Match Engine Clarification

The old chicken and the egg fun, in a football management game.

Question.

When playing a game within the demo (and therefore the retail) version of FM09, what comes first?

The 3D representation or the 2D representation?

What I mean by that, is......

Is the match engine creating exactly the same data for both?

I have a high end machine (quad core processor, 4Gb RAM, 1Gb graphics card) and watching 2D and 2D Classic representations of the game are as choppy as the (very disappointing, but that is a different thread and I do not want to go there here) 3D representation.

Good 'ol 2D played beautifully on my old PC for the past 3 years, it even played perfectly on my wifes laptop for the same period of time.

I do not understand the reasoning why the 'same' representation plays so poorly now.

Are the new physics calculations being used in the match engine for 3D causing this?

Would be very interested to know. Also, can these be disabled, circumvented etc, as I have no desire to play in 3D when this goes live.

(my thought process evolved as I wrote this, and the chicken and egg part makes little sense now, but I cannot be bothered to edit )

Even when starting a match in 2D mode, there is a delay while the match is "processed" before it begins.

Much more than on FM08, so I'm assuming you're on the right track.

Something along the lines of the 3D match going on in the background in the off chance you quickly switch to 3D mode.

Both 3D and 2D are the same match engine. To prove it run a split screen view match with 3D on one side and 2D classic on the other.

I never knew we could do that PaulC, I must give it a blast out of curiosity....

Both 3D and 2D are the same match engine. To prove it run a split screen view match with 3D on one side and 2D classic on the other.

So would it be fair to say then that the degradation in quality of the 2D performance this year is because of match engine changes that have been made to accommodate the introduction of 3D?

Since the only real changes that have been made in the engine are things like ball drag, i don't think that is likely. Idea: do you have a virus-checker running? switching the autoprotect off while you play may be a good strategy. I have a much lower-spec machine than you and 2D is not at all choppy for me, while 3D is a tiny bit choppy in TV view but fine in classic view.

Since the only real changes that have been made in the engine are things like ball drag, i don't think that is likely. Idea: do you have a virus-checker running? switching the autoprotect off while you play may be a good strategy. I have a much lower-spec machine than you and 2D is not at all choppy for me, while 3D is a tiny bit choppy in TV view but fine in classic view.

Trust me, it is not the machine

I play much more graphically intense games on this at full settings with zero issues.

Well, why am I absolutely fine with no choppiness issues in the 2D then?

FM is very processor-intensive, antivirus and other stuff running in the background slows it down hugely.

Well, why am I absolutely fine with no choppiness issues in the 2D then?

FM is very processor-intensive, antivirus and other stuff running in the background slows it down hugely.

Agreed, but I can tell you that isn't the case here.

Well, I don't know what is, cause I don't have any choppy 2D. That would lead me to suspect it would be somewhere in the interaction between the game and your specific machine, rather than a general issue with the game.

If you disable 3D in preferences, what happens?

Doesn't make a difference... only way ive made it better is setting my graphics card to performance rather then quality in the utility.

What comes first?

The 3D representation or the 2D representation?

I don't work for SI, but I am a game developer, and you have the question wrong.

All games I know of are divided into the game logic and the display layer.

In this case, the "game logic" is the match engine, comprising of individual player AI and the physics engine which simulates match.

The old-school "display layer" was the 2-D view.

SI have written a new "display layer", the 3-D view, and given you the ability to choose which display layer you prefer.

The underlying match engine is the same.

From comments they've made, some aspects of the match engine had to be upgraded to support a 3-D representation, for example, the ball rotational and aerial physics.