LOTRO on VMware Fusion
I've hardly played Lord of the Rings Online at all the last six months and not at all the last three.
My only copy of Windows is a VMware Fusion instance and LOTRO doesn't work on VMware Fusion. That is...until now.
I was excited to hear that the new VMware Fusion 2.0 beta 1 supported pixel shaders in DirectX 9 and I wondered if that meant LOTRO would work. I downloaded the beta, which JUST WORKED with my existing VM (which wasn't even shut down). I spent an hour or so updating LOTRO but my first attempt to start the game failed.
The error message was different, though. Instead of being about the graphics adapter it was a complaint about a Game Error 127. A Google search revealed this post and so I tried making the config change they suggested there.
And BINGO! I can now run Lord of the Rings Online on VMware Fusion!
I haven't tweaked the settings yet to see if it's playable but I'm hopeful.
VMware, you are amazing!
UPDATE: I played LOTRO for a little bit tonight. I had to turn sound off as it was too jittery. Graphics were fine, though, on Low detail and low resolution. The mouse look problem mentioned in the comments was easily fixed by just going to options and changing the mouse look sensitivity.
Comments (8)
Ryan on May 6, 2008:
From all the reviews I've seen, everything is completely unplayable.
john on May 7, 2008:
Does your mouse work ok in game? my mouselook/steer is NUTS. It's fine in the UI, but unusable in game. Seems somethings very wrong with it still.
James Tauber on May 8, 2008:
I'm currently having trouble getting my VM image to start up at all so I haven't had a chance to try LOTRO since I first got it working.
Meghan on July 15, 2008:
I am running 10.4 and vmware fusion beta 2. I still get the Game Error[122] Screen when I attempt to play lotro. Did you do anything after you installed vmware fusion beta 2?
I am on a mbp with the x1600 gfx card.
Rob Cousins on Sept. 18, 2008:
I can confirm that LOTRO works perfectly fine under VMware Fusion V2!!
Plays very well on an iMac 2.4Ghz Core2Duo / 4GB / 256Gfx and
is possible (albeit slightly sluggish) on MacBook 2.0 Core2Duo / 2GB ram
No graphical issues as far as I can see!
Good job VM
Isamu on Sept. 22, 2008:
How did you fix the mouselook issue? My camera pan just goes nuts when used, making game pretty much unplayable.
Any help appreciated
Andreas on Oct. 12, 2008:
To fix the mouselook issue just go to remove the VMWare mouse driver (under system preferences -> mouse and pointing devices); Windows will install a "normal" mouse driver. This one will work just fine; the only bad thing about this solution is, that your mouse cursor will be locked in the vmware window unless you press ctrl-cmd...
Last Modified: May 6, 2008
Author: James Tauber
Paul on May 6, 2008:
That's fantastic news. I've just been searching on Google to see if anyone had tried it with the new beta and came upon this. How does it run? Is it playable?