Match Engine favours 3D over 2D?

Has anyone else experienced this? I find the match engine flows a lot better when 3D is enabled. I prefer just using the 2D engine and commentary as enabling 3D seems to get my Mac to heat up pretty damn quickly, but it's annoying when the 2D engine seems slow and jerky compared to when the 3d is enabled!

This is more likely related to your hardware.

The 2d Classic system is based on software rendering and the 3d Match Engine is based on GPU rendering.

There are some machines and architecture out there that will perform better on one or the other, depending on the type of hardware and machine specifications. The software rendering mode also enables those who do not have sufficient 3d capabilities to still run the game, but if you have a machine that's not capable of 3d, then there's a reasonably high chance that the CPU is likely to be fairly dated too and may struggle even in software rendering only.

In your case, I would guess that when you use 3d, it's taking some strain off of your CPU by using the GPU a little more, but the tradeoff in your case here is that makes your Mac heat up quickly. In this case, you should try lowering the Graphics Detail level to a lower setting (if it's not already on the lowest setting) to see if that helps. The higher settings will push the GPU harder in order to give you the best look as possible.

Thanks for the reply So in this case do you think it might be worth changing the settings to software rendering to try and support the 2D match engine more?

Not sure if this is being looked at for the new FM? But it would be nice to think that both engines are supported evenly if possible. I'm not a fan of watching the 3D match personally, so having a nice flowing 2D match engine is quite a high expectation.

I think you may have misunderstood what I've said. It's the same match engine, but the rendering technique is different between 2d classic (software based CPU rendering) and 3d (GPU based rendering) and therefore you're simply experiencing performance issues and that's a limitation of your hardware.

There are many variables that can affect performance, so it really comes down to what specifications your machine has. There are possibly one or two tweaks you can make to help out, such as, in software rendering mode, if you are experiencing performance issues then you should ensure things like "Match Sounds" are turned off as this would reduce the load on the CPU.

In addition, you might also want to try and experiment with ensuring the user interface is rendered using "Software Rendering" or "GPU assisted", as this may help improve performance either way for you. If you use 3d 2d, then ensure the Graphics Detail is set to the lowest possible (Very Low), and turn off any additional details, like crowds and seats, etc, which will help with performance and most likely help with the heat issue, and then you could run the 3d 2d mode to simulate what would be 2d Classic but in GPU rendered mode.

I have the same thing everything is smooth in 3D on the highest settings but in 2D it lags sometimes.

I'd have to disagree with the statement of "and therefore you're simply experiencing performance issues and that's a limitation of your hardware." I'm afraid. I'm playing on a brand spanking new MacBook Pro with plenty of memory and ram etc to be able to run a game like FM.

Each FM seems to shut out more and more uses if you ask me. Essentially if you can't afford a Grade A laptop/computer, you can't enjoy the experience to it's fullest. On a new MacBook I don't expect to be experiencing game speed, lag problems. I honestly think the game should be tailored more for its uses and NOT the other way around with the spiel of "sorry, your laptops not up to scratch". And it still erks me that so much attention is paid to the 3D side, when there are plenty of other uses like me who just utilize the 2D mode and still can't get the most out of it.

I still think you're misunderstanding this a little bit.

It's simply not the case that we're shutting people out, because one of the things we've paid attention to most over the years is supporting low end hardware. That's the last thing we'd want to do and wouldn't make business sense for us, because a lot of our users are on laptops.

There's very few games out there, or software, that extends back as far as we do. We're very proud about that and that's one of the reasons why we support both GPU and software rendering modes. There's hardware out there that's not capable of running 3d at all, and in a lot of other software, that would mean your luck is out. But that's not how we've approached it, we've still allowed those who can't to be able to use software rendering mode so they can get 2d classic or commentary only if they prefer – if you look at our releases year on year and compare the minimum specifications and how often or by how much they've changed, then you'd have your answer. If you compare that to a lot of other games, you'd see a huge difference. To some degree, by supporting so much low end hardware, we sometimes can't make use of some new cutting edge optimisations and techniques from newer hardware, so it does actually go both ways.

GPU and CPU rendering are two approaches to displaying to screen. It's not specific to FM, it's simply an approach that all types of software will use, 3d based or otherwise. If you use software rendering however then everything goes through the CPU, which means in some cases you can cause a bottleneck somewhere. This would extend outside the application experience, so if you're running other programs, then they're all sharing and vying for the CPU's time. The CPU is simply going to queue up all the jobs it has to do one after another an excuse them in order. If it's overloaded, it may stall. This however is the same for any application that does a mixture of one or the other, or both. It's not unique to FM, but you'd find most games out there today would be GPU rendering only.

Having said all of that, what are the specifications of your laptop? I personally use a Macbook Air, an iMac and a Mac Pro, all of which are a few years old or more and are running FM as expected and without the issues you are experiencing. So maybe there's a different kind of problem of you? Perhaps solvable. I noticed you mentioned memory and RAM, but that wouldn't necessarily relate to the issue you're experiencing.

The first thing I would suggest is properly clearing your cache and preferences, to ensure that it hasn't become corrupted and is causing this particular issue for you.

I don't mean to be controntational by the way, so apologies, it's just that I've had this exact same 'lag' problem on the 2D commentary for the last 2/3 football manager titles now, and it's annoying to think I'm not playing the game I've loved for years at it's best capabilities.

Spec wise, my MacBook Pro is 2.4GHZ intel core i5 processor and has 8GB memory. I'm just clearing the caches and preferences now to see if anything changes.

Clearing the Cache and Preferences hasn't done too much to be honest.

Is there anything that can be done with Steam that might be the problem? It's only really since steam was introduced that I've had this problem.

Clearing the Cache and Preferences hasn't done too much to be honest.

Is there anything that can be done with Steam that might be the problem? It's only really since steam was introduced that I've had this problem.

It's not likely to be related to Steam. There are several other tweaks you can try and you may need a combination of these settings:

- Full screen mode versus Windowed mode. Does this make any difference? You'll want to try this for the changes below as well.

- From the Preferences screen, deselect "Use Sound In Match". Does this make any difference?

- Leave 3d enabled, but change the Graphics Quality to "Very Low". Does this make any difference?

- With 3d enabled, deselect "Sky", "Weather Effects", "Scenery", "Stadium", "Crowd and Seats" and "Depth of Field". Does this make any difference?

- You can also try changing the Rendering Mode from "GPU Assisted (supports animations)" to "Software", which impacts the way the user interface is rendered.

- Are you running any other applications alongside FM at the same time? If so, what are you running and is there any difference if you close those applications down.

I've tried some of the above. Fiddling around the the 3D match engine with all those things and unticked and with very low graphics quality I've discovered something...

If I view the game on 'pitch' and then 'full' rather than the 'split' screen the game and commentary runs a bit smoother and faster. Again, almost as though the game is preferencing seeing the 3D pitch view on screen? If I view the game with other stats and not the actual pitch it seems to go slower, which seems...odd?

Should the game speed alter depending on which tab you view the match on?

With 3D graphics turned off, the game speed and flow is still better when I watch on 'pitch - split' than when I watch on 'stats' with both teams player ratings being displayed.

It all seems very odd, the above is still happening, it seems like it is geeenuinely favouring watching the 3D graphics....?

Guessing there's probably no known explaination for this then?

I've got a top spec machine and 2D Classic has always been laggy and jerky for me, whereas the 2D view using the 3D rendering has always been smooth.

Both 3D and 2D have work fine for me on both Windows/Linux, got a fairly average computer that I have pieced together over the years.

My preference is always to top down 2D dots as I can focus more on the players position/shape but do enjoy the 3D match engine when new stands and ground improvements have been made, nice visual reference to the club developing.

When you say 3D rendering do you mean you've got 3D turned on and use GPU assist rather than software?