FM09 runs slow on Intel Core2 Duo (3.0GHz) with 2 GB RAM and nVidia 8600 GT

Dear fellow FMers,

Do you guys experience slow game play?

I've turned off most processors working in the background, not running another applications besides FM09 and set graphic details to lowest without stadiums, sky or shadows.

I don't suppose my Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0 GHz is a "slow machine" with nVidia Geforce 8600 GT coupled with 2 GB of RAM..

Well before you reply, do note that this is not a rant (as FM 09 has been bombarded with) with respect to the game. It's a fantastic addition, upgrade to the previous FM08 in my opinion!

This is however, my curiosity as to how can I run FM09 in blistering speeds? Like I do on the FM08 with high graphics? Is my one year old computer "too old"?

I maintain my PC pretty well by the way. So what is it that's making it running so slow when other high end games (BioShock, Dead Space, Dawn Of War etc) runs soooooo smoothly?

Does threading help? What does it do anyway? Does it make use of multi-cored processors to enhance the running of the game? if so, why was it suggested that we turn it off after the latest patch 9.2.0 since I'm running a Core 2 Duo?

Am in the midst of getting a QUAD Core processor with the latest nVidia (consumer) graphic card plus 4GB RAM (or maybe 8GB if the QUAD core motherboard allows it). How'd you think it'll change the speed of playing the game?

Thanks for reading and suggestions and comments are very welcome for enlightening each other!!

Cheers!!!!!!!!!

HermannWolverine

You won't notice any difference between 4GB and 8GB of RAM.

What runs slow? The Match engine, the user interface or the processing?

How many leagues are you running?

You won't notice any difference between 4GB and 8GB of RAM.

What runs slow? The Match engine, the user interface or the processing?

How many leagues are you running?

It was a torture running 28 leagues so i reduced to 4, (EPL, Serie A, La Liga and Bundesliga).

I do know comparing to FM08 was maybe a tad ridiculous given the content-rich FM09. But setting up a match takes a few seconds longer, continuing a game seems longer and every click on a player, name, news seems to take a few seconds more! even with only 4 leagues running.

Do note the graphics under match is lowest possbile.

During match play, clicking/dragging on subs, i realise a lag in my physical action on the mouse with respect to game behaviour.

Thanks for the quick reply by the way! May I add that processing during matches and clicking on continue can be faster? how is that achievable?

Same here Hermann. My specs are almost identical to yours.

In one load I ran over 50 leagues (because in FM 2008 I could run around 70 no problem) on a large database, and it was slow so I started a new game with 28 leagues (same as you) and a medium database, and to my surprise I didn't notice any improvement whatsoever. No difference with patch 9.2.0 either. Turning threading off hasn't made a difference either so I turned it back on.

Only thing that has improved is loading and saving time because I turned off the Compress Saved Games option.

The Match Engine is okay on Low graphics, except on 2D Classic. Even on Low graphics it stutters so I cannot use it.

The User Interface is sluggish.

The processing is actually what's not too bad really. I'm using the Fastest (Can't Interrupt).

Task Manager shows I'm using an average of 950 MB RAM. Which is okay.

Wonder if it would help if I ticked the "Use 'user data' folder for temporary files" option? I don't want to try that unless I know what it does.

The game is playable anyway, it's not a complaint, just a FYI.

Maybe something to do with Nvidia 8 series.

My current game is 86 leagues from 30 odd nations.

All additional players loaded.

AMD 6000+

2gb of ram

Runs OK.

I have them all set to playable but only the league I am managing in as full detail.

FWIW FM 2009 only ever uses max 850 mb on my box. So I doubt any more than 2gb is worth it. Maybe someone can confirm if additional ram is actually justified?

i got similar spec machine as yours and 8 Gb of RAM. But i have a terrible slow processing problem during Dec to March. No one seems to know why that is.

Same here Hermann. My specs are almost identical to yours.

In one load I ran over 50 leagues (because in FM 2008 I could run around 70 no problem) on a large database, and it was slow so I started a new game with 28 leagues (same as you) and a medium database, and to my surprise I didn't notice any improvement whatsoever. No difference with patch 9.2.0 either. Turning threading off hasn't made a difference either so I turned it back on.

Only thing that has improved is loading and saving time because I turned off the Compress Saved Games option.

The Match Engine is okay on Low graphics, except on 2D Classic. Even on Low graphics it stutters so I cannot use it.

The User Interface is sluggish.

The processing is actually what's not too bad really. I'm using the Fastest (Can't Interrupt).

Task Manager shows I'm using an average of 950 MB RAM. Which is okay.

Wonder if it would help if I ticked the "Use 'user data' folder for temporary files" option? I don't want to try that unless I know what it does.

The game is playable anyway, it's not a complaint, just a FYI.

Maybe something to do with Nvidia 8 series.

Thanks for the detailed reply and the re-emphasis that this post isn't a rant/complaint. Game really is enjoyable! True that we're both having "problems"... sluggish UI... stuttering game play during matches..

Allow me to clarify what I missed out. I run on a large database (= loading all players from Japan (looking for the next nakata, shinji Ono or nakamura).

Turning off threading does seem to work for me but ironic isn't it? threading is suppose to make the game run faster in all aspects?

Let me tweak it to fastest (Can't interupt) too and see what happens..

No idea on the "user data" man... anyone who developed the game/who knows about it care to share?

i got similar spec machine as yours and 8 Gb of RAM. But i have a terrible slow processing problem during Dec to March. No one seems to know why that is.

Hmmm. Allow me to add, even with windows ready boost with a 8GB flash drive, it doesn't speed up game play.

So after March is okay for you?

What's your database? Large? Medium? Small?

How many leagues are you running?

i got similar spec machine as yours and 8 Gb of RAM. But i have a terrible slow processing problem during Dec to March. No one seems to know why that is.

I am having the exact same problem! Starts from mid December and ends on 30 February 2008, the processing speed is like 1 hour for 5 game days! It has been like this for 5 seasons continuous. My spec is Core2Dual 3.00 GHZ 2GB RAM!

Right on 1 March 2008, the speed would change back to very fast and it takes 2 mins to play 5 days. I thought it was me only. If SI needs my save game to investigate this issue, I will be happy to upload it.

My current game is 86 leagues from 30 odd nations.

All additional players loaded.

AMD 6000+

2gb of ram

Runs OK.

I have them all set to playable but only the league I am managing in as full detail.

FWIW FM 2009 only ever uses max 850 mb on my box. So I doubt any more than 2gb is worth it. Maybe someone can confirm if additional ram is actually justified?

What? runs ok?? Amazing.......... really... 86 leagues and runs ok......... As mentioned above, running 28 in a large database and loading all players from Japan, my game comes to a crawl.... How'd you do achieve that "runs ok" speed? Especially when results from the other leagues are processing...?

I am having the exact same problem! Starts from mid December and ends on 30 February 2008, the processing speed is like 1 hour for 5 game days! It has been like this for 5 seasons continuous. My spec is Core2Dual 3.00 GHZ 2GB RAM!

Hmmm... now is this a problem with the game then? Moderators care to reply?

The game i am running has 18 countries and about 40 leagues. The detail level is set at National. I am playing the game in Window mode. Threading turned on. no stadium and shadow in 3D.

I tried to mess around with all the settings, like change details levels etc. They made no difference at all. The game ran very quick from April to Nov. Also i don't experience other kind of slow down. The match engine is great and the UI responses well (no lag etc). The only thing that is slow is the processing between turns, and only between Dec to March.

There are a few others here who have the similar problem. They all have a high-ish spec machine as well.

Let me add as well i don't notice any system slow down in my computer. i can still do others things like surfing web, etc and there is no slow down.

I am having the exact same problem! Starts from mid December and ends on 30 February 2008, the processing speed is like 1 hour for 5 game days! It has been like this for 5 seasons continuous. My spec is Core2Dual 3.00 GHZ 2GB RAM!

Right on 1 March 2008, the speed would change back to very fast and it takes 2 mins to play 5 days. I thought it was me only. If SI needs my save game to investigate this issue, I will be happy to upload it.

There you go, i am not just dreaming things here then

There are quite a few other threads as well about the same thing.

I seem to have some problems when it comes to pointing you to those places, when it comes to pasting it in this message;

so click my user name and then click on statistics - find all posts by roykela. Look through there and you will find many threads and posts about the same problem.

Let's not talk about Laptops here eh? We all know most graphic processors aren't as good... (=

What? runs ok?? Amazing.......... really... 86 leagues and runs ok......... As mentioned above, running 28 in a large database and loading all players from Japan, my game comes to a crawl.... How'd you do achieve that "runs ok" speed? Especially when results from the other leagues are processing...?

I told you already - you can run as many playable (not view only) leagues as you like but ONLY THE ONE YOU ARE MANAGING IN ON FULL DETAIL. Turn off all the cup competitions and european games if you aren't following them.

Also if you don't load additional players/staff your game world will feel fake and you'll struggle to find good cheap players or hire backroom staff.

The game can be slow, but I don't sit and watch it process results. I do other stuff. Since I play in windowed mode, its just another app running (among many). 5-10 mins processing on match days, but as I said it will be dog slow if you don't limit the detail to one league.

There are quite a few other threads as well about the same thing.

I seem to have some problems when it comes to pointing you to those places, when it comes to pasting it in this message;

so click my user name and then click on statistics - find all posts by roykela. Look through there and you will find many threads and posts about the same problem.

I actually read the posts! Well, let's take laptops out of the equation (=

Nevertheless, Les Girondins has mentioned before and i quote

"the 'slowness' is nothing to do with the level of detail or the number of leagues; these are merely mitigating factors. The lag you experience during the aforementioned resource allocation and scheduling conflict will simply be shorter in duration, but no less pronounced. "

End quote.

So.. What really is the problem? The way the game was build and programmed? I know nuts about how it's developed so... Need a bit of help here from the developers?

This is not a complaint post (=

I told you already - you can run as many playable (not view only) leagues as you like but ONLY THE ONE YOU ARE MANAGING IN ON FULL DETAIL. Turn off all the cup competitions and european games if you aren't following them.

Also if you don't load additional players/staff your game world will feel fake and you'll struggle to find good cheap players or hire backroom staff.

The game can be slow, but I don't sit and watch it process results. I do other stuff. Since I play in windowed mode, its just another app running (among many). 5-10 mins processing on match days, but as I said it will be dog slow if you don't limit the detail to one league.

My apologies! Got confused with the posts (=

An unresponsive UI and taking a long time processing fixtures are different issues.

The UI lag is caused by excessive numbers of threads.

Its been much improved in 9.2 .. still present but nowhere near as bad. I can live with it.

If you turn off threading the game will only utilise one core, which will make it DOG slow even on just the one full detail league.

An unresponsive UI and taking a long time processing fixtures are different issues.

The UI lag is caused by excessive numbers of threads.

Its been much improved in 9.2 .. still present but nowhere near as bad. I can live with it.

If you turn off threading the game will only utilise one core, which will make it DOG slow even on just the one full detail league.

Ahh I see...

So what seems to be the cause of the unresponsive or rather slow-responding UI? Am sure we've eliminated graphic cards, processors and whether or not your PC can play the specs-hungry games.. Most of us have machines more than capable to run many apps in the midst of playing other window-ed games.

Doesn't bother me as much tbh. I do a lot of reading with FM running in windowed mode but it's just such a challenge to find the root and cause of this problem.

Challenging (=

Its because FM is a client/database application.

The database crunches away in the background and in memory while you click around in the GUI. In recent years the GUI and the backend database have started to conflict for resources. When you input e.g. mouse/keys/menus etc that needs to interrupt the back end but it doesnt always work that way, especially when you have lots of threads crunching away all available cpu cycles.

The balance between how much threads you spawn and how much is left for the GUI and the priority/balancing of the two to keep the game responsive on multi processor/core systems is a challenge.

It was SHOCKING in the 9.1 release but in 9.2 it is much better.

The game will slow down if you have the detail setting set too high. Anything more than 3-4 leagues slows it to a crawl because it calculates matches in full detail e.g. the whole range of variables and modifiers are crunched together to get the result instead of it just being club rep + a random number.

The best way to play the game is load as many leagues as you like (I have almost all nations and leagues loaded) and 20 or so nations of additional players/staff and all set playable. But the key thing is: only the league I am managing in is set to full detail in the detail menu (do not conufse that with playable/view only in the databas setup screen - different things). I turn off all european, international, world cup, reserve games etc. Only the league fixtures ..

This means that the game slows down when processing results from all those leagues because it only spawns more threads when calculating full detail results .. but .. its still faster than having even a third as many leagues with full detail.

The CPU spec only really matters if you run a small number of leagues on full detail. You won't see much benefit if you play a massive number of leagues on low detail because it will only be working on one thread most of the time ..

Quad core, as far as I am aware, is at this time not utilised. Probably because the number of threads is not dynamic - the game doesn't have any way of recognizing your processor (I don't think, could be wrong) so it is setup for 2 cores or 2 physical processors max presently.

That and 2009 is very slow as a whole, presumably they have increased the level of detail effecting match results and/or it has gotten obfuscated along the way. There might be any number of glitches and bugs or leaks/runaway calculations as well. In such a vast number of arithmetic operations and arrays there is likely to be a hell of a lot of wasted cycles ..

Until FM goes to a proper SQL implementation and shies away from the traditional flat file database system it will only get slower!

In the mean time, you should be able to enjoy yourself on a dual core processor, couple of gigs of ram and a sensible level of detail.

BTW the initialising of my game took almost 2 hrs but subsequent loads and saves are fine. My save game file is about 500 mb.

Hmm actually in recent years the game has gone from disk bound horror to memory bound horror. So I doubt the database has much to do with the performance after all ..

Its more likely just grossly inefficient/obfuscated code.

Hmm actually in recent years the game has gone from disk bound horror to memory bound horror. So I doubt the database has much to do with the performance after all ..

Its more likely just grossly inefficient/obfuscated code.

Thanks to Les Girondins for the in-depth explanation with regards to the way the game is constructed/designed upon. My question after the posts is this;

A never ending of requests and i-wish-the-fm09-would-be such and such for future patches, can, or will a patch be able to fix or perhaps improve what was discussed above? Since hardware doesn't seem to be the problem..

I have to agree it seems to be the code used within FM09 that prohibits (what I would call) a faster game playing experience.

Then again, am sure most of us, playing FM09 in windowed are either on some chat programs, surfing the web and stuff..

Really need a developer of FM09 who understands the build of the game to really come up with explanations and hopefully shed some light and perhaps come up with a solution with the online community? (Isn't that the way things are nowadays? )

Its because FM is a client/database application.

The database crunches away in the background and in memory while you click around in the GUI. In recent years the GUI and the backend database have started to conflict for resources. When you input e.g. mouse/keys/menus etc that needs to interrupt the back end but it doesnt always work that way, especially when you have lots of threads crunching away all available cpu cycles.

The balance between how much threads you spawn and how much is left for the GUI and the priority/balancing of the two to keep the game responsive on multi processor/core systems is a challenge.

It was SHOCKING in the 9.1 release but in 9.2 it is much better.

The game will slow down if you have the detail setting set too high. Anything more than 3-4 leagues slows it to a crawl because it calculates matches in full detail e.g. the whole range of variables and modifiers are crunched together to get the result instead of it just being club rep + a random number.

The best way to play the game is load as many leagues as you like (I have almost all nations and leagues loaded) and 20 or so nations of additional players/staff and all set playable. But the key thing is: only the league I am managing in is set to full detail in the detail menu (do not conufse that with playable/view only in the databas setup screen - different things). I turn off all european, international, world cup, reserve games etc. Only the league fixtures ..

This means that the game slows down when processing results from all those leagues because it only spawns more threads when calculating full detail results .. but .. its still faster than having even a third as many leagues with full detail.

The CPU spec only really matters if you run a small number of leagues on full detail. You won't see much benefit if you play a massive number of leagues on low detail because it will only be working on one thread most of the time ..

Quad core, as far as I am aware, is at this time not utilised. Probably because the number of threads is not dynamic - the game doesn't have any way of recognizing your processor (I don't think, could be wrong) so it is setup for 2 cores or 2 physical processors max presently.

That and 2009 is very slow as a whole, presumably they have increased the level of detail effecting match results and/or it has gotten obfuscated along the way. There might be any number of glitches and bugs or leaks/runaway calculations as well. In such a vast number of arithmetic operations and arrays there is likely to be a hell of a lot of wasted cycles ..

Until FM goes to a proper SQL implementation and shies away from the traditional flat file database system it will only get slower!

In the mean time, you should be able to enjoy yourself on a dual core processor, couple of gigs of ram and a sensible level of detail.

BTW the initialising of my game took almost 2 hrs but subsequent loads and saves are fine. My save game file is about 500 mb.

This entry by Les Girondins really is worth its weight in gold. It simply explains and clarify the many many questions that a FMer would have with regards to the performance of FM09, be it match, databases, number of leagues vs hardware and especially for those who feels they have the gear which is more than able to run FM09.

This seriously, imo is a fantastic analysis of FM09, as far as I am concerned!

Thanks Les Girondins! Certainly hope other players may find this useful! Then again, the problems with forums like this is as such; More often than not, a good post (unless sticky) gets drowned out in the numerous posts/rants/complaints/help-needed kinda things...

Yeah, I agree. Indeed, I've just changed the detail level in my game. That's a fantastic addition to the FM community, Les Girondins!

I would love to understand more about this SQL implementation and how, exactly, it doesn't inhibit processing time.

Everyone should read Les Girondins' post!

Thanks

The only useful aspect of my post was re: detail levels vs number of leagues.

The rest is total conjecture.

In fact I even think much of it is dead wrong now tbh.

Paul C would know but he never seems to reply to these threads.

Which is odd, because if it was my game and someome like me was slagging it off constantly and spouting utter nob-factor-9 about my life's work I'd be right in there with the cocker spaniel and two flowery babs!