FM2008 running slow - can anyone help

Okay, thanks for reading this thread first.

I've just bought FM 2008 - I had a copied game before (not good, I know) but the game ran so slow I thought it may be a bad copy - so I bought the game and it still seems really slow.

I run it on an Acer Travelmate 2500 - it's a bit old but has everything to meet the minimum spec - 2.8ghz, 512 ram etc.

A while ago my missus spilt some booze on it and then it went a bit funny - the enter button doesn't work and neither does the letter Q (I'm typing this from a different computer!) - the laptop still works fine though and we can go on the internet no problems.

I only have the top 3 leagues running from England, Spain and France and no other programs are running when I'm playing.

I've tried disk cleanups and disk fragmentation but nothing has improved it. Also, when I'm playing the fans on the laptop go on and off like the clappers!

So, I need two pieces of advice:

1. Please could anyone give me any advice about improving the running of the game - or does it sound like the laptop is just knackered?

2. I'm going to be getting a new laptop this summer - I only want a cheap one - one for playing fm, going on net and putting digital pictures on - can anyone recommend a good one for the above tasks?

Thanks for reading this.

Please help!!!

I don't have any answers, sorry - but I think a little patience would be advised. You want answers after nine minutes? On a Wednesday morning?

Your laptop has alcohol poisoning.

Bit seriously, getting a copied version of the game, that's bad.

I was given it by a mate - I know bad reason - but I'll always buy the full game from now on - and can anyone help with my two points???

Originally posted by The Rebel MC:

I was given it by a mate - I know bad reason - but I'll always buy the full game from now on - and can anyone help with my two points???

1. Hard to tell, how far into the computer did the booze get?

2. It depends on what your other requirements are. Does it need to be light, small and portable, or have quite a large display? How much are you prepared to spend?

2. We could help if you gave us a price range

I really only need something for net, fm and putting pics on - i don't really want to spend more than £300 - I'm on a budget

Reet - I was playing for a bit when I got in tonight and after an hour and a half my laptop just shut down - it didn't crash...it just turned off - the power pack was plugged in and no other programs were running - I hadn't saved my game (my fault I know!) - please see earlier posts for my problem and uestions...I do know the battery is knackered but it never usually shuts off for no reason - any help is much appreciated - thanks!!!

i think you dont have enough ram, i have fm 2006 and it churns and churns when i press continue i have a 1.8ghz processor 895mb ram and i run all the english leagues and serie a and the spanish league and thats it.

What is the best specs for running a good game on fm then??? What type of laptop should I get and how much would I be looking to pay???

the better your computer the faster it would run, if you cant spend much money eg £300 just run a few leagues.

I can go between 300 and 400 pounds - would that get me a proper laptop to run fm??? And by looking at my earlier posts does my current laptop seem knackered???

Originally posted by The Rebel MC:

Reet - I was playing for a bit when I got in tonight and after an hour and a half my laptop just shut down - it didn't crash...it just turned off - the power pack was plugged in and no other programs were running - I hadn't saved my game (my fault I know!) - please see earlier posts for my problem and uestions...I do know the battery is knackered but it never usually shuts off for no reason - any help is much appreciated - thanks!!!

sounds like its screwed for me i just got mine from pc world and pay £9 a month insurance as soon as mine breaks down they will either fix it or give me a new laptop.

You could try running a spyware and virus scan as maybe something is hogging the resources. If as you say your system only meets the minimum requirements then maybe your running too many leagues for it to handle so try reducing the amount of leagues to see if that makes a difference. Finally, since your computer has a booze problem perhaps you should take it to get looked at from a specialist.

I regularly do spyware runs and virus scans and nothing is picked up - also I don't wanna bother with getting this trash fixed cos I'm gonna get another laptop - surely 3 leagues running on the spoec mentioned in above posts shud be good enuff - any other help with uestions 1 and 2 still welcome cheers!!!

I regularly do spyware runs and virus scans and nothing is picked up - also I don't wanna bother with getting this trash fixed cos I'm gonna get another laptop - surely 3 leagues running on the spoec mentioned in above posts shud be good enuff - any other help with uestions 1 and 2 still welcome cheers!!!

Originally posted by The Rebel MC:

I can go between 300 and 400 pounds - would that get me a proper laptop to run fm??? And by looking at my earlier posts does my current laptop seem knackered???

If you want cheap have a look at the Dell Vostro range designed for small businesses. They're not great to look at and a bit heavy, but they give you decent performance and are quite cheap.

Originally posted by pelicanstuff:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by The Rebel MC:

I can go between 300 and 400 pounds - would that get me a proper laptop to run fm??? And by looking at my earlier posts does my current laptop seem knackered???

If you want cheap have a look at the Dell Vostro range designed for small businesses. They're not great to look at and a bit heavy, but they give you decent performance and are quite cheap. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Also - wait for a decent special offer to arrive, these are usually well advertised, and since it's a business-oriented laptop, the price shown may not always include VAT.

Might also turn off anti-virus, spyware while you are running the game if you dont already.

Press ctrl alt delete so it brings up windows task manager.

Go to process' at the top, then end all user process apart from tskmanager. Go back to 'applications' at the top < New task < Browse and find the FM application file in your sports interactive file.

Of course select it and run it.

Go back to the 'process' screen, find fm2008.exe, right click, see the 'set priority' and set it to high.

This will make it run much faster. It frees up memory and also spends more of the harddrive quota on FM, making it run faster.

Buy a desktop if you don't need a laptop. Far more bang for your buck and much less likely to overheat.

Thanks for the info so far - really helpful - unfortunately I can't get a desktop cos I don't have the space in the house - also the missus wants to be able to move the laptop around the house - currently we are wired but we are going to go wireless this summer - that's why I was asking about a new laptop!!!

Laptops are designed to run slower if they start overheating. This helps them cool down. Great for keeping your lappy working. Bad for running FM quickly.

Few tips:

Don't have the laptop on your lap or a sofa. Heat will find it hard to dissipate and it'll get hot quick. For best results a metal desk would be great.

Blow it out with compressed air from time to time.

Close down unneeded programs.

I've just looked at those Dell Vostro's and they look brilliant.

They seem really cheap - does anyone have an idea which one would be best for me:

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.asp...&cid=5186&lid=121454

(Is that how you put a link on - I'm a newbie and haven't done this before!!!)

Remember all I want to do is:

Play fm

Search the net

Use the broadband connection for PS3 and 360 gaming

Store digital photos

Again, if anyone can help taht would be brilliant!!!

Please help with the Dell Vostro advice if you can

Originally posted by The Rebel MC:

Please help with the Dell Vostro advice if you can

They're pretty much infinitely configurable. I would recommend the 1510, and would suggest a core 2 duo processor might be useful.

The best way to work out what you can get is by playing around with all the build options on the site. I did a little test and managed to configure a 1510 with 1.8 core 2 duo processor, 2GB RAM, for £351.33 including delivery and VAT, but there are a million different ways to configure them, so there's always a chance you'll find a better deal.

Also, have a look at the dell factory outlet to see if there is anything suitable there, it is a little difficult to use but there are sometimes bargains.

I found FM worked incredibly slow when I first played it and noticed my HD was working all the time, switched off avast scanning the HD and it worked much better. Of course this might not be your problem, but a virus program can seriously destroy the experience of playing FM!

Thanks for the info so far - I definitely like the look of the vostros - would the first one (the one for £169) be good enuff for the 4 tasks that I need a laptop for (please see posts above) if I can get away with the cheapest option then that's better for me - one of the it guys at work sed it wud be!!!

Originally posted by The Rebel MC:

Thanks for the info so far - I definitely like the look of the vostros - would the first one (the one for £169) be good enuff for the 4 tasks that I need a laptop for (please see posts above) if I can get away with the cheapest option then that's better for me - one of the it guys at work sed it wud be!!!

I reckon it could deal with it, although FM will not run at an amazing speed. It's your choice - there's a balance that has to be reached. The £169 will exclude VAT and shipping, I think, remember to factor that in. And check the dell outlet - they have a special offer on at the moment (£60 discount and free delivery)!

Example idems:

System identifier Z2VCACM8 : 298 pounds including VAT & delivery looks pretty good.

I've been in contact with Dell and when the vat, shipping and other stuff is included it goes above 300 pounds - does anybody know a cheap alternative for the tasks I need (see above posts) - I'm pretty skint at the mo so need to do this on a budget!!! Thanks everybody for the help so far!!!

last time i went to pc world about 1 year ago the cheapest laptop was £250. i dont know what the cheapest is now. if your really skint buy a reconditioned one look at the dell website for lots of reconditioned laptops.

First question is how much attention do you pay to the FM world? This has an impact on how many leagues you like to run. If you were happy with your 3 leagues then an upgrade really shouldn't be necessary except for maybe some new RAM.

I'm going to reiterate what everyone else said on the off chance you've browsed over it as being skint buying a new laptop in my opinion is unnecessary especially if you enjoy FM with 3 leagues:-

With you current system to speed it up:-

1. Turn detail level to minimum on any competitions you aren't playing in.

2. Turn off your antivirus (or add the relevant FM locations to your exclusions if you intend on surfing the net or avoid dodgy stuff if on FM and the web at the same time).

3. If you have a partitioned single physical drive then allocate the paging file to the partition you install programs to. Also make sure you have enough free space on the drive to accomodate the page file contiguously (all in one lump). Right click my computer > Properties > Advanced > Performance Settings > Advanced Tab and under Virtual Memory click change to see the Initial and Maximum size. Make sure you have more than this available. A good way to ensure this is to defrag your drive until you see a nice chunk of contiguous space available on the relevant drive (this might not be possible though, especially with XP defragmenter which isn't great). When you click on Analyze in disk defragmenter the green unmovable files are the pagefile.

4. Turn off the Disk Indexing Service (open my computer, right click the drive and untick 'Allow Indexing Service etc.). Let it do it's thing to completion. It might throw up some exception errors but just click the relevant button to continue (off the top of my head can't remember exactly which one but it'll make sense if it happens).

5. Open up Task Manager and see what if any processes you can turn off (any software stuff that isn't in use like iTunes, Quicktime, etc.). Google is useful to find out if it is safe to do this. Do this with FM open and see if something is consistently competing with FM. Anything untoward may point to a virus.

Improving your system for what you want:-

1. Digital photo storage. Depends on the camera you have and the size of the files it creates, as well as to what extent you intend storing. Reliability is the issue with files you intend to keep indefinitely and you'll find different people have different opinions. Me I find CDs/DVDs to be an issue with my laptop so I prefer an external hard drive. There's a good offer on amazon at the moment for a 500GB Western Digital for £60 (500 GB might be overkill for what you want but too much is better than too little, and at that price it is a very good deal).

2. Playing FM. Your processor should be more than capable of running a reasonably sized FM save game so your best bet is upgrading RAM. Different laptops mean different costs and possible configurations so do a little googling to find out the score.

3. Buy a replacement keyboard.

Just a sidenote that your fan going mental is not necessarily a bad sign as that is what they are designed to do. See Serpico's post on overheating. Also re your laptop shutting down: Does it only happen when playing FM or has it happened under a light load like surfing the net? Download Speedfan http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php and check the temp of your CPU when running FM. Do a google search of your CPU's operating temperature range to check if it is within the reasonable range.

Apologies for repeating what has been posted but given you say you are skint spending on a new laptop isn't a necessity in my opinion. Also it's worth noting that 'slow' is subjective. I'm running England BSS up (so 7 leagues total) on a 1.6 GHz Pentium M and 512 MB RAM (same as yours), set detail level to none and it runs ok for me. But ok for me might be painfully slow for someone else as if you find 3 leagues slow on comparable specs then my idea of ok may well be like waiting for hell to freeze over for you.

Thanks for the above post - loads of useful info, although some of it I don't understand to be honest...sorry I'm at a loss with anything above 'turn the switch on!' - I've started doing the thing where you set the detail level to high in task manager and that has definitely speeded things up, it's still not massively fast but I can cope with it...also, it hasn't shut off completely since that first time - I'll still be getting a new laptop tho cos this one is knackered and I want to go wireless broadband with Virgin, plus the missus wants a new one - but it will be a month or two till I save up - anybody know a reasonable priced laptop that would 'do' the four tasks I require - thanks!!!