Running Lotro in Wine vs Crossover: Performance

[Roland_Deschain]

I'm wondering if anyone can compare the performance of Lotro in Wine vs Crossover? Does Code Weaver make any effort to further optimize the Wine base code to run applications a bit faster? If you are questing or just doing landscape stuff, it's not going to matter but I'm thinking more about grouping situations.

I do raids and use the Combat Analysis plugin to show dps or healing strength. I've always wondered if my dps or healing strength is being affected by the use of Wine/Crossover vs Lotro running natively in windows. I would normally expect it to be a little bit (1-5%?) because of the time needed to translate Windows API calls to the Mac world. But perhaps this is offset by a Mac API that can do the actual work faster and better than the windows API?

[Tralfazz]

I'm wondering if anyone can compare the performance of Lotro in Wine vs Crossover? Does Code Weaver make any effort to further optimize the Wine base code to run applications a bit faster? If you are questing or just doing landscape stuff, it's not going to matter but I'm thinking more about grouping situations.

I do raids and use the Combat Analysis plugin to show dps or healing strength. I've always wondered if my dps or healing strength is being affected by the use of Wine/Crossover vs Lotro running natively in windows. I would normally expect it to be a little bit (1-5%?) because of the time needed to translate Windows API calls to the Mac world. But perhaps this is offset by a Mac API that can do the actual work faster and better than the windows API?

I see no difference between running LOTRO with WINE 7 under Mojave vs running LOTRO with Crossover 22 under Mojave or Ventura. Frame rates and other metrics seem to be identical when identical .ini files are being read for graphics options and whatnot.

With Crossover, you can use DirectX 11 instead of DirectX 9. More eye candy is available with DirectX 11 but the difference isn't very great, DirectX 9 is fine.

The big advantage to Crossover for LOTRO players is the ability to run the game under post-Mojave versions of MacOS. Because the LOTRO Launcher application is 32-bit (and possibly for some other reasons, hard to know because I can't determine them experimentally), LOTRO will not run using standard public builds of open-source WINE on an OS, such as any post-Mojave version of MacOS, which does not have 32-bit application support. (And just to note: WINE 6.17 and later will not run LOTRO in any pre-Mojave version of MacOS due to a bug introduced into WINE beginning with 6.17.)

The API conversion is extremely efficient. WINE Is Not an Emulator so it doesn't have all the overhead that an emulator has to support, including no need for a virtual CPU or maintaining a functional Windows environment. I don't have an Apple SOC Mac (i.e. a Mac with an M1 or M2 processor) but I have reports from those who do and they claim extremely good LOTRO performance even with Rosetta2 getting involved.

Can an actual Windows box with a lot of RAM and a CPU with top-end single-core performance and a very beefy GPU with a lot of VRAM produce better results than a similarly-priced Apple SOC Mac? Probably. But at the cost of having to deal with Windows. There's nothing wrong with Windows! But if there is a reason you are using a Mac then you probably don't want to use Windows. So is the potential improvement worth having a second computer, that runs Windows; or replacing your Mac with a Windows box, worth it? Probably not for most Mac users, certainly not for me. If gaming, playing lots of different games and always having access to the newest games the moment they are released, is important to you then a Windows box is probably a good investment. If you're like me and you use your computer for a lot of different things but gaming means mostly LOTRO, it's hard to justify the expense or the hassle. And I wouldn't bet the farm on the improvement in performance being very significant, or even noticeable. Sometimes, a difference that makes no difference is no difference: It's just a waste of money and time.

[Roland_Deschain]

I see no difference between running LOTRO with WINE 7 under Mojave vs running LOTRO with Crossover 22 under Mojave or Ventura. Frame rates and other metrics seem to be identical when identical .ini files are being read for graphics options and whatnot.

With Crossover, you can use DirectX 11 instead of DirectX 9. More eye candy is available with DirectX 11 but the difference isn't very great, DirectX 9 is fine.

...

Thanks for your comments and insight. So performance wise on MacOS Mohave, there's no clear advantage to using Crossover vs Wine for Lotro is my takeway. On a side note, one of the advantages of using a new Wine install is that the missing DirectX 9 files error windows no longer appear in the launcher. I was already using the 64-bit client with the Wine install that came with the Lotro Client. All you have to do is goto Minas Tirith to compare the stable 64-bit version vs the horrific experience with 32-bit. MT still lags with 64-bit, especially when you arrive on a stable horse when you first get there, but after that it's alright for the most part.Also, doing those battle scene quests on Pelennor Fields is a nightmare in 32-bit (it crashed many times for me before I went to 64-bit).

I have never owned a windoze computer and have no desire to in the future. Yes, I may miss out on playing new games but that's not a big issue for me.

I do want to move away from Mojave and upgrade to Monterey. Of course, I would need to get CrossOver to run Lotro and I guess that's my next big step. I'll probably create an APFS volume and install Monterey there to do my CrossOver install and testing. I will definitely use your installation threads to help me complete this next step. Maybe CodeWeavers will have a Black Friday sale on CrossOver licenses.