This poll idea was sent in off our Facebook page from William S. asking about the player type and the resolution they play in.
William writes:
I also (always) appreciate the high-res images used in the Guides, such as the reward/Barter items. I’ve only recently been able to play regularly in high-res, after roughly four years in LotRO. The difference in quality changes so much about a player’s ability to suspend disbelief and become immersed in the game.
I wonder how many of the (younger?) Free players are in low-res, and is an unconscious factor in the amount of their complaints.
It is probably possible that some are not aware there is a high-res LOTRO client. They downloaded to try it or downloaded from Steam and kept the download they had not giving much thought to other options. I know one reason is some player’s computers simply will not handle the high-res and not much can be done in that situation (well that doesn’t cost some cashola) so that’s completely understandable.
Feel free to leave a comment to expand upon why or perhaps how you play with the framework you do! We are considering “Medium Res” as anything between Low and High settings.
In what framework is the bulk of your gaming?
- VIP, high-res settings (43%, 435 Votes)
- Free/Premium, high-res settings (25%, 253 Votes)
- Free/Premium, medium-res settings (12%, 120 Votes)
- VIP, medium-res settings (10%, 101 Votes)
- Free/Premium, low-res settings (6%, 65 Votes)
- VIP, low-res settings (4%, 47 Votes)
Total Voters: 1,021
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August 25, 2012 at 9:35 am
I do most of my playing in the Very High mode, but I switch to low resolution for raiding and PvMP to reduce the strain on my poor old PC.
August 25, 2012 at 10:13 am
Free/Premium, low-res settings
I burned 1 graphic card playing lotro, from now on i just play in low to avoid that again, anyway i play to have fun, not to see good graphics.
August 25, 2012 at 10:56 am
For beta content I had to drop my settings down from very high as I could feel my pc getting hotter, the air is vented so as to keep my feet warm in winter. Also dropped the settings to reduce the visual lag when riding about.
For most mmo’s or games where I’m in a high population area I tend to knock things down a notch or two just to avoid any potential issues.
August 25, 2012 at 10:59 am
An interesting question! Most of the time I play on my laptop, which is quite old, so it can only run in low res, and still I can’t have anything else running at the same time or it grinds to a halt.
I also installed Lotro in high-res on the general family computer, and though I don’t have access to it all the time, I use that for special events when I want to be able to take good screenshots. Every time I switch back to Very High on DirectX 11 it takes my breath away.
August 25, 2012 at 12:01 pm
I believe I moved it up to medium about a week after I started playing… I did see a noticeable difference, but I can’t go too high or my laptop will start lagging
)
August 25, 2012 at 12:28 pm
VIP, and I run most content on max settings with a 1366 x 768 resolution. The only time I have to lower things is in the Moors where performance gets a bit jittery.
August 25, 2012 at 12:35 pm
I’m F2P, and I play on Very High. Had to turn down to Medium though during the first days of the recent Farmer’s Faire due to all the people. It simply got too laggy wwith the high-res settings.
August 25, 2012 at 1:32 pm
i play on the low rez client on max graphics most of the time but i have to turn it down almost all the way for raiding/pvp
August 25, 2012 at 1:55 pm
DX10 makes the game almost look 3D. Gorgeous.
I play in high rez widescreen mode almost all the time.
August 25, 2012 at 3:28 pm
Hi I play lotro at ftp, hi res at 1680 by 1080 first person view almost entirely. Only use 3rd person doing foundry and such
August 25, 2012 at 7:27 pm
My computer is being a poop lately, so I have to do Low Res if I want to do anything easily. Although, when my computer is being nice, I have my settings on more of a high, but some things slightly lowered or off because they annoy me (shadows mostly.)
August 25, 2012 at 7:35 pm
I switched to high res for my new computer and was amazed at the difference in visual quality. I havent had a problem until Dunland region where there is a stuttering sometimes. Will tweak about with the resolution to find the best path.
August 25, 2012 at 8:27 pm
I Started Playing in 2007 with an on board video card farm9.staticflickr.com/8447/7860425404_e8d1a57549.jpg
Then I got a 512 mb card
farm9.staticflickr.com/8424/7860425648_38703e8339.jpg
and now I have a new PC, video card, and monitor
farm9.staticflickr.com/8305/7860500510_8d220544f7.jpg
have to say this game’s art even though 5 years old is still beautiful. ~ Bor_Jason
August 25, 2012 at 8:54 pm
I am VIP, and i’ve been playing medium/high unteil recently, where i bought a new PC, and now i have every setting set on max, on full resolution, and it’s litterally a new game i am discovering. The water, the trees, the shadows… i’ve been playing the game since the first beta, and i’m still in awe, and discovering new little things, thanks to the high-end graphics. Kudos to Turbine designers o/
August 26, 2012 at 4:06 am
For me it’s quite simple. I have an old PC so I’m using low quality. Only when I take a special screenshot in which no movement is required, I’ll change the settings to high, take the screenshots and change back to the low settings. I am a “free” player. On each account I have I will take only one month of subscription (one account per month) because I simply cannot pay for more at the moment (hence also the low settings on my PC). No, I’m not a youngster (35, going on 36 coming Friday) but my current job simply doesn’t pay enough to be able to save for a high end PC when we have more urgent things to pay for (like a new kitchen cause several hardware is a few decades old
)
From high resolution screenshots of others I new what was possible in the game, so I’m definitely looking forward to be able to use the high end settings, but I chose to play Lotro for the world and the story itself. The quality of the images were an added bonus.
August 26, 2012 at 10:02 am
This article made me revisit whether I was using the high-res client or had mistakenly been playing with the standard client. (thru the years I had installed numerous clients as I made new accts, some std, some high before I understood that when creating new accts you didnt have to reinstall the whole dang thing again, doh)
The reason for this question is that I revisited Enedwaith, one of my favorite regions for its beauty and the play of the cloud shadows on the waving purplish grasses and was depressed to see that it had become a drab, brown static looking wasteland, nothing like what I remembered or my in game pics reflected.
My qstn is: how does one find out if they are playing the high res client or not, I see some of my graphics are able to play Ultra-high, but others are only available at high and the hover text says to play higher you need to have the textures loaded.
The forums threads are confusing.
August 26, 2012 at 10:30 am
If you have the Ultra High option in your graphics tab, then you have the Hi-res client. It sounds to me like you already have the hi-rez client.
August 26, 2012 at 3:51 pm
The hi-res client only affects the textures. I have the normal client (fixing that now) and I could still set my graphics to ultra high. The difference is that on the advanced page, there is the extra option to set texture detail to Very High instead of just High. Linking an example of the difference: http://horavens.guildlaunch.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8004224
August 27, 2012 at 9:05 am
erm, see what I mean by confusing? If I were to uninstall the client, would I lose my add ons like songbook? redo my keybindings etc?
August 27, 2012 at 9:41 am
ok, here is what I learned. CJ you are absolutely correct, if you are using the high res client, the only way you can tell is if under advanced it has that option for texture detail setting ‘very high’.
my problem was in using a bookmarked shortcut that accessed the standard res setup (my fault for having several clients). I knew i had the high res files downloaded but my client wasnt using them. I went into the correct folder having the files, and used the launcher from there, shortcut it to my desktop and deleted the other shortcuts. One day I’ll clean up my files and folders.
August 27, 2012 at 2:10 pm
Add-ons are in your documents, so they are safe. All game settings are saved to your account online, also safe.
August 26, 2012 at 2:27 pm
Have installed it on two machines
1st I play about 99% of the time on me 3,5 year old Notebook… There I must play on medium..
2nd I have installed it on my very fast computer in my room and I am very sad that I have not these ultra high graphics on my notebook =(.. but I do not want to play alone in my room… prem + med graphics
August 26, 2012 at 8:16 pm
I’m premium, have been since f2p launch, and been buying things on the sales mostly with earned points. And buying the half priced legendary edition of RoI unlocked the rest for me. My computer is about six years old, tower. And I’ve upgraded it since purchase and it runs hi-res no problems, though i lack the ram to run anything higher than DX9.
August 26, 2012 at 10:18 pm
I play as VIP on high res, but I just wanted to add that I recently tried playing with a nice gamIng headset and that’s made a huge difference too! The immersion you get from the different sounds in game is amazing. For the first time I was able to hear the different textures of the footsteps and all the ambient noises. Really pretty amazing and worth a try!
August 27, 2012 at 9:03 am
Would love to try that, thanks for the tip.
August 27, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Last fall my computer was starting to give out and was no longer able to handle high settings or play without lag. I couldn’t do any group content above 3 mans because my computer would just freeze up. I played a lot less during that period and got to the point of almost playing not at all until I was finally able to get a nice new computer around Christmas.
I’m a lifetimer though so I at least have the luxury of being able to come and go as I please as a VIP.
August 27, 2012 at 7:19 pm
I’m F2P but I have a great, relatively newish gaming computer. I play with most stuff set to High. Give me eye candyyyyy!!
August 29, 2012 at 10:44 pm
it was a toss up between vip med and low rez. but as soon as all the parts for my first new compy in 8 years shows up, it’s vip hi rez for ever!
August 31, 2012 at 11:14 am
Just had my VIP lapse but i am always in Ultra settings