A suspicion: do Macs throttle RNG vs. PC?

[Fordarb]

Bear with a non-tech savy player, but I wanted to share something I noticed transitioning from Mac to PC to play LOTRO.

I've played LOTRO on a Mac through Bootcamp or Crossover since '08. I only recently made the switch to PC this summer '22.

My hunch is that Mac was throttling RNG outcomes when I started DPS parse tests on the training dummy. Playing a yellow Warden, I was doing exactly the rotations I'd seen others doing on Youtube while having equal or better gear, traits, etc. I'd probably average DPS highest at 230K, but usually just scraping by at 205K.

Here's the interesting part, when I made the change to PC, same toon, gear, traits, rotations, etc, no change from the day before when I was playing on a Mac, my highest DPS was 279K and I average in the 240K range.

Since then I've also noticed I get more trophy drops and raid swag. By example, for YEARS I couldn't get one of the Dar Nubagud Orc Edlers heads to drop for the meta trophy (Flagit). I start playing PC and the ######## head drops for me on the first run helping out someone at level.

Just thought I'd share. I'm much happier playing PC now. I know there's a LOT of variables at play here, but the training dummy results after changing OS really stood out.

[Tralfazz]

Bear with a non-tech savy player, but I wanted to share something I noticed transitioning from Mac to PC to play LOTRO.

I've played LOTRO on a Mac through Bootcamp or Crossover since '08. I only recently made the switch to PC this summer '22.

My hunch is that Mac was throttling RNG outcomes when I started DPS parse tests on the training dummy. Playing a yellow Warden, I was doing exactly the rotations I'd seen others doing on Youtube while having equal or better gear, traits, etc. I'd probably average DPS highest at 230K, but usually just scraping by at 205K.

Here's the interesting part, when I made the change to PC, same toon, gear, traits, rotations, etc, no change from the day before when I was playing on a Mac, my highest DPS was 279K and I average in the 240K range.

Since then I've also noticed I get more trophy drops and raid swag. By example, for YEARS I couldn't get one of the Dar Nubagud Orc Edlers heads to drop for the meta trophy (Flagit). I start playing PC and the ######## head drops for me on the first run helping out someone at level.

Just thought I'd share. I'm much happier playing PC now. I know there's a LOT of variables at play here, but the training dummy results after changing OS really stood out.

All of the "RNG" happens on the server. All your client does is tell the server what skill you're using and when, the server reports to the client the results.

It is possible you went from a less-capable machine to a more capable machine. Higher frame rates, fewer dropped frames, and especially a better connection to the server (via a more stable wifi connection, perhaps) can all help your dummy parses to improve.

But no, the client is exactly the same whether you are running it on an actual PC using Windows OS or on an Intel Mac using Windows OS (which, for all intents and purposes, is a PC when you do that with Boot Camp) or on any Mac using MacOS with some version of WINE (such as Crossover) performing API call translations. The client doesn't do the "dice rolling" so even if there were a difference in the clients – which there isn't, they're the exact same client executable – that still would have no effect on randomly-generated results.

Random is random – the drops your character gets are not affected by the local environment in which the game client is operating and unless you are getting a good deal better performance out of your new computer vs your old computer there should be zero to negligible effect on your dummy parse DPS. Sometimes you roll snake eyes, sometimes you get 8 the hard way.

I'm glad you're enjoying LOTRO on your new computer!

[Fordarb]

What you describe would follow my experience WRT performance. My '22 Acer gaming laptop is quite a bit faster than my old '14 iMac. And my internet connections have always been good, I seem to have lucked out on the lag complaints. I do encounter the odd spike, but not the persistent problems some people seem to have, and that was on both systems.

[Roland_Deschain]

What you describe would follow my experience WRT performance. My '22 Acer gaming laptop is quite a bit faster than my old '14 iMac. And my internet connections have always been good, I seem to have lucked out on the lag complaints. I do encounter the odd spike, but not the persistent problems some people seem to have, and that was on both systems.

All you have to do to experience lag is to do missions. 99% of the time, trying to complete mission quests at the quest giver will give you a lag of 10 - 45 seconds. Or sometimes mobs will not spawn right away in missions and can take up to a minute to do so although this seems to occur more with the Delvings missions.

[auximenes]

I've seen some lag doing Missions but never "10-45 seconds". And the enemies not appearing immediately when you start a Mission is a 'feature', they won't appear until you move forward a bit from the start point; it's always been that way.

[Tralfazz]

I've seen some lag doing Missions but never "10-45 seconds".

That is very extreme but I have seen reports from other people that are similar. I've never experienced that myself. Roland, if that's your norm rather than something that has just happened a few times, try a full local network reset which often resolves these kinds of issues in LOTRO even if you're having no trouble with your network otherwise, even with other games. I can provide instructions if you need them.

Even though a local network reset often improves issues like this, that doesn't mean the fault is on your end. It's a result of some bad networking code at the server end and some weird bottlenecks that happen at the server farm used by SSG (which is also used by some very large NYC-area financial firms). I'm sure it happens most commonly on Arkenstone and Evernight (the two most populated servers).

And the enemies not appearing immediately when you start a Mission is a 'feature', they won't appear until you move forward a bit from the start point; it's always been that way.

Yes, but I've seen what Roland describes, too. Just today, I did "Attack on Cotfast" and gathered nearly all the supplies and opened most of the animal cages before a single mob spawned in. I was about to start a bug report when they all spawned in with me in the middle! Very exciting. Also very, very rare – I don't hear too many complaints about this and today was the first time I experienced it myself.

[StinkyGreene]

I had that exact thing happen in Colfast last week. No monsters until the last couple of cages.