Building PC for FM

Im thinking about upgrading my PC, and as seen as the only game I play on it is FM I figured I may as well tailor it for FM09 (and 10) and have a few questions;

Does FM properly utilise all 4 cores of a quadcore processor, or does it only really use the 2?

Will having 8gig of ram (ddr2 1066) make much of a difference in FM over 4gig?

I'm a bit of a stickler for detail and like to have as many leagues on and running with as many players as possible. How many do you reckon I can run with a Core2 quad @ 3.2ghz and 8 gig of ram without it grinding to a halt? Would be good if someone from SI could give an insight.

Im thinking about upgrading my PC, and as seen as the only game I play on it is FM I figured I may as well tailor it for FM09 (and 10) and have a few questions;

Does FM properly utilise all 4 cores of a quadcore processor, or does it only really use the 2?

Will having 8gig of ram (ddr2 1066) make much of a difference in FM over 4gig?

I'm a bit of a stickler for detail and like to have as many leagues on and running with as many players as possible. How many do you reckon I can run with a Core2 quad @ 3.2ghz and 8 gig of ram without it grinding to a halt? Would be good if someone from SI could give an insight.

In my experience, it doesn't even use 2 cores properly, let alone 4. My single core laptop runs FM09 way faster than my dual core PC. FM07 and FM08, however, run correctly on my PC - much, much faster.

Recently purchased a new laptop with 4gb DDR3 and it's running pretty smoothly on this. Didn't think it would run this well on a 2ghz.

I'm pretty sure fm is only a 32bit game, so 8gb would be a waste of time, I also remember seeing someone ask about fm10 becoming compatible with 64bit with no official word, which is a little weird as it would run way better on a 64bit system with the extra ram, so 8gb is some what over kill and a waste of time on a 32bit system as it wouldn't see all of it.

Im thinking about upgrading my PC, and as seen as the only game I play on it is FM I figured I may as well tailor it for FM09 (and 10) and have a few questions;

Does FM properly utilise all 4 cores of a quadcore processor, or does it only really use the 2?

Will having 8gig of ram (ddr2 1066) make much of a difference in FM over 4gig?

I'm a bit of a stickler for detail and like to have as many leagues on and running with as many players as possible. How many do you reckon I can run with a Core2 quad @ 3.2ghz and 8 gig of ram without it grinding to a halt? Would be good if someone from SI could give an insight.

You need to make sure you do not fall into the trap of thinking bigger = faster.

2GB of ddr2 1066 RAM spread across four sticks of RAM will transfer that data significantly faster than 2GB of RAM on a single stick or 8 GB of RAM on four sticks, because that 2GB is being split up and transfered across all four channels while the other options transfer 2GB through a single channel.

Likewise if FM09 only supports one core, or is poor with multi-core support, then 3 of you 4 Cores are going to be directly competing with FM09 for Front-Side-Bus data transfer rates, theoretically quartering your maximum processing speed for single processor applications under high Core loads.

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You have said you wish to tailor your PC to play FM09-10-11 with multiple active leagues and that is the only game you play. I will assume it is also the only high load/resource intensive application you regularly use, and so your major design task is to maximise the speed at which data is transferred and processed and stored. The alternative design choice is to maximise the quantity of data than can be handled at one time so that while FM is processing fixtures you can watch movies or play another computationally intensive game that requires minimal data transfer, such as a blockbuster game like Oblivion or Crysis.

Going with the first option, the critical necessity is to understand the component of your system that has the lowest maximum data-transfer rate, which is probably the Front-Side-Bus of the Northbridge of your Motherboard. There is however a new interface released for top end Quad Core Processors called Intel QuickPath Interconnect for Intel Chipsets that theoretically doubles the maximum data transfer rate of Intels previous maximum speed FSB. The Front-Side-Bus data transfer rate determines the speed at which data is passed between RAM, CPU, and GPU and is a critical component in a PC. Understanding exactly how fast a particular FSB operates at means you can then purchase CPU's and RAM that precisely match this transfer rate and then scale up the quantity of Cores and RAM Capacity as your needs demand, but always at a reduction of single application speed.

To maximise single application speed at lowest cash cost you want to minimise all resources used by other applications as much as possible, get the motherboard with the maximum FSB you can find, and then find the RAM with the lowest quantity of data held that makes maximum use of that FSB speed. You then want to find the fastest processor possible operating at that FSB speed.

In practice this is nigh-on impossible to achieve so what I would is consider investing in a top of the range quad core and top of the range motherboard so that you make use of the new high-data-rate interface system, then purchase the smallest individual quantities of the highest speed RAM that does not flood your Motherboards data-transfer-rate and make sure you use every available RAM slot. This way small quantities will be fired through at maximum rates, while high quantities of data will not sit idle in vastly expensive RAM modules doing nothing.

Make sure you also invest in a Hard Drive capable of matching these speeds, as two of the ironicly most common bottle-neck points in the average home computer are DVD-Drive read speeds and HDD read/write speeds.

Remember that for single applications, smaller+faster=better.

Hey do you think these spec will make FM run fast with all leagues running taking into account FM is the only thing i will be using the PC for. Lenovo ThinkCentre M58 Tower Core 2 Quad Q9400, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, DVDROM, Intel GMA 4500,

You need to make sure you do not fall into the trap of thinking bigger = faster.

2GB of ddr2 1066 RAM spread across four sticks of RAM will transfer that data significantly faster than 2GB of RAM on a single stick or 8 GB of RAM on four sticks, because that 2GB is being split up and transfered across all four channels while the other options transfer 2GB through a single channel.

Likewise if FM09 only supports one core, or is poor with multi-core support, then 3 of you 4 Cores are going to be directly competing with FM09 for Front-Side-Bus data transfer rates, theoretically quartering your maximum processing speed for single processor applications under high Core loads.

-----------

You have said you wish to tailor your PC to play FM09-10-11 with multiple active leagues and that is the only game you play. I will assume it is also the only high load/resource intensive application you regularly use, and so your major design task is to maximise the speed at which data is transferred and processed and stored. The alternative design choice is to maximise the quantity of data than can be handled at one time so that while FM is processing fixtures you can watch movies or play another computationally intensive game that requires minimal data transfer, such as a blockbuster game like Oblivion or Crysis.

Going with the first option, the critical necessity is to understand the component of your system that has the lowest maximum data-transfer rate, which is probably the Front-Side-Bus of the Northbridge of your Motherboard. There is however a new interface released for top end Quad Core Processors called Intel QuickPath Interconnect for Intel Chipsets that theoretically doubles the maximum data transfer rate of Intels previous maximum speed FSB. The Front-Side-Bus data transfer rate determines the speed at which data is passed between RAM, CPU, and GPU and is a critical component in a PC. Understanding exactly how fast a particular FSB operates at means you can then purchase CPU's and RAM that precisely match this transfer rate and then scale up the quantity of Cores and RAM Capacity as your needs demand, but always at a reduction of single application speed.

To maximise single application speed at lowest cash cost you want to minimise all resources used by other applications as much as possible, get the motherboard with the maximum FSB you can find, and then find the RAM with the lowest quantity of data held that makes maximum use of that FSB speed. You then want to find the fastest processor possible operating at that FSB speed.

In practice this is nigh-on impossible to achieve so what I would is consider investing in a top of the range quad core and top of the range motherboard so that you make use of the new high-data-rate interface system, then purchase the smallest individual quantities of the highest speed RAM that does not flood your Motherboards data-transfer-rate and make sure you use every available RAM slot. This way small quantities will be fired through at maximum rates, while high quantities of data will not sit idle in vastly expensive RAM modules doing nothing.

Make sure you also invest in a Hard Drive capable of matching these speeds, as two of the ironicly most common bottle-neck points in the average home computer are DVD-Drive read speeds and HDD read/write speeds.

Remember that for single applications, smaller+faster=better.

I have a dual core 4gb 3.01ghz processor and it runs very well for the leagues i am running. I am running only 7 leagues which is all I want, I could easily run 15-20 leagues if i wanted to.

Also am running large databse, no real slowness at all after 24 seasons of the saved game.

You need to make sure you do not fall into the trap of thinking bigger = faster.

2GB of ddr2 1066 RAM spread across four sticks of RAM will transfer that data significantly faster than 2GB of RAM on a single stick or 8 GB of RAM on four sticks, because that 2GB is being split up and transfered across all four channels while the other options transfer 2GB through a single channel.

Likewise if FM09 only supports one core, or is poor with multi-core support, then 3 of you 4 Cores are going to be directly competing with FM09 for Front-Side-Bus data transfer rates, theoretically quartering your maximum processing speed for single processor applications under high Core loads.

-----------

You have said you wish to tailor your PC to play FM09-10-11 with multiple active leagues and that is the only game you play. I will assume it is also the only high load/resource intensive application you regularly use, and so your major design task is to maximise the speed at which data is transferred and processed and stored. The alternative design choice is to maximise the quantity of data than can be handled at one time so that while FM is processing fixtures you can watch movies or play another computationally intensive game that requires minimal data transfer, such as a blockbuster game like Oblivion or Crysis.

Going with the first option, the critical necessity is to understand the component of your system that has the lowest maximum data-transfer rate, which is probably the Front-Side-Bus of the Northbridge of your Motherboard. There is however a new interface released for top end Quad Core Processors called Intel QuickPath Interconnect for Intel Chipsets that theoretically doubles the maximum data transfer rate of Intels previous maximum speed FSB. The Front-Side-Bus data transfer rate determines the speed at which data is passed between RAM, CPU, and GPU and is a critical component in a PC. Understanding exactly how fast a particular FSB operates at means you can then purchase CPU's and RAM that precisely match this transfer rate and then scale up the quantity of Cores and RAM Capacity as your needs demand, but always at a reduction of single application speed.

To maximise single application speed at lowest cash cost you want to minimise all resources used by other applications as much as possible, get the motherboard with the maximum FSB you can find, and then find the RAM with the lowest quantity of data held that makes maximum use of that FSB speed. You then want to find the fastest processor possible operating at that FSB speed.

In practice this is nigh-on impossible to achieve so what I would is consider investing in a top of the range quad core and top of the range motherboard so that you make use of the new high-data-rate interface system, then purchase the smallest individual quantities of the highest speed RAM that does not flood your Motherboards data-transfer-rate and make sure you use every available RAM slot. This way small quantities will be fired through at maximum rates, while high quantities of data will not sit idle in vastly expensive RAM modules doing nothing.

Make sure you also invest in a Hard Drive capable of matching these speeds, as two of the ironicly most common bottle-neck points in the average home computer are DVD-Drive read speeds and HDD read/write speeds.

Remember that for single applications, smaller+faster=better.

Nice answer, and I understand most of that. However, I think the intel QPI is only on the new Core i7 stuff, which is still a little out of my price zone. I was thinking of an AMD Phenom 2 Quad Core, 8gig DDR 3 (1600) ram and a decent AM3 motherboard.

It would be nice if someone from SI could comment on the 'Does FM properly utilise 8 gig of ram when using Vista/Windows 7 64bit and if it properly utilises all 4 cores however.