why does FM12 take so long to return control of my computer when i close the game down?

FM12 is the only game i currently play that, when closing the game down from Full Screen mode, makes me hard drive churn like crazy for a few minutes after i'm already back to my desktop. The Internet Browser window and all my open tabs are unresponsive and the speed of the open windows refresh is severely limited. you can see the browser tab refresh from top to bottom like a line travelling down the screen.

I would have thought that once the FM program is shut down, it shouldn't be doing anything else. This has happened since day one of playing the game but i've only got round to asking now. I had Formatted my drive twice a few months ago, for unrelated matters, so i have a nice clean harddrive.

You could play in windowed mode expanded to full screen with other windows available at the bottom of the screen.

The saving process does continue updaing and overwriting files after you exit the game, but it should not have any more effect on your computer than while playing

It could be low memory maybe and your computer has to free up all the used memory and takes a bit of time perhaps

Yeah, how much RAM do you have and how many leagues etc. are you loading? If you've not got all that much RAM and it's all filled up with FM data - and you're using virtual memory as well - freeing up the memory and clearing up/reorganising the virtual memory takes a while. My PC at work has this problem too. You can check out how much RAM FM is using in the Task Manager in Windows btw. The fact that your hard drive works like crazy does suggest that you've not got enough memory and Windows is using VM to compensate. This will also extend to all your other programs (IE etc.) having been dumped to VM to free up actual RAM for FM, which is why they're unresponsive (their current state first needs to be reloaded from the hard drive before they can continue operating).

Also, if you're CPU that is showing its age, everything takes a while - but you say FM is the only game with this issue, so I suspect not enough RAM and/or far too many leagues/players loaded.

Maybe partly memory, partly OS, as on the same 4GB Ram laptop, getting W7 stopped FM causing everything to be less responsive (both when playing and after), which had been a consistent side-effect of the game for years.

Yeah, how much RAM do you have and how many leagues etc. are you loading? If you've not got all that much RAM and it's all filled up with FM data - and you're using virtual memory as well - freeing up the memory and clearing up/reorganising the virtual memory takes a while. My PC at work has this problem too. You can check out how much RAM FM is using in the Task Manager in Windows btw. The fact that your hard drive works like crazy does suggest that you've not got enough memory and Windows is using VM to compensate. This will also extend to all your other programs (IE etc.) having been dumped to VM to free up actual RAM for FM, which is why they're unresponsive (their current state first needs to be reloaded from the hard drive before they can continue operating).

Also, if you're CPU that is showing its age, everything takes a while - but you say FM is the only game with this issue, so I suspect not enough RAM and/or far too many leagues/players loaded.

i have 4g of RAM.

i have about 13 leagues split across 4 countries & large database. happens from the first season as well though.

When playing FM, i generally have some Chrome tabs open and maybe SPotify running in the background. I suspect that wouldn't be enough to cause issues though.

Fraz, is there any reason why the game doesn't stay open until the full saving process completes? if i attempt to save something due to being back at Desktop, and FM is still doing stuff in teh background, could that cause problems? perhaps overwriting part-saved filed or something? Would you recommend that i dont touch the computer until FM fully completes its saving process?

What processor have you got?

postal- The saving process goes on for 30-60 seconds after closing the game down, depending on how much data is being overwritten. The only time this would cause an issue is if you immediately shut down the computer with the saving task still running. It shouldnt really affect the computers performance and will not cause any issues if you leave the computer for about a minute after exiting, just to be sure. I am not sure if this is an FM issue or happens with other software where data is updated.

I get this as well.

It takes a good 3-5 minutes for FM to shut down and stop slowing my machine down.

What processor have you got?

Quad core extreme edition 2.66ghz

Yeah, I concur- closing FM12 down is pretty damned slow.

Given your computer specs I'd say there's something else at play here.

Have you verified your game cache? http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279162-Football-Manager-2012-*OFFICIAL*-FAQ?p=7184719&viewfull=1#post7184719

You could also try defragmenting the game cache.

None of that sort of stuff works. A few people are just unlucky enough to have this weird conflict which causes FM to just take ages to close.

What makes you say that?

Because, it may surprise you to know, I've already done that and other things like it.

I see, fair enough.

On my 8 year old PC it was average.

On my 5 year old pretty decent PC, It's so so.

On my 4 year old LT it's painfully playable.

On my brand new gamer PC, it flies.

Best advice is to relax, take a sip of your drink and in no time your PC will be yours again.

I get this too. Sometimes, it even reboots by itself, which is extremely annoying if I'm in a rush and I have to wait another 2-3 minutes to close it down again. I think it's a Steam issue.

I get this too. Sometimes, it even reboots by itself, which is extremely annoying if I'm in a rush and I have to wait another 2-3 minutes to close it down again. I think it's a Steam issue.

That sounds like it's actually crashing while shutting down, or at least making Steam think it's crashing, as that's the only reason Steam would relaunch the game. That's worth raising in the bugs forum.

Just had another thought from another thread - are your saved games set to "Compress" in the preferences? This might be causing it to take longer as it needs the files, which are large, to be compressed.

Just had another thought from another thread - are your saved games set to "Compress" in the preferences? This might be causing it to take longer as it needs the files, which are large, to be compressed.

i stopped compressing my games when FM kept crashing at the beginning of the Save process. i got to a point where i saved 5 times in teh space of 2 in-game weeks and it crashed 4 times.

Hasn't crashed during Save since.

I still think the game should stay open until its finished accessing my hard-drive, but its not that big a problem to leave the computer for a few minutes after closing.

I seem to always get a popup saying that FM has stopped working after quitting.

Could data collection be causing any of this?

Hah, no chance.

I have never experienced FM 12 going on with saving to disk after I have shut the game down. This is news to me, is this really how it is supposed to work? When I exit FM, it shuts. Completely. Normal shut-down procedure; save game, then exit.

Hah, no chance.

You do realise I was referring to SI collecting data!

You do realise I was referring to SI collecting data!

Yes, I did.

I have never experienced FM 12 going on with saving to disk after I have shut the game down. This is news to me, is this really how it is supposed to work? When I exit FM, it shuts. Completely. Normal shut-down procedure; save game, then exit.

Vast majority of people don't need to worry about it.

make sure you've UNTICKED reload skin on confirm?

The saving process does continue updaing and overwriting files after you exit the game, but it should not have any more effect on your computer than while playing

Whenever I exit the game I get a message saying FM2012 has stopped working and sometimes Steam tries the re-launch the game :confused:

Whenever I exit the game I get a message saying FM2012 has stopped working and sometimes Steam tries the re-launch the game :confused:

That's a crash (Steam only relaunches a game if it closes unexpectedly) - please mention it in the bugs forum.