LOTRO Game settings for noobs
Hi!
In the past week a lot of new players joined the game and many of them experiencing issues due to inexperience with either the game itself or with the digital world in general. Because of this I decided to make a complete noob guide showing what settings you may need to change for your computer and how/where you can find them.
NOTE: My settings aren't guaranteed to fit for your computer, you might need to experiment on what works for you! I'm just trying to give you a starting point.
The first step is changing your client to 64 bit if you haven't done already. My game experience moved up quite a bit when I switched and I recommend you doing the same. The 32 bit soon looses support anyway so that’s a good point too.
[Open the pictures in new tabs to see them properly]
The second step is the graphics everyone tells you about. There are 3 ways to access them, the first one is after logging in to your server. Above the “Enter Middle Earth” and “Quit” buttons you can see “Options”.
The second, probably easiest way is to press CTRL+O after entering Middle Earth. If you don’t feel confident/comfortable enough for using hotkeys, then you can check this picture for the third method:
On the next picture you can see some difference between the two "options" panel , which I only show you to not freak out if you chose the first method since I'm using the second panel in the tutorial.
[The green bar shows the difference, the red bar the ones we go through.]
Now to the actual graphics settings. Most people with weaker PC’s have better performance with DirectX9. I think the screen mode is mainly preference, so I ruled it as useful. Personally I like the windowed mode more in general, but also my game runs smoother like this.
I didn't want to upload so many pictures, so I edited the advanced graphics into one big pic. This is also the part where you might have to experiment and see what is good for your computer.
NOTE: If you unsure about something, move your mouse on the name of the setting. Usually it gives you a general description. See below:
And finally my favorite option in the game! Go to “Troubleshoot” and check the engine speed. After changing this setting my performance almost skyrocketed.
EXTRA: The last thing that helped me a lot with LOTRO was changing my browser. I don't know about you, but my browser is always open when I'm playing in case I need to look up something. Also because when doing repetitive quests I like to listen to either music or dumb stories on Youtube. I was using Chrome before for these purposes and I had a lot of issues because the two programs slowed down each other. That was until about seven months ago when I found out about Opera GX from one of the gaming channels I watch on Youtube. This is a free browser that was specifically made for gamers with the option to set up how much CPU and RAM you want your browser to use. I was overjoyed at the prospect and immediately jumped on it and I definitely don’t regret it! Not only the game became smoother, but I don't have to wait minutes for my browser to be search ready and I can have more than one page (usually 4 or 5) open without issues.
LAST NOTE: Check your task manager and make sure the only programs you have running are the ones you’re using at the moment and the ones that necessary for your computer to work.
Thanks to all these things I wrote down above, nowadays I only have to deal with the general issues of the game which means a lot less headaches than before. I hope I could help with this little guide and see you on Middle Earth!
