Will Football Manager 2012 be 64-bit?

OK, this question has not been addressed yet. Will Football Manager 2012 be a 64-bit game? If that is the case, those with 64-bit OS would be able to run more leagues smoothly.

I need to know the answer. Thanks!

Dunno what you mean,because I have FM running on a 64bit OS,everything seems to be good.

it wont be 64bit, i cant see them making a 64 bit game for a few years yet.

Dunno what you mean,because I have FM running on a 64bit OS,everything seems to be good.

It will run on a 64 bit but will not fully utilise it. The question is valid.

The game is currently a 32-bit application, meaning if you have more than 4GB of RAM, it would not be able to take advantage of the extra RAM. If it is a 64-bit application, even if you have 24GB of RAM, the game would take full advantage of the RAM on a 64-bit OS. Hope I made myself clear.

Thanks!

it wont be 64bit, i cant see them making a 64 bit game for a few years yet.

Thanks for telling me the bad news. So I would NOT buy Football Manager 2012. I will just have to wait for a few more years................

By the way, how do you know it is a 32-bit application?

Why would you not buy it? If you have a top end machine the game will run like lightening.

It wont be 64 bit because most people will still be using 32 bit OS's, in a few years when 64bit has taken over im sure FM will follow.

What a stupid reason to not buy a game like FM.

Why would you not buy it? If you have a top end machine the game will run like lightening.

It wont be 64 bit because most people will still be using 32 bit OS's, in a few years when 64bit has taken over im sure FM will follow.

Thanks for the reply. But I tend to play the game with all leagues playable plus add a few more leagues. I am not worried about my machine (by the way it is only an Intel Duo Core 2 2.53Ghz with 4 GB of RAM laptop) as I can always save up and by a top class PC. But the problem with 32-bit applications playing in a 64-bit OS is that the application will be limited by the number of bits it has even if you have 24GB of RAM.

If FM is a 64-bit application, one can create all the leagues in the world by XML and play it together in the game. But the problem is currently, if you create a file making all the football nations in the world playable, only about 80 nations can be loaded in a single game because of the limitation of being a 32-bit application. This is a common problem faced with editors who like to create playable leagues and nations.

Wouldn't it make sense to compromise? You don't need to load up ALL the leagues just because you can. Take out some leagues and play the darned tootin' game.

well i guess if you need to run more than 80 nations at once to enjoy FM then you wont be buying FM12. Like i say when the general public catch up with technology then FM will follow.

With - "Any Nation, any time" wouldn't the need to load all nations at the same time be redundant anyway?

I'll be looking to trim the amount of nations I load at the start down, to make it run fast, and then add more in as needed. And thats with a 64-bit, i7 Sandybridge laptop with 8Gb of RAM.

Actually i guess there is an outside possibility that they could make the game compatible with both 32 and 64 bit, you can never count anything out.

From my experience, it is mostly the number of players that impact performance.

Every day all the players are being checked for changes in attributes, injuries, citizenship, etc. And this is done on only one CPU core.

On the other hand you have to calculate a few match outcomes only on a match day and that is done with more than one CPU core.

I don't care about the league of North Korea, but I'd like to play with all players loaded and that is not possible at the moment. It runs the same (bad) on my Core 2 Duo laptop and i7 desktop, both having over 4GB ram, which is above the limit of 32bit addressing.

So Football Manager being a giant number crunching game I find it unexplainable how SI fail to optimize their algorithms for years or at least address the issue somehow.

I play with all players loaded without issues - in fact I find that it's the number of leagues that I have loaded as playable that has the biggest influence. Processing is very slow when I have all leagues loaded, but with only 20 or so it's much faster.

Found this interesting info:

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/?platform=combined

This shows that most steam-users in fact have a 64bit OS. Those of us with 4+ GB ram would really love to see FM fully exploit that extra RAM!.. I mean.. why not?

I'm not buying it until it's 64-bit. About time to make this slow coach a bit faster.

It'd be nice yes, but its not a valid reason not to buy it. Does it really reduce your enjoyment of the game THAT much?

It's one of the major issues for me. I have a top notch PC (Quad Core, SSD etc) and I'm still concerned about the speed of the game while running only 10 leagues.

As this game is compute intensive (as opposed to graphics intensive), this seems like the next logical step.

For those with an x64 machine, you will see huge performance improvements provided you have the RAM on your machine.

I honestly can't understand why they haven't made this change sooner. They can argue that not enough people have x64 machines, but how many companies don't future proof their products?

If it takes a year of development work to do (figure pulled out my ass) by the time everyone has x64 compatible machines and they decide to do it, they will already be behind.

Its a pity there isn't a realistic competitor in the market place otherwise we would see more features like this.

This shows that most steam-users in fact have a 64bit OS. Those of us with 4+ GB ram would really love to see FM fully exploit that extra RAM!.. I mean.. why not?

Only just a majority have a 64bit OS (around 53%). I wouldn't say that your average Steam user was the same as the average FM player. SI will have the stats for FM players that use Steam and for all you know 99.9% of them could be using a 32bit OS. You can also see that the majority, 78%, of users in that survey have 4GB or less of RAM (49% less then 4GB of RAM).

I'm not buying it until it's 64-bit. About time to make this slow coach a bit faster.

Me too! I am just sick of the limitations of Football Manager. If it wants to be realistic, a user must be able to load all the leagues in the world without a drop in performance in a PC which has 4GB of RAM or more. I hope SI will seriously make Football Manager 2013 or even 2014 64-bit!

What a stupid reason to not buy a game like FM.

This is a valid reason. Basically, right now, even if a gamer were to buy a top end PC with 24GB of RAM (which is getting more common), Football Manager would still run slow if all the leagues are loaded because of it being a 32-bit application. Currently, there are a few games out there which are 64-bit in nature and just imagine the performance of these games on a rig which has more than 4GB of RAM!

It'd be nice yes, but its not a valid reason not to buy it. Does it really reduce your enjoyment of the game THAT much?

Yes it does because I like to play my games which have maximum details. I cannot settle for anything less!

Miles has confirmed on Twitter that FM12 will not be 64bit.

(This is coming from a non-programmer/computer whiz so apologies if this is a stupid question..) Can you modify the game to 64-bit manually? What would it take to do so?

Miles has confirmed on Twitter that FM12 will not be 64bit.

32-bit again ? comon thats unfair.

Im using 16GB why im not able to use more ram for playing FM

Is that the kind of thing that could be added with a patch later ? :-/

Nope, you CANT change the game "manually" to be x64, thats hardocre coding/programming. It's the base of the software (game, application, OS, or whatever).

I also agree that as a heavy computational application the next logical step is to start looking at a 64-bit version of FM.

I'm not saying to release JUST a 64-bit but to give high-end users the option over using a 32-bit variety of the game.

Only just a majority have a 64bit OS (around 53%). I wouldn't say that your average Steam user was the same as the average FM player. SI will have the stats for FM players that use Steam and for all you know 99.9% of them could be using a 32bit OS. You can also see that the majority, 78%, of users in that survey have 4GB or less of RAM (49% less then 4GB of RAM).

I know.. but also look at the "change" column.. all 64 bit OS are rising and 32 bit are falling.. same goes for amount of ram.. as someone else said.. why not future-proof? (that would also be superb for those with 64-bit OS and 4+ GB ram

I'd like FM to make proper use of multi-cores first.

It may not be the case anymore, but not too long ago there were still many programs that weren't fully compatible with 64 bit OS, I believe MS Office was one.

Extra RAM is always welcome, but I think if there are still compatibility issues then that could be a good reason for a delay in investment on both company and consumer side? I know it was for me.

Besides which, I feel running XP is almost like having extra RAM compared to the modern Windows! lol

My knowledge of it is this - 64 bit software will not run on a 32 bit OS.

So if you lot wanna chip in so I can get a 64 bit OS, I'll happily support your argument. While it's still cutting off ~45% of the userbase, I don't think you can justify the change.

iirc the argument for not making FM 64 bit was that it would not work on 32 bit systems, which would obviously result in a massive reduction in sales and a lot of unhappy FM fans.

personally i can't afford to upgrade my system to 64 bit and this would mean that i couldn't play the latest game. thats the sort of thing that would put me off buying any future games from SI/Sega.

i imagine in a few years when there is only a small minority of users with 32 bit systems there will be a 64 bit version of FM but until then some will have to suffer as the costs of making 2 versions may not be justifiable

Can anyone show a screenshot where FM is taking up more than 3.5G of RAM?

I also agree that as a heavy computational application the next logical step is to start looking at a 64-bit version of FM.

I'm not saying to release JUST a 64-bit but to give high-end users the option over using a 32-bit variety of the game.

I agree. They dont even have to release an officially supported version. If you want to run the 64bit exe you are on your own kind of thing.

Also..they should really start using multiple cores properly. This one is much harder to do than just building a 64bit exe though .

The change to 64 bit would be the biggest upgrade in FM history, this would mean that we would have a complete realistic football world. If any competitor should do this first, FM shall lose their crown for the first time.

Seriously? I suspect the 32-bit version runs perfectly fine for the overwhelming majority of people out there and no doubt will for a long time to come. I cannot remember how many leagues I've loaded in my last game but I'd imagine around ~40. It wasn't so long ago I was loading less than ten to maintain game speed! Yes, I have a high-spec machine and 64-bit OS but and I'd love to see a 64-bit version of FM but do we need one right now? Personally, I think other improvements are higher up the priority list.

I would love for FM to be 64-bit and to utilize quad cores properly. I also don't see why 32bit users are complaining. I believe that even if there is a version for 64-bit fm there would still be a 32bit executable. However, to NOT buy the game because of it being 32-bit is ridiculous. The reasons given is also extremely immature: not settling for anything less than the best?

On another note, I really do wonder what % of the FM fan base would actively monitor more than 10 leagues. That is not just arbitrarily choosing all the leagues, and then glance at them every now and then, but really look through 80 or so leagues. I'm not saying it isn't worthwhile or that no-one does it, not at all. It's just that I believe with the short development cycle (1 year) there can be more important things SI can do, that will benefit ALL players rather than a select group. Unless they hire more people which they may not be willing/cannot to do for any reason.

I really want a 64 bit version no reason why we cant have both.

I know. There is no reason why 64 and 32 is mutually exclusive. There are many apps and games out there that have both 32 and 64 bit exe's. 32bit owners need not feel threaten.

out of interest how many games are released with both 32 and 64 bit compatibility?

out of interest how many games are released with both 32 and 64 bit compatibility?

Not a lot of 64-bit games out there, apparently: http://www.start64.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=190&Itemid=60

• Half-Life 2
  
• Lost Coast
  
• Bet On Soldier: Blood Sport
  
• Codename: Panzers (Phase one)
  
• Colin McRae Rally 2005
  
• Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
  
• Far Cry
  
• Fahrenheit
  
• Shadow Ops: Red Mercury
  
• Unreal Tournament 2004
  
• WWII Tank Commander
  
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl
  
• Dreadnought
  

So if you fancy games where you don't just go around shooting everything with a pulse, you're basically out of luck.

i didnt know they had made a 64 version of Half Life. So overall people are asking SI, a tiny games company, to take the lead on new technology? I would say SI will go down this route when most games companies decide the same.

They don't even need to really optimise it for 64-bit - just recompiling as a 64-bit binary will often give you huge benefits.

It's not the RAM usage which is the issue for me - it's the fact that x86-64 has more registers which will make FM much quicker (x86-64 is in general at least as quick as x86, most of the time much better, and in rare cases worse but usually down to bad code).

SI wouldn't be taking the lead, anyway - plenty of companies offer 32-bit and 64-bit executables and installers nowadays.

When are they going to release 64 bit? 2015?