Did anyone from SI actually test FM09 on a "crap" PC??

Before you all start, this is not a rant about how awful the game is, how slow it is, how jerky the match engine is etc etc....just a question from someone who has bought without fail every single installment of FM...this includes ALL the CM games before the split!

I have what 5 yrs ago might have been deemed a top of the range PC...an Athlon XP 2400+, due to moving house (twice) and getting married, I admit I haven't kept on top of upgrades, but I surely cant be the only one???

Surely SI when testing FM09, didnt just run it on high end systems and say "yeah, works fine!" they must have tested it on "crap" like mine??? didnt they????

I have read through the FAQ, I have downloaded the Microsoft SDK....it took a while, but I got there, and I have downloaded the latest drivers for my graphics card...but still it runs slow. Now processing between fixtures, I can handle....but surely a smooth match engine isn't too much to ask for?

Any ideas as to how I can achieve this? I shut down all un-needed processes, I have tried running full screen and windowed and still, jerky as hell........PLEASE can someone help?

Take a look at this article, at least one of these fixes should work for you

To be fair, can you imagine what games would be like if every one of them was designed to work on a five year old PC? More disturbingly, can you imagine what FM09's match experience would be like if it was dated a further 5 years?

Take a look at this article, at least one of these fixes should work for you

Thanks....I have done most of these apart from the change of priority one....oh well looks like it's the last chance saloon!

JamesB I think you overestimate how up to date people's PCs are, especially people that play games like FM.

To be fair, can you imagine what games would be like if every one of them was designed to work on a five year old PC? More disturbingly, can you imagine what FM09's match experience would be like if it was dated a further 5 years?

Surely tho if my PC is covered under the minimum specs, I should be able to run it at a decent frame rate....i'm not expecting Crysis type graphics...in fact i'm running low detail with no stadium, sky or player names visible just to stop it being as jerky as hell.

The minimum spec is surely there for a reason....not just to get people to buy the game, because they feel they can run it?

JamesB I think you overestimate how up to date people's PCs are, especially people that play games like FM.

But I never made any assumption on how up to date people's PCs are?

Surely tho if my PC is covered under the minimum specs, I should be able to run it at a decent frame rate....i'm not expecting Crysis type graphics...in fact i'm running low detail with no stadium, sky or player names visible just to stop it being as jerky as hell.

The minimum spec is surely there for a reason....not just to get people to buy the game, because they feel they can run it?

Minimum specs are the minimum required to run the game. You can run the game yes? People with a computer worse than yours would likely also be able to run the game, without the 3D display mind you.

Minimum Specs mean that it will run but won't guarantee it will run well. That's why PC games used to have minimum and recommended specs, I'm not sure why that has changed though.

Have you tried running in windowed mode? I think it will help reduce the jerkiness.

I ran FM 09 on a laptop that was barely at minimum specs yet it was okay but a season took ages to complete and it was jerky etc until I put it in windowed mode.

Bought new laptop this week and it eats fm09 for breakfast

Hmm, just thinking of my PC. 2.4 ghz P4 (single processor), 512 mb ram, 256mb graphics card. I run 29 active divisions and a large database. Runs perfectly acceptably to be honest. Match Engine can slow down every now and again, processing can take a few minutes on busy match days, saving can take an eternity when it's being compressed and it does take an absolute age for the program to close down when I quit the game. But none of that is really too much of an issue. Maybe it's because I play the game at a slower pace (watch the entire match etc) but with my hamster powered PC I've no complaints. A lot of praise if I'm honest.

don't worry, it doesn't run brilliantly on new machines either

I'm having the same problems with the match highlights as I have mentioned on other threads.

My biggest disappointment is that switching to 2D classic and disabling 3D doesn't even improve the speed or evenness of the match highlights.

C.

Hmm, just thinking of my PC. 2.4 ghz P4 (single processor), 512 mb ram, 256mb graphics card. I run 29 active divisions and a large database. Runs perfectly acceptably to be honest. Match Engine can slow down every now and again, processing can take a few minutes on busy match days, saving can take an eternity when it's being compressed and it does take an absolute age for the program to close down when I quit the game. But none of that is really too much of an issue. Maybe it's because I play the game at a slower pace (watch the entire match etc) but with my hamster powered PC I've no complaints. A lot of praise if I'm honest.

This is the point I'm trying to make. Not everyone can have superb machines, flying at the speed of light....but surely if the minimum spec is there, it is there for a reason. Like I said, the processing between matches etc I can handle....I can quite happily take a month or so to complete a season, it's just the 3d/2d match engine...the minimum for the graphics is a card with at LEAST 128mb onboard, mine has 256mb...twice as much, yet still jerks around like mad...windowed mode makes it slightly more bearable, not much tho.

I just feel if SI are going to keep going down the route of more players/staff/clubs/leagues etc, then something has to give....Yes I am aware that it is not upto SI to ensure the game runs on a 5yr old PC...but to provide the best they can for the masses, just I feel they are forgetting about us little guys sometimes, (it never used to happen before they got with SEGA).

I for one will be watching with interest how the new CM game performs...both in terms of speed and in lack of support for poorer systems....I would hate to defect to an inferior product...but never say never!!!

In fairness, most games operate on an average spec which is 2 years older than the release date. Demanding games will often have a 1 year old average spec. So paying 30 quid to upgrade the graphics card to play (down solely to the demands of the 3d graphics I believe) so that I could still use the old PC which is c.5 years old wasn't too much of an issue for me.

I think this is just one of those 'once every few years' switches which will gradually result in improved performance as people catch up again from very low end machines by upgrading as they would normally. The game tells me that I ideally shouldn't be running so many leagues, and it's right, but I'll live with slowdowns etc for the moment.

You'll have exactly the same problems as you're seeing in FM (worse if the 3d match graphics are much higher quality than in FM). Unless your graphics card can handle all the 3d stuff on its own, then your other system resources are going to have to take up the slack and in such a demanding game (in terms of pure processing power required) as a football management sim, this will mean that you'll get slowdowns. The more work your graphics card is passing over to the rest of your system to do, the slower it gets in doing the things it's meant to be doing besides helping out the graphics card. The only way round this is to take the game's suggested number of divisions etc and not try to push the system beyond what it can reasonably be expected to do by switching off all background processes, sparkly windows effects etc.

Complaining that your old computer will not run FM09 is like complaining that your TV will not operate in HD. It's not the fault of the people that make the entertainment product, at some stage you have to catch up with technology. I have in my house a laptop that is so old it has a black and white display, am I entitled to be upset that FM09 will not run on it?

I think you've missed the point JamesB. Most of the people 'complaining' here have PCs that meet the recommended specification.

To use your metaphorical example, I'm complaining that my TV is 'HD ready' but that I don't even want HD and I just want to watch Match of the Day on normal BBC 1. However, I'm getting a poor picture and I'm disappointed with it.

C.

I think you've missed the point JamesB. Most of the people 'complaining' here have PCs that meet the recommended specification.

To use your metaphorical example, I'm complaining that my TV is 'HD ready' but that I don't even want HD and I just want to watch Match of the Day on normal BBC 1. However, I'm getting a poor picture and I'm disappointed with it.

C.

Yeah yeah, I get that mate However, the game does not have a recommended specification, only a minimum specification. Now, to me, the minimum specification would be what is necessary to run the game with commentary only. Watching matches with commentary only is still running the game is it not? And it would require the minimum resources. Most of the complaints above are that the 3D or 2D engine is jerky on PCs with older hardware.

To further clarify the metaphorical example, people are upset that their 720p HD TV is showing high definition programs but not in the 1080p they would desire.

I think you've missed the point JamesB. Most of the people 'complaining' here have PCs that meet the recommended specification.

To use your metaphorical example, I'm complaining that my TV is 'HD ready' but that I don't even want HD and I just want to watch Match of the Day on normal BBC 1. However, I'm getting a poor picture and I'm disappointed with it.

C.

With your graphics card Crouchaldinho, it's more akin to complaining that you can't watch a decent HD stream and have trouble with a standard quality stream because you have a modem which says it can connect to the internet and a telephone line. The same modem would perform much better if you had a cable connection, and if your modem was not 56k then its performance on cable would be even better still. There's a massive difference in ability between an integrated graphics card and a dedicated graphics card in terms of performance. That's why I pointed out the 3dmark05 scores. It's something which SI could consider making much clearer as I'd imagine many of us aren't particularly bothered about things which only tend to impact players of first person shooter games

Zebedee77 - you lost me in the first sentence. I'm the sort of person who believes that books are quite a clever technology (good old Gutenberg press ) so I'm a little out of my depth here.

I'm sure you are quite right though.

C.

He's just saying integrated graphics cards are not intended for games at all. At all!! Even the most basic dedicated graphics card would be a marked improvement, something costing in the region of 20 to 30 pounds over in England.

I'm with you JamesB. I just figured that if I only want to play 2D, surely it shouldn't matter which graphics card I have (or indeed if I have one at all)?

2.8 ghz quad core 4 gig ram 1 gig video card, only paid $900 australian for my pc..run everything like a dream

Actually im going to add an update : Sometimes my match engine becomes a little jerky. Seems nothing is running in the background.

Once the gittering starts, it will continue for the rest of the match, but completely dissipate the next game.

So i think something goes wrong during the processing for that particular game.

I'm with you JamesB. I just figured that if I only want to play 2D, surely it shouldn't matter which graphics card I have (or indeed if I have one at all)?

But the 3d stuff still has to be done by the graphics card or else parts of the game will have to be coded twice - once for those who want to switch between 2d and 3d and once just for a 2d so that the 3d representation of the match engine isn't being generated too, whether it's being used or not. To not do it that way would risk synch issues between 3d and the match engine as well as having the expense of having to code twice for the benefit of people with systems which are bordering on obselescence or laptops from manufacturers who say their users don't want to play games on them.

It's a problem which has been around for a while with laptops with Intel stuff inside - the raw horsepower of the system is fantastic for the price and package, the problem is that Intel says that it's not making laptops for gamers so does not even produce drivers to help out their seriously substandard integrated graphics cards (I think their price is something like £3.50 to give you an idea of how much of the cost of the laptop is taken up by the graphics card). Intel argues that they shouldn't have to cater to the '10%' of the laptop market who use laptops to play games, saying that if you can't play a game on your laptop, you'll go and play it on your desktop instead (which about sums up their illogical reasoning on this issue).

Actually im going to add an update : Sometimes my match engine becomes a little jerky. Seems nothing is running in the background.

Exactly what happens to me except it happens all of the time on goals highlights and some of the time on the actual match and seems totally arbitary when it will strike! Very frustrating!

Understand what you are saying Zebedee77. Very unfortunate if that's the way it works as it sounds unlikely that anything can be done in terms of a basic 2D mode for people like me.

Can't replace my graphics either as it is an internal card in a laptop and as I understand it nothing can be done. So looks like I am stuck with what I've got.

C.

Understand what you are saying Zebedee77. Very unfortunate if that's the way it works as it sounds unlikely that anything can be done in terms of a basic 2D mode for people like me.

Can't replace my graphics either as it is an internal card in a laptop so looks like I am stuck.

C.

For the moment, yeah. The best you can do is to reduce by as much as possible what else is happening on your system (wonder what the game would be like if you had XP as a dual operating system with vista and then running the game using XP as the operating system? anyone done this - does it run faster as I suspect it will?) and within game. But with luck SI will consider again the issue of 3d and its impact on its core 'fan' base. It may well be worth their while to go to the additional expense of allowing flexibility at game start in choosing just a '2d' mode as it will speed up the game for anyone without a 512mb+ graphics card or are stuck with a laptop which can't be upgraded.

What may well help out even more is optimising the code which SI do as time goes by - the difference between 9.2 and 9.3 for me was absolutely immense. 9.3 runs much more smoothly. If a similar 'leap' forward can be done for FM10, then FM10.1 etc without the freed system resources then being eaten up too much by anything new then there's a chance that performance will actually improve over this initial introduction to 3d. But we are both hitting that stage where our computers are starting to show their limitations - my next upgrade is going to have to be a new desktop. Might be nice to have a flatscreen monitor instead of the old CRT box too

For the moment, yeah. The best you can do is to reduce by as much as possible what else is happening on your system

Well, I've got next to nothing running these days as I have closed down everything unnecessary and really optimised it for FM purposes even though its main purpose in life is to help me research and write my MA dissertation.

(wonder what the game would be like if you had XP as a dual operating system with vista and then running the game using XP as the operating system?

I've often wondered whether or not Vista is part of the problem.

I wouldn't know how to do this though and I wouldn't want to uninstall Vista and then install XP as I wouldn't know where to begin and I imagine it would be quite time consuming.

But with luck SI will consider again the issue of 3d and its impact on its core 'fan' base. It may well be worth their while to go to the additional expense of allowing flexibility at game start in choosing just a '2d' mode as it will speed up the game for anyone without a 512mb+ graphics card or are stuck with a laptop which can't be upgraded.

This is my real hope as I believe that a lot of what we are calling the 'core' fanbase prefer 2D anyway.

Fingers crossed.

C.

TBF fm 09 is like one of the lowest spec pc games I have except for the past versions of the game. To advance the game further they are going to have to raise the specs. Its just life things move on and update. You have to move with them or you will be left behind unfortunitly.

I have an integrated graphics card, and it works fine (9.1 onwards)

I would change it, but I was told when I tried that you can't change graphics cards on laptops. So unless I want to buy a new laptop (season ticket or laptop, and I know which one i'm getting), the integrated one will have to do.

TBF fm 09 is like one of the lowest spec pc games I have except for the past versions of the game. To advance the game further they are going to have to raise the specs. Its just life things move on and update. You have to move with them or you will be left behind unfortunitly.

This isnt true though, because FM should not require anywhere near the specs that it currently has. Spore for instance has lower requirements, and thats a full 3d game on a pretty huge scale.

The graphics requirements for the 3d engine as it is at the moment are nothing more than taking the mickey.

This isnt true though, because FM should not require anywhere near the specs that it currently has. Spore for instance has lower requirements, and thats a full 3d game on a pretty huge scale.

The graphics requirements for the 3d engine as it is at the moment are nothing more than taking the mickey.

Spore has nowhere the same demand on the rest of the system though in processing, so any shortfall in your graphics card for that game can in some ways be made up by your system. Look beyond the 'graphics' at what is actually taking place behind the scenes.

Unless FM is doing something weird with the 3d view, that should be relying purely on the graphics card, which is what I said in my post - the graphics requirements for the cruddy little match view we get are too demanding. I made no mention of the background processing.

Unless FM is doing something weird with the 3d view, that should be relying purely on the graphics card, which is what I said in my post - the graphics requirements for the cruddy little match view we get are too demanding. I made no mention of the background processing.

I know you didn't mention that - that's my point really. Spore has very little in the way of background processing so stuff not done by the graphics card can use other system resources. Net result is lower graphics card spec required. In FM, if your graphics card can't handle the 3d, then the same process results in a slowdown because there is so much more processing going on at the same time. If you play other strategy games you'll see the same thing - cruddy graphics but more intensive on system resources and requiring better minimum graphic card than a game which looks 'prettier' because the graphics need to be done by the graphics card in order to free up as much of the other system resources for the stuff going on underneath the hood.

While I think the OP is wishing for a bit too much, sometimes I think Football Manager is a bit too resource-intensive. The fact that its "3D" graphics make the Nintendo 64 look like a masterpiece yet still manage to lag some video cards does suggest as such. Also, I suspect they load the entire database into RAM despite the fact I think it doesn't need to - you only view your own team most of the time - is there a need to stick the whole database into RAM? Why not load incrementally? Or perhaps when you click continue, you get to do certain things while the game simulates some actions, so you get the keep working on your squad in the Premiership while the 2B fixtures get simulated.

sorry mate, but to be honest, i stopped reading after your first paragraph. surely i'm not the only one who is sick to death of posts starting with "I've played FM/CM since Jesus was a featus". I don't care how long you've played the game for, just get on with your post!

I know you didn't mention that - that's my point really. Spore has very little in the way of background processing so stuff not done by the graphics card can use other system resources. Net result is lower graphics card spec required. In FM, if your graphics card can't handle the 3d, then the same process results in a slowdown because there is so much more processing going on at the same time. If you play other strategy games you'll see the same thing - cruddy graphics but more intensive on system resources and requiring better minimum graphic card than a game which looks 'prettier' because the graphics need to be done by the graphics card in order to free up as much of the other system resources for the stuff going on underneath the hood.

But the game shouldn't be slower than FM08 in regards to processing and requirements after the graphics are accounted for. The game is just too bloated for what it is and its reflected in the minimum spec.

But the game shouldn't be slower than FM08 in regards to processing and requirements after the graphics are accounted for. The game is just too bloated for what it is and its reflected in the minimum spec.

I doubt it is very much slower for anyone with a decent non-integrated graphics card given identical system specs used to play 08. There probably will be a bit of a hit as it seems that there is room for some optimising though - difference between 9.2 and 9.3 was immense for me (didn't buy the game until 9.2 so no idea what my PC would have played base game and 9.1 like).

actually this is where you are wrong. Its been documented that processing is 50% slower than 08 on the same spec machine.

actually this is where you are wrong. Its been documented that processing is 50% slower than 08 on the same spec machine.

Where's it been documented?

There was a list of the machines the game was tested on in one of the threads around the launch of the game.

MM - I've actually run some tests on my system and found that FM09 is at least 50% slower on my machine when compared to FM09.

That is a holiday test through one season of game time with the same settings and also the average time it takes me to actually play a match on the same settings (two separate tests).

C.

actually this is where you are wrong. Its been documented that processing is 50% slower than 08 on the same spec machine.

With a low end integrated graphics card, it will be (reasons as given in several posts above). Do the same comparison with a 1024mb gaming card (possibly a 512mb?) and a decent system spec behind it and if the results are the same then it will invalidate my observations in this thread for sure.

He's just saying integrated graphics cards are not intended for games at all. At all!! Even the most basic dedicated graphics card would be a marked improvement, something costing in the region of 20 to 30 pounds over in England.

That's pretty misleading, it's all about the calibre of the integrated graphics chip.

You could certainly do worse than a high quality integrated graphics chip with a £20-30 discrete graphics card.

With a low end integrated graphics card, it will be (reasons as given in several posts above). Do the same comparison with a 1024mb gaming card (possibly a 512mb?) and a decent system spec behind it and if the results are the same then it will invalidate my observations in this thread for sure.

There is no way on earth you need a card with that kind of memory, it would be very easy to go miles beyond what FM will ever make any use of with some pretty old cards.

With a low end integrated graphics card, it will be (reasons as given in several posts above). Do the same comparison with a 1024mb gaming card (possibly a 512mb?) and a decent system spec behind it and if the results are the same then it will invalidate my observations in this thread for sure.

What about tests with pure processing times (no matches)?

My spec is half decent: Intel 2 Duo processor 1.66GHz and 3GB RAM.

All English Leagues & large database on FM08 and FM09. Holiday test for one season.

Results were that FM09 was more than 50% slower at processing that FM08.

C.

With a low end integrated graphics card, it will be (reasons as given in several posts above). Do the same comparison with a 1024mb gaming card (possibly a 512mb?) and a decent system spec behind it and if the results are the same then it will invalidate my observations in this thread for sure.

my desktop:

amd x2 6000+, 4gb DDR2 Ram, X1950 Pro 256mb PCI-E grfx.

FM09 is 50% slower at processing. A bunch of us compared it a while ago.

my desktop:

amd x2 6000+, 4gb DDR2 Ram, X1950 Pro 256mb PCI-E grfx.

FM09 is 50% slower at processing. A bunch of us compared it a while ago.

Running vista I presume?

Decent lower mid-range CPU from 2 years ago (3 ghz performance or thereabouts if not overclocked - unfair to call it a budget processor, but the focus was definitely on mid-range market), decent lower mid-range graphics card from 2 years ago (c5900 score on 3dmark05) = decent low to mid-range performance for demanding games coming out in 2009 on a decent lower mid-range system for 2009. Upgrading the graphics card would probably see you having little to no slowdown. And for the record, a top end machine in 2009 would munch 08 - just as my p.o.s PC munches 05.

thats still mid-high range, i dunno where you're getting your ideas from here. It runs all new games on med-high settings @ 1440x900.

When you compare that spec to the recommended settings, it should speed through 09 the same way it does to 08. Again, the 3d engine should have nothing to do with the processing speed inbetween games.

thats still mid-high range, i dunno where you're getting your ideas from here. It runs all new games on med-high settings @ 1440x900

Even when the CPU was released it was a stop-gap minor upgrade to the X2 5600+ focusing on reducing price in preparation for the later AMD processors (Phenom range) which were due for release a few months later (something like 5% extra performance for 30% less cost, think the Intel was faster though by a considerable margin).

If I can pick up the processor and graphics card for under 150 quid the pair (new), then it's low to mid range. When I can pick up a Core 2 Extreme for the same price, then that's low to mid range. An Intel version of your system with a higher end graphics card will probably be my next purchase btw.

The graphics card is fairly nice, but it's definitely not mid-high range with a score of around 6000 on 3dmark05 (might be faster with your CPU but not hugely much). Solid mid-range these days when high range is defined by the performance of the HD 4870 X2 with a top end CPU behind it (c.20 000+ 3dMark05 score).

Doesn't mean that you'll see much of a performance hit in anything but the most CPU intensive games though. Sadly, big strategy games are for more of a workout for your system than even most first person shooters. You could probably tweak your system to process faster in-between games btw by freeing up system resources. And I'm not sure you should be getting 'glitching' in matches unless you've got a lot of background stuff running too? Give it another year and you will struggle to play on the same settings with new releases without upgrading the graphics card though.

I think youve misunderstood something

I don't get any glitching in matches, its all smooth, as I would expect. I was just pointing at that 08 is much, much quicker at processing in between games than 09 is.

I don't see what that has to do with the graphics card to be honest, because it should still be down to memory/hd/processor when the match engine isn't involved - its not like the programming can't allow for the fact that the 3d view is only used on match days.

I think youve misunderstood something

I don't get any glitching in matches, its all smooth, as I would expect. I was just pointing at that 08 is much, much quicker at processing in between games than 09 is.

I don't see what that has to do with the graphics card to be honest, because it should still be down to memory/hd/processor when the match engine isn't involved - its not like the programming can't allow for the fact that the 3d view is only used on match days.

Fair enough - I did misunderstand you and was talking at cross-purposes. I thought you were talking about inmatch processing, I didn't catch your edit due to posting while playing

The difference between 9.2 and 9.3 for me points to future optimising of code though for 10.x etc. Someone coding the game would be ideal to comment on this, but I've a feeling that adding in the 3d has led to major code changes elsewhere (plus the other 'minor' changes introduced for new features) which probably account for slowdowns inbetween games for you. 50% seems excessively high - although if you read the bugs forum, you'll see that there have been reports of people having near 'never-ending' days on lower spec machines with 9.2 which was reported as being 'fixed' via optimising the code in the changelist for 9.3. However, what's really needed is some idea from SI on what kind of performance an 'average' system for 09 can be expected to produce.

Just out of interest, how long does it take for you to process from end of match (after pressing submit on the post-match analysis screen) to getting the messages in your inbox and being able to access them? Mine tends to be in the 2 minutes range but then 512mb ram and a 2.4 P4 is hardly going to munch this game