64bit/multicore cpu support?

hi,

i would like to know if fm2012 will support 64bit/multicore cpu systems? i hate to see the game lag after a couple of (ingame ) years and my cpu usage mostly doesn't exceed about 20 or 30 percent..

met vriendelijke groet,

louis

+1. Paradox Interactive was also known as snubbing multicore support, but when they put it in their Hearts of Iron 3 Game ( For the Motherland expansion ) The game just blazes through in my computer.

Multicore would make our long ingame years so much more enjoyable...

+1. Paradox Interactive was also known as snubbing multicore support, but when they put it in their Hearts of Iron 3 Game ( For the Motherland expansion ) The game just blazes through in my computer.

Paradox wasn't snubbing it to be fair to them. They created a new engine to run their games just before multicores started to come about and struggled to get it to work for multicores. Glad they have now and I hope FM 2012 is 64bit compliant as well.

Never checked myself, but are you sure FM doesn't support multiple cores? It chugged along on my Pentium 3.2 ghz but makes short work on my Athlon 3.0 ghz Quad Core. :confused:

Never checked myself, but are you sure FM doesn't support multiple cores? It chugged along on my Pentium 3.2 ghz but makes short work on my Athlon 3.0 ghz Quad Core. :confused:

clock speed isn't the only thing that determines processor power. Pentium chips have lower cache and just operate in a very inefficient way.

when the game is processing it only uses one core, I think the match engine does use multicore though.

edit: forgot to add that with a quad core the computer will automatically dedicate one core solely for the use of football manager, and use the other cores for the background window processes. A single core will have to work everything by itself.

Non match day processing takes 13% on my CPU, which has 8 virtual cores. The inconvenient truth is obvious.

any news regarding this topic?

FM will use as many cores as it has available.

It has done for the past 2 versions i think? There will be no 64bit support on FM12, maybe 13, but it will depend on the technology trend of the average FM player.

I went from Dual Core to Hexacore between FM10 and FM11. FM11 loads a millions times faster then then FM10. so theres def something there.

I went from Dual Core to Hexacore between FM10 and FM11. FM11 loads a millions times faster then then FM10. so theres def something there.

If you like, an X6 will be a lot quicker than a Core 2 Duo even if the X6 just used two cores.

That's misleading, though, as dual core processors are generally quite old and therefore naturally a lot slower than newer processors, but that's not just down to the number of cores.

If you like, an X6 will be a lot quicker than a Core 2 Duo even if the X6 just used two cores.

Not really. they still make dual cores today with latest chips.

they where both 3 ghz as well.

I said this all along, my pc is 4 years old yet has a 4 core processor 64bit that isn't used by FM. Why an earth not??? surely its a simple bolean operation in code does machine support this???? if so use this????? if not leave it slow and sluggish for those who won't upgrade

Not sure how many times this has to be said. FM does make use of multiple physical cores, it isn't however great with threading to virtual cores, this is only utilised when processing 'full detail' match results so if you've only set your division to full detail or are not running many leagues you will vary rarely if ever see your cpu hit 100% load.

As for 64bit IMHO not until FM14 at the earliest, if FM13 is a dedicated 64bit programme then I'll be pleasantly surprised.

not as simple as a quick swap of some code dazzauk... the whole software architecture needs changing to allow 64bit processing.. its basically rewritting the program..

this is why there is still a very small minority of 64bit software versions of 32bit ones out there

*sarcasm alert*

But it's only a double bit increase, it must be easy to change.

Well if you have 64 bit machines leave the Data Collection turned on so that SI get the feedback about peoples system info. They can then make an informed decision.

http://www.sega.com/fm11/manual/39

Enable Data Collection

If you wish to allow Sports Interactive to collect certain data to help us develop our games, and use the information to help us make decisions in a more informed manner, tick this box.

Not really. they still make dual cores today with latest chips.

they where both 3 ghz as well.

True, but dual-core chips today are not always the greatest. What are the two processors (the dual-core and hexa-core that you swapped)?

Clock speed is meaningless - it's just one characteristic of the processor. Intel's old Netburst Pentium 4s were running at 3.4 GHz and we are only now coming up to that speed again.

For example, these two processors are both dual-core, but one is miles quicker than the other:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Sempron+Dual+Core+2300

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Phenom+II+X2+511

not as simple as a quick swap of some code dazzauk... the whole software architecture needs changing to allow 64bit processing.. its basically rewritting the program..

this is why there is still a very small minority of 64bit software versions of 32bit ones out there

It depends on how the program is written. A program that was written without specific word sizes in question (i.e. a Hello World program) could be linked easily with 32-bit and 64-bit and it will simply work on the appropriate architecture.

It is possible to optimise for 64-bit but most games wouldn't, as it's putting all your eggs in one basket.

Linking for 64-bit often has significant performance improvements, as it links to the x86-64 architecture that has two additional registers, so can take advantage of it and improve its speed. For mathematical-intensive operations, such as video encoding, you can even see processing times cut in half, simply down to the superior architecture.

I'd imagine that the 64bit version of FM has been in production for some time, in much the same way as adding/removing leagues was. I'd also imagine that it'll be unleashed on the public when it's ready, whenever that may be...

would football manger support a intel celeron dual core 2.10ghz/2.9ghz processor?

would football manger support a intel celeron dual core 2.10ghz/2.9ghz processor

official specs for football manager 2011 :

Here are the official system requirements for Football Manager 2011 announced by Sports Interactive Games.

PC

OS - Windows XP/Vista/W7

Processor - XP : 1.4GHz or Faster, Vista/W7 : 2.0GHz or Faster

Supported Processors: Intel Pentium 4, Intel Core, AMD Athlon

Memory - XP : 512MB RAM, Vista/W7 : 1.0GB RAM

Hard Drive Space - 2GB

DVD-Drive - 4x Speed

Video Card Memory - 128MB

Supported Chipsets - Nvidia FX 5900 Ultra or greater; ATI Radeon 9800 or greater; Intel 82915G/82910GL or greater. Earlier cards may only display 2D Match Viewer Mode and are not supported. Laptop versions of these chipsets may work but are not supported.

Sound Card - DirectX 9.0c compatible

DirectX - Version 9.0c (included)

and here is the specs for football manager 2012 from steam

PC System Requirements

OS: Windows XP/Vista/W7

Processor: XP - 1.4GHz or Faster, Vista/W7 - 2.0GHz or Faster. Intel Pentium 4, Intel Core, AMD Athlon.

Memory: XP - 512MB RAM, Vista/W7 - 1.0GB RAM

Graphics: 128MB

Supported Chipsets - Nvidia FX 5900 Ultra or greater; ATI Radeon 9800 or greater; Intel 82915G/82910GL or greater.

Earlier cards may only display 2D Match Viewer Mode and are not supported.

Earlier cards may require the DirectX 9.0 SDK is installed to run the game. This can be downloaded from the following url:

DirectX Software Development Kit

Laptop versions of these chipsets may work but are not supported.

DirectX®: 9.0c

Hard Drive: 2GB

Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible

LAN: TCP/IP compliant

REQUIRES INTERNET CONNECTION TO INSTALL

if iam correct they are both the same specs so nothing really to worry about ie i thought i had to buy anew laptop

the only difference is that you need steam ONLY to play football manager 2012

azzvilla

no need for the round of applause

i play my football manger 2011 with a intel dual core processor 2.10ghz/2.0ghz and works fine so would ok for 2012 if u look at the above specs

not upping the minimum specs though does not preclude adding 64x support, personally im hoping its in as it would probably help with the number crunching time by quite a bit.

for me, when i go to the "game status" page it shows a graph of usage/performance labeled "core1, core2, core3,core4", with a different graph for each, so i'd imagine it does..

Pretty sure SI announced a partnership with Intel on this a couple of games back and a clesr multicore support section added to the status screen showing eight cores for those of us with quads.

Not sure if this helps - but I play FM2010 and FM2011 on a lenovo w510 with 8GB ram and a i7-820qm CPU (thats 4 cores/8 threads) under Windows 7 Professional 64 bit...and it pretty much flys...not sure if FM is specifically built to use multiple cores but the CPU's themselves are pretty good at splitting up the instructions and using all their cores...

I certainly dont have any problems under Win 7 64 Bit on a multi core/multi thread machine anyway...

True, but dual-core chips today are not always the greatest. What are the two processors (the dual-core and hexa-core that you swapped)?

Clock speed is meaningless - it's just one characteristic of the processor. Intel's old Netburst Pentium 4s were running at 3.4 GHz and we are only now coming up to that speed again.

For example, these two processors are both dual-core, but one is miles quicker than the other:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Sempron+Dual+Core+2300

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Phenom+II+X2+511

black edition athlon 2 (the best model that was released in 2010) and phenom 2 (1050 i think the model is) if i remember correctly.

Athlon II: Athlon II X2 270: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_Phenom_microprocessors#.22Regor.22_.28C2.2FC3.2C_45_nm.2C_Dual-core.29

Phenom 2: There's loads of hexa-core processors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_Phenom_microprocessors#.22Thuban.22_.28E0.2C_45_nm.2C_Hexa-core.29; we'll just take the slowest one to be fair

The X6 is a newer stepping, so it's a new architecture, basically. The X6 also sports Turbo Boost, which the Athlon II doesn't have, and has much more cache. All this leads to a higher TDP.

The cores are just the icing on the cake, really... The X6 would rip the Athlon II X2 270 to pieces with only two cores, in the same way a dual-core today would rip apart a Core Duo 4 years ago. It's not purely down to cores, although it certainly helps.

yes yes... in the end.. Phenom 2 makes FM11 go turbo fast.. thats all that matters.

My machine has i7 2600k processor (overclocked to run at 4.5ghz) 8gb RAM and obviously 64bit Windows.

This is the best set up I've ever had and FM soars, even when 10 seasons + in and with at least 20 leagues running.

not as simple as a quick swap of some code dazzauk... the whole software architecture needs changing to allow 64bit processing.. its basically rewritting the program..

this is why there is still a very small minority of 64bit software versions of 32bit ones out there

Although the quote was a bit understated I agree but what I am trying to say is basically 64bit processors are at least 4 years old as thats how long I have had mine and to not even be making the transition in a program that has been running since the day dot seems very lazy. Yes I agree a lot of the logic needs changing rewritting but this doesn't need doing on mass for the whole program. Every year we see people complain about speed issues and yet all we get from SI is a redesigned GUI .

Surely a team of coders dedicated to optimization isn't too much to ask, even saving as little as 1 second in commonly used code can save massive processor time overall ingame. Multithreading and Multi Cores are here 64bit is here they are all considered common place yet an intensive data driven program such as FM doesn't fully implement it????????

It would need a team to fully optimise it for 64-bit, but I argue you don't really need to optimise it for 64-bit. Most software written nowadays isn't optimised for 32-bit! It just happens to be written, compiled and linked to a 32-bit architecture. That's what we need for 64-bit.

There are caveats, of course, but it's not a single person effort.

I'm currently playing fm11 on a core 2 duo with 2.33ghz and 4gb ram which runs the game ok I think. I'll wait for the demo (hopefully tomorrow) and see how I get on but I am not anticipating too many issues. I've defraged my hard drive, run spyware\virus scans and updated my graphics card (ati radeon 4600 series) drivers. If I have too many issues then I will consider a new graphics card and some more ram which is something I was considering anyway. No need for a new pc just yet I think.

What OS are you running? Windows 32 bit can only take up to 4gb ram.

64 bit is the way forward and another 2 years I expect games to be 4GB min and 8GB max, just a matter of time, plus the amount of PC's being sold now have more than 4GB on the motherboard.

I was of the impression that 64 bit hasn't 'arrived' yet because many programs (I think M$ Office was quoted as an example) don't fully support it, so your average consumer sees no need in upgrading until more of the mainstream product market is converted/'upgraded'.

For me, my quad core 3ghz AMD chugs along with FM with no noticeable lag at all, but I don't use a vast amount of leagues (9 or 10 usually), as I've always been pessimistic with my settings on PC games over the years.

I was of the impression that 64 bit hasn't 'arrived' yet because many programs (I think M$ Office was quoted as an example) don't fully support it, so your average consumer sees no need in upgrading until more of the mainstream product market is converted/'upgraded'.

For me, my quad core 3ghz AMD chugs along with FM with no noticeable lag at all, but I don't use a vast amount of leagues (9 or 10 usually), as I've always been pessimistic with my settings on PC games over the years.

Given the average PC lasts 4 years, it's wise to get a 64-bit OS anyway, just in case. You never know...

Given the average PC lasts 4 years, it's wise to get a 64-bit OS anyway, just in case. You never know...

You never know indeed, but I plan on this one lasting me at least 4 more years as the only 'advanced' game I play on my PC these days is FM, I converted to the dark side of consoles a while ago.

I'm currently playing fm11 on a core 2 duo with 2.33ghz and 4gb ram which runs the game ok I think. I'll wait for the demo (hopefully tomorrow) and see how I get on but I am not anticipating too many issues. I've defraged my hard drive, run spyware\virus scans and updated my graphics card (ati radeon 4600 series) drivers. If I have too many issues then I will consider a new graphics card and some more ram which is something I was considering anyway. No need for a new pc just yet I think.

What OS are you running? Windows 32 bit can only take up to 4gb ram.

I'm using windows 7 64 bit home premium. I've downloaded the demo and played a few games and have to say that it is great. No error messages and the graphics look considerable better than fm 11 and are running fine without jerkiness or delays even on my graphics card which isnt all that spectacular by todays standards.

We're currently testing this in the German FM community, with a surprise result (to me). We loaded an England quick save in the FM 2012 demo, due to the highest number of leagues in the demo, picked a random club, put the international and club preset details to maximum, and holidayed until Juli the 19th (two weeks of in-game time.) This might seem short, but it was enough to get results that were as far as 19 minutes apart. Repeated testings on the same machines confirmed that the test result will never differ any more than 30 seconds at the very very most. In the end it seemed as if the match calculation behaves more like heavily threaded application software, rather than your typical 3d video game in which fast dual cores may well outperform older quad cores - and sometimes even six core machines depending on the optimization for multicore machines.

There is a an almost clear divide between processors with two cores and those with more. A heavily overclocked Core 2 Duo at 4 Ghz was no match to any quad core processor, and only Core i3s, technically dual core chips with hyperthreading (and thus supporting 4 threads rather than two) were able to hold up - at least with older quad core processors. The other results were not as surprising, Core i7, Core i5 and X6 generally finishing the fastest, and older Athlon X2+ finishing last.

We need more results on the performance of Phenom X4 and X6 machines though, as from the little numbers we got on AMD processors, it appears as if AMD processors would do surprisingly well against their Intel counterparts. If you would like to post your results, don't forget to confirm(!) the maximum settings before going on holiday and to not falsify the result by running background applications (virus protection software..) or browsing whilst your machine is calculating.

Here are some of the results so far. Every machine was equipped roughly the same standard (Windows, 2GB at the least), with only one machine equipped with only 2 GBs of RAM, which didn't make a difference. I also opted to include the mobile results, despite mobile processors usually being speced much lower than their desktop counterparts, and some results thus looking surprisingly low.

Core I7 920 overclocked to 3,6 Ghz: 4:08

Phenom II X6 1055T: 4:30

Core i7 2600S: 5:04

Phenom II x4 @ 3,2 Ghz: 5:11

Core i7 920 @ 2.67 GHz: 5:21

Core i7 920: 05:45

Core2Quad Q9550 overclocked to 3,4GHz + SSD drive: 5:51

Core i3 2120: 7:31

Core i3 2100: 8:02

core i7 q720@ 1,60ghz: 8:20

Core 2 Quad Q6600: 8:30

Core i5 2500s: 8:37

Athlon II X4 620: 9:00

Core 2 Duo E8400 overclocked from 3,0 to 4,0 Ghz: 9:38 ---> this is, technically speaking, the first traditional dual core processor in the test

Intel Core i5 M430: 11:05 min

Core 2 Duo E8400: 12:46

Core 2 Duo E8400: 13:20

Intel Core I5 M460 (2.53GHz): 13:35

Core2Duo E7500: 15:03

Core2Duo P7450: 16:37

Core2Duo T6600 @2,2 GHz: 18:25

Athlon 64 x2 4000+: 22:51

I hope that this is going to be the major feature in FM 2013, can you imagine having all the leagues loaded?

The majority of people running on 32bit will not buy FM2013 anyway, because they don't have a proper graphic card, the game is going super slow... They can better play FM2010 with a good transfer update.

All that SI needs is good competition, when Championship Manager went on 3D, FM started "la revolucion". I said that I would not buy the game anymore until it became 64 bit compatible, but I pre-ordered the game yesterday. The mind is weak...

We're currently testing this in the German FM community, with a surprise result (to me). We loaded an England quick save in the FM 2012 demo, due to the highest number of leagues in the demo, picked a random club, put the international and club preset details to maximum, and holidayed until Juli the 19th (two weeks of in-game time.) This might seem short, but it was enough to get results that were as far as 19 minutes apart. Repeated testings on the same machines confirmed that the test result will never differ any more than 30 seconds at the very very most. In the end it seemed as if the match calculation behaves more like heavily threaded application software, rather than your typical 3d video game in which fast dual cores may well outperform older quad cores - and sometimes even six core machines depending on the optimization for multicore machines.

There is a an almost clear divide between processors with two cores and those with more. A heavily overclocked Core 2 Duo at 4 Ghz was no match to any quad core processor, and only Core i3s, technically dual core chips with hyperthreading (and thus supporting 4 threads rather than two) were able to hold up - at least with older quad core processors. The other results were not as surprising, Core i7, Core i5 and X6 generally finishing the fastest, and older Athlon X2+ finishing last.

We need more results on the performance of Phenom X4 and X6 machines though, as from the little numbers we got on AMD processors, it appears as if AMD processors would do surprisingly well against their Intel counterparts. If you would like to post your results, don't forget to confirm(!) the maximum settings before going on holiday and to not falsify the result by running background applications (virus protection software..) or browsing whilst your machine is calculating.

Here are some of the results so far. Every machine was equipped roughly the same standard (Windows, 2GB at the least), with only one machine equipped with only 2 GBs of RAM, which didn't make a difference. I also opted to include the mobile results, despite mobile processors usually being speced much lower than their desktop counterparts, and some results thus looking surprisingly low.

Core I7 920 overclocked to 3,6 Ghz: 4:08

Phenom II X6 1055T: 4:30

Core i7 2600S: 5:04

Phenom II x4 @ 3,2 Ghz: 5:11

Core i7 920 @ 2.67 GHz: 5:21

Core i7 920: 05:45

Core2Quad Q9550 overclocked to 3,4GHz + SSD drive: 5:51

Core i3 2120: 7:31

Core i3 2100: 8:02

core i7 q720@ 1,60ghz: 8:20

Core 2 Quad Q6600: 8:30

Core i5 2500s: 8:37

Athlon II X4 620: 9:00

Core 2 Duo E8400 overclocked from 3,0 to 4,0 Ghz: 9:38 ---> this is, technically speaking, the first traditional dual core processor in the test

Intel Core i5 M430: 11:05 min

Core 2 Duo E8400: 12:46

Core 2 Duo E8400: 13:20

Intel Core I5 M460 (2.53GHz): 13:35

Core2Duo E7500: 15:03

Core2Duo P7450: 16:37

Core2Duo T6600 @2,2 GHz: 18:25

Athlon 64 x2 4000+: 22:51

Good work, but I worry when I see some processors outperforming others when they shouldn't. I don't think you have the necessary control over each machine (i.e. the state of their windows install, enabled/disabled services in Windows, running background processes etc) for it to be truly reliable.

AFAIK FM12 can smoothly run on multicore cpus but it tends to use mainly the very first one and maybe in a low percentages the second one ( in parallel ) and/or third one. Almost never I have seen the FM own cpu usage graph witness the 4th core usage.

I would say 80% the first one, 18% the second one etc..

Good work, but I worry when I see some processors outperforming others when they shouldn't. I don't think you have the necessary control over each machine (i.e. the state of their windows install, enabled/disabled services in Windows, running background processes etc) for it to be truly reliable.

Yeah, the performance of the i5 2500S model looks a bit lowish, and the Phenom II X4 tested in there does a bit too well compared to Core 2 Quads. (In the meantime, another result for a Phenom II X4 955 came in, and it looks onpar with the Core 2 Quads, rather than noticably better). But the general trend appears to be clear enough: The more phyical cores, the better - and older dual cores only supporting two threads are all left behind even against quad core chips that they would be able to somewhat hold up with if FM wasn't as threaded as it apparently is. It is pretty telling how the second generation Core 2 Duo overclocked to 4 Ghz cannot hold its own against the first generation Core 2 Quad at stock speed of 2.4 Ghz - and how it struggles to keep up with a low-end quad core such as the Athlon II X4 620.

FM, its full detail match simulation anyway, scales as well with four cores as almost any application programmed to do so. For it to be determined whether FM also scales well with more than four, we need more results for Phenom II X6. The single X6 system at stock speed we had in there did surprisingly well compared to a heavily overclocked Core i7 920, I think.

Why not join in rather than speculate?

seems to be the demo uses all cores at some point but also focus on 1 as at some point.

closed all programs i could close and put on holiday mode.

AMD Phenom II X6 1055T (2,8GHZ/3,3GHz Turbo)

Yeah, the performance of the i5 2500S model looks a bit lowish, and the Phenom II X4 tested in there does a bit too well compared to Core 2 Quads. (In the meantime, another result for a Phenom II X4 955 came in, and it looks onpar with the Core 2 Quads, rather than noticably better). But the general trend appears to be clear enough: The more phyical cores, the better - and older dual cores only supporting two threads are all left behind even against quad core chips that they would be able to somewhat hold up with if FM wasn't as threaded as it apparently is. It is pretty telling how the second generation Core 2 Duo overclocked to 4 Ghz cannot hold its own against the first generation Core 2 Quad at stock speed of 2.4 Ghz - and how it struggles to keep up with a low-end quad core such as the Athlon II X4 620.

FM, its full detail match simulation anyway, scales as well with four cores as almost any application programmed to do so. For it to be determined whether FM also scales well with more than four, we need more results for Phenom II X6. The single X6 system at stock speed we had in there did surprisingly well compared to a heavily overclocked Core i7 920, I think.

Why not join in rather than speculate?

I may well do that. My system is suffering at the moment with an ailing HDD that will be replaced in the next few days. Then I'll see if I get around to running the test.

seems to be the demo uses all cores at some point but also focus on 1 as at some point.

closed all programs i could close and put on holiday mode.

AMD Phenom II X6 1055T (2,8GHZ/3,3GHz Turbo)

Seeing the screenshot it seems to me that's the opposite.

One core is used and the remaining ones are pretty much on idle, except a peak in the same time at the same timestamp therefore they are all doing the same thing , therefore like it was 1 cpu doing the math and the remaining ones doing the same marginal stuff counting as they were one anyway.