version, forever, even after your subscription ends, you'll have to be careful to not allow Crossover to automatically update itself. So I think open-source WINE is a better choice in your case.

Another nice thing about using open-source WINE instead of Crossover is that you won't have to reinstall the game which, depending on your network speed, can save you quite a bit of time.

Follow the instructions here to install the latest version of open-source WINE on your Mac:
https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...pler-procedure
Notes for you:
–You have Part A complete already.
–In Part B Step 1 I state that you need to use Mojave. You can't use Mojave but you should run into no special trouble with High Sierra except a few warning notices about how the version of Homebrew or WINE you are installing might not be compatible. Those warnings will be seen because High Sierra is considered an "obsolete" end-of-life OS but you shouldn't experience any actual problems.

Also, it's important to know that installing the latest wine-stable is non-destructive. What I mean by that is, you will still be able to run the game just as you are now because the old version of WINE will still be on your Mac, too. You can run the game using the lotroclient application to run it in the old version of WINE, it will run just as it did yesterday. Or you can run the game following the instructions in the wine-stable installation thread. So you should have no fear about at least attempting the wine-stable install because even if it doesn't work it can't hurt your current ability to play the game.

If you decide to use Crossover, you will need to reinstall the game within Crossover. Installing Crossover, either the paid retail version or the trial, is trivial. And then to install LOTRO within Crossover, follow the instructions in Message #17 of this thread:
https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...Big-Sur-11-0-1
Notes for you:
–Because you have a known-good UserPreferences.ini file, you can skip Step 2.
–In Step 6, the game will start in whatever screen mode you used last. Be sure you have it set to FULL SCREEN (WINDOWED) before you beginning your Crossover and LOTRO installs.
–Similarly, you will be in FULL SCREEN (WINDOWED) already so you will skip Steps 7, 8, and 9 other than the part where you quit out of LOTRO.
–Again, because you have a good UserPreferences.ini file, replace Step 12 with the following:
1- Go to ~/Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online.
2- If there is a UserPreferences64.ini file, delete it.
3- Find the file UserPreferences.ini and DUPLICATE it. Duplicate it using the Finder, not some text editor or other method.
4- Rename the duplicate file UserPreferences64.ini and be sure it is in the same folder as the UserPreferences.ini file.

Come back to this thread if you want to talk through this more, or if you run into any issues with either the Hombrew and WINE 7 installation or the Crossover and LOTRO installation into Crossover.

edit: I suggest making a backup of your ~/Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online folder before beginning any new install. Specifically: Wait until today's maintenance is over, log into the game, go into OPTIONS->GRAPHICS and be sure you are running in Full Screen (Windowed) mode, then save any changes you made in OPTIONS->GRAPHICS then quit out of LOTRO completely. THEN make a backup of your ~/Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online folder. Making a backup is as easy as option-dragging the folder to your Desktop (that is, holding down the OPTION key while you drag the folder to the Desktop). If something goes ker-blooey you will be able to restore all your current settings without a fuss.

[Talttos]

Hi, Tralfazz!
Do you still recommend the open-source WINE instead of Crossover to play LOTRO on a High Sierra iMac?
I will have to switch to any one of those soon (since I guess using the old 32bit client will not last long)...
TY for your help!

P.S. I hope SS is finally paying you, mate! Otherwise tell us, LOTRO Mac users, and we'll start a crowfunding! ;-)

[Tralfazz]

Do you still recommend the open-source WINE instead of Crossover to play LOTRO on a High Sierra iMac?
I will have to switch to any one of those soon (since I guess using the old 32bit client will not last long)...

Unfortunately, there is a known bug in WINE 6.17 and later which prevents it from functioning properly with LOTRO in versions of MacOS earlier than 10.14 Mojave. And LOTRO includes 32-bit components so without a 32->64-bit conversion layer (which the public distributions of open-source WINE do not include) LOTRO won't work in any post-Mojave version of MacOS because post-Mojave versions of MacOS do not have support for 32-bit applications. Therefore, in order to use the current wine-stable (which last time I checked is WINE 7.0) to play LOTRO on a Mac, you must be booted into MacOS 10.14 Mojave – no earlier or later version will do.

I learned about this bug on 30 Aug 2022. Before I learned about it, it caused a lot of trouble for people who were trying to run LOTRO in WINE on 10.13 High Sierra: We couldn't figure out what was causing their problems until I learned about that bug. It was a huge time-waster for them and me, there is no "fix" or workaround to the bug and it still remains in the latest versions of open-source WINE.

Crossover will work with MacOS 10.13 High Sierra. It is not free but even beyond its ability to run LOTRO in High Sierra, it has other advantages over open-source WINE including the ability to allow most Macs to use DirectX 11 within LOTRO rather than only DirectX 9, and a much simpler install process.

I'm surprised that people are still able to use the 32-bit client. I am not able to do so, but I do know other people are – both Windows and Mac users have reported that to me. I don't know why I can't and they can, there must be some variable but I haven't isolated it yet. In any case, the 32-bit client is eventually going to stop working for everyone, a recent correspondence with SSG staff included the information that all work on the 32-bit client has ceased and it will be entirely removed as an option in the LOTRO Launcher application at some point.

[Tralfazz]

I have just learned about a version of WINE 7.0 that has been built without that bug which prevents LOTRO from working properly in versions of MacOS earlier than Mojave. I just tested it in my Mojave boot volume and it works. I have not tested it in High Sierra or any other version of MacOS, but since this was developed specifically to be identical to WINE 7.0 in every way except for the resolution of that bug, I suspect it will allow LOTRO to function normally in High Sierra as well.

To try it, follow my instructions in this thread:
https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...pler-procedure

When you get to Step D1, use this Terminal command instead:

brew install --cask --no-quarantine gcenx/wine/wine-stable-legacy

This will install WINE 7.0 but with the fix for that bug which is present in WINE 6.17 and later, rather than the "official" WINE 7.0 release.

Note that WINE 8.0 was just released yesterday and is expected to replace WINE 7.0 within the Brew wine-stable distribution. I expect this will happen soon but has not happened yet; the "brew install wine-stable" command will still install WINE 7.0, not WINE 8.0. I have not yet tested WINE 8.0 with LOTRO.