How to find the "right" new game settings for your PC

I've seen way too many threads asking "how many leagues can I run" or "is this PC good enough for <include dream here>". I'm assuming it has been like that in the past, and will continue to happen, so I thought I'd make this.

First of all, consider that what you consider "playable" is subjective. Some players multi-task while they wait, some don't. Some are patient, some are not. In other words, any advice you may possibly get will always be filtered by the personal view of the poster.

Bottom-line: you need to find out what's "playable" for you... by yourself.

Here's how.

1 - Load up Football Manager (whatever version it may be).

2 - Select all nations, all leagues, large database, and maximum detail.

3 - Look at your clock and take note of the time (or use a stopwatch, if you want to be anal).

4 - Start the new game, and wait until you gain control over the game, and take note of how much time it took to get there.

5 - Now save your game. Take note of how long it takes to save.

6 - Load that save game. Take note of how long it takes to load.

7 - Play a fast season (this means, don't worry about tactics, training, transfers, etc) and take note of how long it takes to process an average week.

8 - Now, consider those times you took note of... can double, if you play a long career save.

8a - Was it ok? Can you live with it? Great, then you just found out your PC can handle the worst case scenario. Your testing ends here. If not, keep reading.

8b - Not satisfied with the results? Too slow? The PC crashes after a couple of hours of processing? Then delete your save, and go back to Step 2 but, this time, select only half of the available leagues, and repeat the process.

9 - Keep halving the number of leagues whenever you feel unsatisfied, until you find a number that runs at an acceptable speed for you.

10 - When you find that "sweet spot", do one more run, but lower the database size to medium or small, and compensate any losses by using the "Load all players" option for the nations you want to scout/hire from.

That's it.

Now, let's assume you just realized your PC isn't really up to your ideal league selection, and you want to upgrade your PC so it performs better.

Consider 3 things: CPU (Processor), RAM (Memory) and HDD (Hard Drive).

1 - CPU - This is the one item that can always be improved, as new CPUs are being released every year. Quad-core is usually better than Dual-Core which is better than Single-core (in short, more cores the better). Speed in GHz is not directly comparable, however, the higher is usually better. Cache size is also very important, the more the merrier. When in doubt, look for benchmarks on CPU centered applications, like Adobe Photoshop, AVG, etc... it should give you a rought estimate on how much better a CPU is over another.

2 - RAM - Size matters here. Always consider that your OS (usually Windows) and resident programs (anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, etc) and Video Card (only for integrated graphics computers) need some memory, so don't stick to the absolute minimum recommended by SI. Have some breathing room, especially if you multi-task. If you have the choice, and the price is right, faster RAM is always a plus. RAM also evolves slower than CPUs, so if you get some now you probably won't need to upgrade it anytime soon (although you may add to it).

3 - HDD - Size doesn't matter here, although it's nice to have lots of room for p... stuff. The key here is speed, especially in laptops (as most of them have slow drives - for the sake of low temperature and battery life - and that will work as a tight bottleneck for the rest of the system). Like RAM, HDD technology evolves at a slow pace so it's not likely you'll upgrade it anytime soon if you already have a quality/fast HDD to begin with.

That's it.

I think I covered all the basics... but opinions and suggestions are welcome.

Thank you.

I would only add a couple of things. First dont pay any attention to your star rating as this system doesnt work properly yet and if your planning to run all leagues it will be low anyway. If you only have an average or low spec computer (say 2ghz processor and 2gb ram) I would suggest that you download something called gamebooster. This will temporarily stop all the stuff running in the background that windows loads on startup. If you want to use the 3d then I would suggest that you get a dedicated graphics card and not an onboard one that shares system memory.