Mac/Crossover Issues (Abby Nicole: Continued....)

[coffeedog]

Go back to the 64-bit client.

Have you tried setting ObjectDrawDistance=Medium and BlobShadows=False?

I've never noticed TurboBoostSwitcher fail to make the switch when manually set to do so. You can run this command in the Terminal:

top -F -n0 -s3 | grep "CPU usage"

Do it first while you're just running your web browser and Crossover, then launch LOTRO (enter a game world with a character) and look at the Terminal window. You should certainly see the metrics jump up once the game is running but CPU usage should not go over 100% with TurboBoostSwitcher set to disable the Turbo Boost of your CPU. Don't run that Terminal process for very long, it is very resource-intensive itself – just get your metrics for no-LOTRO with and without Turbo Boost disabled, then with-LOTRO with and without Turbo Boost disabled, then close the Terminal window to quit the "top" process.

edit: Just FYI, here's a dump of my top process going from running about 10 applications including Crossover, then launching LOTRO, entering a game world, then logging out and quitting LOTRO. This is from a 2019 3.6GHz quad-core Intel iMac whose CPU has no Turbo Boost capability.

Last login: Mon Aug 22 12:07:31 on ttys000
JohnMHammer@JMHs-iMac ~ % top -F -n0 -s3 | grep "CPU usage"
CPU usage: 4.47% user, 22.38% sys, 73.13% idle 
CPU usage: 2.5% user, 3.4% sys, 94.89% idle 
CPU usage: 0.73% user, 2.38% sys, 96.87% idle 
CPU usage: 4.44% user, 3.4% sys, 92.51% idle 
CPU usage: 6.60% user, 4.37% sys, 89.2% idle 
CPU usage: 24.61% user, 18.94% sys, 56.43% idle 
CPU usage: 16.36% user, 9.12% sys, 74.50% idle 
CPU usage: 15.77% user, 5.75% sys, 78.47% idle 
CPU usage: 16.95% user, 3.62% sys, 79.42% idle 
CPU usage: 0.82% user, 1.32% sys, 97.85% idle 
CPU usage: 0.90% user, 1.56% sys, 97.53% idle 
CPU usage: 1.6% user, 1.81% sys, 97.11% idle 
CPU usage: 2.55% user, 3.70% sys, 93.74% idle 
CPU usage: 1.31% user, 1.64% sys, 97.3% idle 
CPU usage: 9.62% user, 4.19% sys, 86.18% idle 
CPU usage: 5.34% user, 2.38% sys, 92.26% idle 
CPU usage: 3.4% user, 2.55% sys, 94.39% idle 
CPU usage: 2.38% user, 2.30% sys, 95.30% idle 
CPU usage: 2.38% user, 2.38% sys, 95.22% idle 
CPU usage: 1.48% user, 1.80% sys, 96.71% idle 
CPU usage: 2.30% user, 2.13% sys, 95.55% idle 
CPU usage: 2.46% user, 2.38% sys, 95.14% idle 
CPU usage: 5.43% user, 5.93% sys, 88.63% idle 
CPU usage: 43.99% user, 8.55% sys, 47.45% idle 
CPU usage: 47.4% user, 21.51% sys, 31.44% idle 
CPU usage: 7.46% user, 5.41% sys, 87.12% idle 
CPU usage: 10.4% user, 7.65% sys, 82.30% idle 
CPU usage: 4.61% user, 7.41% sys, 87.97% idle 
CPU usage: 5.9% user, 7.39% sys, 87.51% idle 
CPU usage: 4.53% user, 7.74% sys, 87.72% idle 
CPU usage: 12.24% user, 12.24% sys, 75.51% idle 
CPU usage: 7.88% user, 7.80% sys, 84.30% idle 
CPU usage: 11.53% user, 10.21% sys, 78.25% idle 
CPU usage: 67.2% user, 12.30% sys, 20.67% idle 
CPU usage: 38.68% user, 8.55% sys, 52.75% idle 
CPU usage: 16.85% user, 9.78% sys, 73.35% idle 
CPU usage: 6.23% user, 7.22% sys, 86.53% idle 
CPU usage: 10.86% user, 8.47% sys, 80.65% idle 
CPU usage: 24.97% user, 10.27% sys, 64.74% idle 
CPU usage: 21.58% user, 9.71% sys, 68.69% idle 
CPU usage: 9.20% user, 7.39% sys, 83.40% idle 
CPU usage: 4.43% user, 7.64% sys, 87.92% idle 
CPU usage: 9.79% user, 8.55% sys, 81.64% idle 
CPU usage: 23.99% user, 7.97% sys, 68.3% idle 
CPU usage: 26.66% user, 7.98% sys, 65.34% idle 
CPU usage: 38.89% user, 9.29% sys, 51.80% idle 
CPU usage: 26.33% user, 9.30% sys, 64.36% idle 
CPU usage: 16.44% user, 8.79% sys, 74.75% idle 
CPU usage: 31.2% user, 6.58% sys, 62.38% idle 
CPU usage: 30.27% user, 8.44% sys, 61.27% idle 
CPU usage: 26.27% user, 8.64% sys, 65.7% idle 
CPU usage: 21.16% user, 8.81% sys, 70.1% idle 
CPU usage: 17.96% user, 7.95% sys, 74.7% idle 
CPU usage: 24.38% user, 9.44% sys, 66.17% idle 
CPU usage: 20.82% user, 7.57% sys, 71.60% idle 
CPU usage: 16.80% user, 6.75% sys, 76.44% idle 
CPU usage: 16.91% user, 6.73% sys, 76.35% idle 
CPU usage: 22.28% user, 7.40% sys, 70.31% idle 
CPU usage: 22.28% user, 8.63% sys, 69.7% idle 
CPU usage: 8.79% user, 7.64% sys, 83.56% idle 
CPU usage: 8.4% user, 7.38% sys, 84.56% idle 
CPU usage: 10.93% user, 9.4% sys, 80.1% idle 
CPU usage: 14.50% user, 8.57% sys, 76.91% idle 
CPU usage: 5.43% user, 3.62% sys, 90.94% idle 
CPU usage: 6.33% user, 3.45% sys, 90.20% idle

You might also want to set TurboBoostSwitcher to sample its data only once every 10 seconds, that should be plenty good enough and will reduce its demands on your system resources a bit. You can set it to something more frequent like once every 1 second when you're actively testing something but for general use a 10-second sample interval is more than good enough especially since you won't pay any attention to that information at all once you're satisfied with your Mac's performance with LOTRO and other things.

Okay, I set it back to 64-bit and ran the "top" command. (I had already changed to ObjectDrawDistance=Medium and BlobShadows=False, as well as Brightness, Control, & Gamma to 1.0, and Texture Filtering to Anisotropic, per your previous post.)

I let it run without LOTRO going, both with and without Turbo Boost enabled; then started LOTRO with Turbo Boost enabled, got into the world and then disabled Turbo Boost. It's kind of hard to make exact comparisons with all those numbers flying around, but basically I didn't see anything approaching 100% CPU usage. The highest I saw was a blip of around 50% "user", around the time I made the last switch to disable TB while in game. I've yet to see "user" + "system" add up to anything higher than about 65%, which agrees with the grand total Turbo Boost Switcher has been showing me.

FWIW, Turbo Boost Switcher won't let me set the refresh rate to anything below 4s. I've set it to 10s for now.

If you'd like to see a dump of my top process, just tell me how to pipe it to a file. I'd guess it's something like [command] > filename, but it's been a long time and I'm hesitant to go about improvising in Terminal.

I do still have the old "Mac" client, so I've switched back to 32-bit and started it up. It's downloading files (I guess there were updates since I switched to Crossover?) but I'll try it next.

[coffeedog]

Were you using this Mac to play LOTRO using SSG's "Mac" client? (I put "Mac" in quotation marks here because it isn't really a Mac-native client, it's just the Windows version of the game packaged with a very old version of WINE. It's not significantly different than the version of LOTRO you're running in Crossover except Crossover is the very best version of WINE you can run instead of the open-source version from several years ago – but the LOTRO program itself and all its components are exactly the same.)

If so, do you still have SSG's "Mac" client installed on this Mac?

If so, try running that version of the game. Before you do so, you must set your UserPreferences.ini file so that the 32-bit client will be launched because SSG's "Mac" client cannot run the 64-bit client. To do so, change this one line in your UserPreferences.ini file:
GameClientType=1

If you do still have SSG's "Mac" client on that machine I'll be very curious to learn if you experience the same overheating issues. You should experience pretty much the same performance as using the 32-bit client in Crossover, the only difference should be some warnings from the LOTRO Launcher application about missing stuff that you can't easily do anything about because the WINE bottle packaged with that version of the game just doesn't have that stuff; but the game should run.

If you can try this, when done remember to set GameClientType=3 in your UserPreferences.ini file to go back to the 64-bit client for use with Crossover.

Obviously I don't know what your financial resources might be and what you are comfortable investing in hardware just for the sake of playing a game. However, I will point out that you can get an M1 Mac Mini from the Apple Refurbished store (i.e. cheaper than new but literally as good as new) for as little as $589:
https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/F...f6f80db7706dbc
Yes, it has only 8gb of RAM but there are plenty of people running LOTRO on M1 Macs with only 8gb of RAM and none are experiencing issues, Apple SOC Macs use their integrated RAM differently than Intel Macs. Yes, it has only 256gb of internal SSD storage but all you need is room for the OS, Crossover, and LOTRO (and whatever couple of other things you want to use on it) so as long as you don't need to keep your movie library or lifetime of photos on that machine's internal drive, it will be fine for your purposes. And of course, you could run both machines side-by-side and just plug in your keyboard and monitor and whatnot to the machine you want to use at that moment, allowing you to keep using the 2014 Mini for whatever non-LOTRO tasks it is performing for you. And naturally you can store as much non-OS data as you want using external drives.

(Note that newer is better and more is better and better is better, if you can afford a model with 16gb RAM and a larger SSD, go for it.)

I think you can play LOTRO on your current Mac. I don't think it will ever be an optimal, or thermally cool, experience. You might not have known it at the time you made your purchase, perhaps this is the first time you are hearing it, but the 2014 Mac Mini was a stinker. Sure, it was – and still is – fine for "general computing tasks" such as web browsing, office applications, very light photo editing, managing a music library, watching YouTube or iTunes movies, and all sorts of other things. But in nearly every respect it was a step down from the 2012 Mac Mini, which could be configured with a quad-core CPU and has user-servicable RAM instead of soldered RAM and other things which continue to make it a better choice than a 2014 Mac Mini even today in 2022. Sorry, I don't like ragging on somebody's hardware because sometimes it's all they can afford and there's nothing wrong with that and sometimes they have an emotional attachment to the machine or their decision to purchase that specific machine. But you have one of the few Mac models made in the last 11 years which are just terrible for playing something like LOTRO due to their design limitations, and the amount of RAM and the spinning-platter hard drive installed in yours allow that machine to function at its worst. So until and unless you move to some other hardware (and I totally understand if you either can't or just don't want to), use TurboBoostSwitcher to keep your Turbo Boost disabled and try to not worry about the temps if you aren't relying on your 2014 Mini for any critical tasks – just enjoy the game.

I had to laugh at your last paragraph. Yes, I did know that buying the Mini was a risk, but I didn't know it was as bad as all that (getting Windows ME flashbacks here, lol.) I would much preferred to have gotten an iMac, but this was for my parents. Their old WinXP PC finally bit the dust and I was not up to trying to deal with Windows again after (mostly) enjoying my MacBook. And since I'm considered the IT person in the family... (*waits for laughter to subside*)... I was able to talk them into the cheapest possible Mac, since they do so little with it anyway. The budget is effectively very tight indeed for such things, since I'm dependent on them d/t illness. Yes, it's 'just a game', but to many of us it's an important coping mechanism.

I really can't complain as long as the game runs well enough on the Mini, which it mostly has. I'd just like it to do so without dramatically shortening the lifespan of the computer. If that turns out not to be possible, I will definitely take a hard look at your suggestions for an upgrade. (We've been wary of refurbs in the past and have always sprung for AppleCare.) Heck, may as well start looking now, since Christmas isn't that far away... and a girl can dream. And I suppose there's always Windows to go back to if it comes to that. *shudder* (ETA: I really appreciate your non-judgmentalness on this, btw!)

Okay, I'm running the old "Mac" client (32-bit) now and at first it definitely seemed cooler, but then it did jump up to 203 F. (This is with Turbo Boost disabled.) Now I'm wondering if it was getting too hot all along, and I just didn't notice. Again, my "get nervous" threshold using smcFanControl was 172 F, but when I turned it on just now it showed 165 F while TBS was still showing ~ 200 F. A reading of 165 would not really have gotten my attention in the past, so... idk. Just ran the top command for a minute, and it showed about 65% total CPU usage, max.

[Tralfazz]

was able to talk them into the cheapest possible Mac, since they do so little with it anyway. The budget is effectively very tight indeed for such things, since I'm dependent on them d/t illness. Yes, it's 'just a game', but to many of us it's an important coping mechanism.

For web browsing, video conferencing, writing a journal, keeping a budget on a spreadsheet, etc. the 2014 Mac Mini was a fine choice even if it was the least expensive Mac you could find. You didn't make a mistake. And for sure, I completely understand the value people put on a game, especially a game with social elements. My comment above just meant that only you can decide what it's worth to you to have the kind of experience you want to have with a game – any game, even LOTRO. I love LOTRO, too!

I really can't complain as long as the game runs well enough on the Mini, which it mostly has. I'd just like it to do so without dramatically shortening the lifespan of the computer.

If your Mac is running well enough for you, and running LOTRO well enough for you, that's really all that matters. Due to the age and low specs of your 2014 Mac Mini, I wouldn't worry too much about shortening its lifespan. Disable Turbo Boost, leave it off all the time, and otherwise just use the thing. Don't think about the temps or the fans, stop looking at the metrics, just use it and enjoy.

I strongly recommend completely uninstalling smcFanControl. It's probably fine to run it in parallel with TurboBoostSwitcher but I don't know 100% for sure that they aren't getting in each other's way and certainly there is no point to getting metrics from smcFanControl when TurboBoostSwitcher provides the same (but probably more accurate) information. More importantly, running just TurboBoostSwitcher means fewer clock cycles being eaten by utility programs. And you really should let your Mac choose its own fan speed, they tend to be better at it than third-party applications or the people sitting in front of their screens.

Okay, I'm running the old "Mac" client (32-bit) now and at first it definitely seemed cooler, but then it did jump up to 203 F. (This is with Turbo Boost disabled.) Now I'm wondering if it was getting too hot all along, and I just didn't notice. Again, my "get nervous" threshold using smcFanControl was 172 F, but when I turned it on just now it showed 165 F while TBS was still showing ~ 200 F. A reading of 165 would not really have gotten my attention in the past, so... idk. Just ran the top command for a minute, and it showed about 65% total CPU usage, max.

Again, get rid of smcFanControl. And stop looking at the numbers or worrying about fan speed. Just use the computer for whatever you and your parents have been using it for, and enjoy playing LOTRO with it.

If that turns out not to be possible, I will definitely take a hard look at your suggestions for an upgrade. (We've been wary of refurbs in the past and have always sprung for AppleCare.) Heck, may as well start looking now, since Christmas isn't that far away... and a girl can dream. And I suppose there's always Windows to go back to if it comes to that. *shudder* (ETA: I really appreciate your non-judgmentalness on this, btw!)

I think there are lots of good reasons to avoid Windows as long as a Mac will do everything you need for it to do. Especially if it's being used by non-techy parental units. And even more so if you just happen to prefer MacOS – I do. I have nothing against Windows and if you're buying a box exclusively or mainly for gaming and can deal with the techy stuff, a Windows box is better. Otherwise I find that most people who aren't already completely won over to Microsoft have better overall experiences with MacOS than Windows.

Let me show you the iMac I use most days for playing LOTRO and which I'm typing on right now, the exact sales entry from which I made my purchase 2 years ago:
https://eshop.macsales.com/configure...ABR1J67XX210GI
This is a 2019 21.5" iMac. 3.6GHz quad-core Intel i3 CPU, no Turbo Boost. Always totally silent, never gets hot (unless you know exactly where under the back case the CPU is, then if you put your thumb on that spot it does get warm sometimes.) It has a gorgeous 4k screen, camera, microphone, speakers (although I use external speakers). 32gb RAM, 2tb SSD, a discrete graphics card instead of integrated graphics (very important and not just for gaming) with 2gb of VRAM. This is a low-end Mac which I did not buy as a "gaming computer" but which runs LOTRO great and handles the couple of other games I have tried with it very well, too. I need the large storage capacity of the 2tb SSD for work. While I could get by with 16gb of RAM I sure love having the 32gb and it wasn't much more expensive so I sprang for it. Specced exactly as I bought it, the current price at Other World Computing (MacSales.com) is $1050. That's not chump change but it's pretty inexpensive for a Mac which is going to keep getting OS upgrades for at least 2 more years (in addition to this year) and possibly longer. Spec it down to 16gb of RAM and a 1tb SSD and you still have plenty of "leg room" for both running programs and for storage and the price drops to $829. If you really don't need the storage you can drop down to a 250gb SSD (you should keep the 16gb of RAM as a minimum) and the price goes down to $669!! (The 250gb SSD is the Apple original so while it's small it's actually faster than the larger after-market 1tb and 2tb SSDs – not that you'll notice the difference for the type of tasks you do, but the Apple SSDs are very fast.) Remember that you can always add more storage with an external drive if you need it, for most people the internal drive just has to be big enough for the OS and the most essential non-Apple software.

This is an Apple refurb, the same as you'd get from Apple's own refurb store: It is as good as new, literally. It comes with the full new-from-Apple one-year hardware warranty and is eligible for AppleCare+ which you can add any time within 60 days of purchase if that's something you like to have for your peace of mind.

An Apple refurb isn't like a refurb from some retailer, even a big retailer. They are literally as good as new. There is no way to tell the difference between a new Mac from Apple and a refurb Mac from Apple with the same specs. And the OWC refurbs are Apple refurbs which is why they have the full one-year warranty and eligibility for AppleCare+. The only difference is that OWC will add RAM and internal storage options which are less expensive than Apple's (they get the refurbs from Apple and then do the Apple-authorized upgrades).

This certainly isn't your only option for the future. Both Apple and OWC have a bunch of Apple refurb models, good as new but less expensive than new. The new Apple SOC Macs (the ones with M1 and M2 chips) are amazing and not necessarily expensive as I pointed out in an earlier reply. And again, if you're satisfied with what you have please ignore everything I wrote here. I just thought you might like to be aware of some options – less expensive than new but literally as good as new from Apple – should you decide that you want and can afford a hardware upgrade.