FM 2011 Official System/Specs Thread

[pigfacemonkeyman]

Not FM11, but for anyone interested, this is from Steam's 'Football Manager 2012' pre-order page.

PC System Requirements

OS: Windows XP/Vista/W7

Processor: XP - 1.4GHz or Faster, Vista/W7 - 2.0GHz or Faster. Intel Pentium 4, Intel Core, AMD Athlon.

Memory: XP - 512MB RAM, Vista/W7 - 1.0GB RAM

Graphics: 128MBSupported Chipsets - Nvidia FX 5900 Ultra or greater; ATI Radeon 9800 or greater; Intel 82915G/82910GL or greater.

Earlier cards may only display 2D Match Viewer Mode and are not supported.

Earlier cards may require the DirectX 9.0 SDK is installed to run the game. This can be downloaded from the following url:

DirectX Software Development Kit

Laptop versions of these chipsets may work but are not supported.

DirectX®: 9.0c

Hard Drive: 2GB

Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible

LAN: TCP/IP compliant

Mac System Requirements

OS: OS X 10.5.8/10.6.8/10.7.x or higher

Processor: Intel Processor

Memory: 1GB

Graphics: Nvidia Geforce 7300 GT or greater; ATI Radeon X1600 or greater.

Hard Drive: 2GB

http://store.steampowered.com/app/71270/?snr=1_4_4__13

[Ishu]

Looks like they have posted the last year's specs. Probably SI didn't change them.

[pigfacemonkeyman]

Looks like they have posted the last year's specs. Probably SI didn't change them.

You're probably right. I have just checked again and although this is at the foot of the FM12 page, I included the title "Football Manager 2012" by mistake. It is in fact the last line of the preceding paragraph, which was outside the window when I copied the info, and I apologise if I have misled anyone. I will edit the offending post.

[Gooner88]

Does FM work on Intel Graphics HD Family?

[Ishu]

Yes .

[Gooner88]

Thanks, does it work well? Salesman in PC world was trying to tell me FM wouldnt work without specialised large graphics card

[Guest]

Thanks, does it work well? Salesman in PC world was trying to tell me FM wouldnt work without specialised large graphics card

Another reason to never listened to PC World employees.

Unless they are using really old CPU's in their systems the stock integrated graphics will be fine.

software.intel.com/sites/billboard/article/intel-integrated-graphics-deliver-football-manager-2011]This article mentions using integrated graphics to play FM2011.

[Gooner88]

Thanks a lot. I thought it was strange as iv been playing fm for years and never had to worry about this, but i really know nothing about how a computer works so was a bit worried.

Thanks again.

[PhYsIcS]

Hi guys. I currently have a desktop and laptop. How will the specs fare for FM 2011 and possibly the upcoming FM 2012 and how many leagues max is suitable? I will be using 2D more than 3D graphics for the games.

So far for FM 2011, I can only reach 7 leagues using my desktop. Anything more will leads the processing to a crawl. As I've just gotten the laptop, I'm not too sure of its capabilities just yet.

Laptop: Acer Aspire 4755G

Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-2410M processor (3 MB L3 cache, 2.30 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 2.90, DDR3 1333 MHz, 35 W)

Ram: 8GB

HDD: 640GB

GFX: NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 540M with NVIDIA® Optimus™ technology (2GB of dedicated DDR3 VRAM)

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit

Desktop: DIY

Processor: Intel Core2Duo E8400 @ 3.00GHz

Ram: 4GB

GFX: Asus GTS 250 (1gb)

HDD: More than sufficient space

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit

Thank you!

[Guest]

Ditch the desktop, your laptop is top draw but I'm sure you knew that

As for how many leagues that all depends on what you consider to be an acceptable processing time but it should offer good performance on as many as 40-50 leagues. I always mess around with game size for a few weeks just to get a feel for how it will perform 20+ seasons in & thankfully you no longer need to start a new save on FM12 if you find that you can get away with a couple of extra countries or need to drop a few.

[Ishu]

The laptop's CPU is like 50% better than the desktop's.

[PhYsIcS]

Thanks guys!

edit: managed to get it displayed accordingly.

[masticator]

can anyone recommend a decent desktop pc for fm12 and moderate gaming? ive got a maximum budget of £500 (not much i know). was thinking of looking in argos but if somebody can point me in a better direction i would be grateful. many thanks in advance.

[TaxpayersMoney]

My current laptop takes an age (by which I mean it often takes a minute or so processing) to run 1 playable league, no stadiums and a small database so I'm thinking of upgrading for FM2012. Is it possible to get a laptop that'll run, say, 6 leagues and display the 3D matches with stadiums with a medium-large database for around £500? Any suggestions? Don't really play the latest in cutting edge games so it's really only for FM. Thanks.

[Guest]

This should do the trick.

[Ishu]

My current laptop takes an age (by which I mean it often takes a minute or so processing) to run 1 playable league, no stadiums and a small database so I'm thinking of upgrading for FM2012. Is it possible to get a laptop that'll run, say, 6 leagues and display the 3D matches with stadiums with a medium-large database for around £500? Any suggestions? Don't really play the latest in cutting edge games so it's really only for FM. Thanks.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004TQQFJG

[TaxpayersMoney]

Thanks you Sir! Very speedy response.

[Ishu]

can anyone recommend a decent desktop pc for fm12 and moderate gaming? ive got a maximum budget of £500 (not much i know). was thinking of looking in argos but if somebody can point me in a better direction i would be grateful. many thanks in advance.

OK with assembled (DIY)?

Need windows?

Monitor/KB/Mouse etc?

[Doraso]

Hi!

I Have a laptop with 4gb memory i72630QM CPU and Nvidia GT540m GPU and when i max the game out the matches lags a little. Is this normal with thoose specs?

Br D

[Ishu]

No. Try to install fraps and see what FPSs you are getting.

[oggie26]

How many leagues please ?

i7 920@ 4.3GHz (HT on)

6gb ddr3 ram 1333 mhz

4870x2 GPU

[Ishu]

55 - 60 .

[jags4ever]

If you have a decent GFX card that can handle FM (and is PCIE) then look at these bundles on Scan that are pre overclocked. Some good stuff there IMO http://www.scan.co.uk/3xs-overclocked-bundles

[Doraso]

No. Try to install fraps and see what FPSs you are getting

When I run windowed mode I never get more than 30 fps which makes the game seem slow. When going fullscreen mode I get 60 fps but drops down to 30 at times which makes the game seem choppy. Could it be optimus setup that is causing this? Game gives me almost 5 stars 3D rating. Please help, bought this laptop mostly because of FM.

Can I see which graphic card the game is using? It should be using nvidia card. Im guessing FM wouldnt give Intel HD graphics 4,5 stars? Or am I wrong?

Sorry if my english is bad at times, Im from Sweden

Br D

[Scab]

The 60/30 jump sounds like vsync. Try disabling it for FM in your video card driver's control center. You may get some screen tearing instead though, but eh, pick your poison.

[Guest]

How many leagues please ?

i7 920@ 4.3GHz (HT on)

6gb ddr3 ram 1333 mhz

4870x2 GPU

I'm currently running every league & a 300,000 player database on an i7-920 that is o/c to 3.8HGz & the same RAM setup, dependant on your speed requirements 70+ leagues will run fine.

PS. I assume your running liquid cooling.

[antg1985]

Just bought this, loaded up FM and first impressions are brilliant, I have never had a laptop so good.

What do you guys think?

How many leagues?

Inspiron N5110 (FCG41) - i5-2410 (2.30GHz, 3MB cache, Dual Core)

4096MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [1x4096]

2nd generation Intel® Core™ i5-2410M processor 2.30 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 2.90 GHz

Internal Keyboard

500GB Serial ATA (5400RPM)

Primary 6-cell 48 WHr Lithium Ion battery

1 GB nVidia GeForce GT 525M

8X DVD+/-RW Drive

Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 1030, Bluetooth v3.0+HS

Power Cord : 1M

Documentation Inspiron N5110

15.6" (40 cm) High Definition (1366X768) WLED with True-Life

Integrated 1.0 Mega Pixel Widescreen HD (1280 x 720) camera

Inspiron N5110 Resource DVD (Diagnostic & Drivers)

[tuffers007]

i have been told that building my own computer is a lot cheaper than buying from stores but the thing is i dont even know where to start?

if some one can point me in the right direction i would be forever grateful

for example how much would something like this cost? 7 920@ 4.3GHz (HT on)

6gb ddr3 ram 1333 mhz

4870x2 GPU

and where would you recommend i purchase from?

[Guest]

Start at around £1000 & count upwards from there, for such a high overclock you'd need top end parts everywhere to handle to heat generated by the cpu.

At a guess I'd suggest a price of around £1500 if you were to do it right & not risk the system melting within a year.

What sort of budget do you have & other than FM what other PC games do you play & would it just be used as a gaming PC?

[tuffers007]

Start at around £1000 & count upwards from there, for such a high overclock you'd need top end parts everywhere to handle to heat generated by the cpu.

At a guess I'd suggest a price of around £1500 if you were to do it right & not risk the system melting within a year.

What sort of budget do you have & other than FM what other PC games do you play & would it just be used as a gaming PC?

bloody hell i cant afford that much! thats how useless i am i had no idea that all that was so powerful.

i only play fm on pc but the missus like to use it for photos and music ( most of which is ****!!! ) i would like to be able to load numerous leagues along with the 3d pitch view without it being slow or sluggish as time is very limited

[Guest]

How much money are you able to part with? Can you hide some extra from the missus? I'm guessing that your other half will store her music files on the PC.

[tuffers007]

How much money are you able to part with? Can you hide some extra from the missus? I'm guessing that your other half will store her music files on the PC.

yes she will unfortunately ( i really is rubbish ) i guess about £800 but im hoping that building it myself will keep the price down, i would also like the most powerful available for that price.

building it myself will also enable me to buy the parts in stages if necessary.

[Guest]

If you're comfortable doing your own build then I would check out http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ , they have a range of builds plus the site has the added benefit of letting you play around with the parts & will tell you if there are any compatibility issues, from there you can either order it & let them do the build or note down all the parts & source them yourself.

It's also worth considering what can be cannibalised from your current pc (graphics*/sound card card, PSU, HDD etc), as the saying goes 'every little helps' & you can show the missus how good you are at saving money which might be worth some browny points.

*if you get a 2nd generation i3/5/7 cpu you will not need a graphics card. these have a 4 digit number code (i7-xxxx) rather than a 3 digit code (i7-xxx) that is given to the 1st gen models, just to make things easy Intel are still shipping both versions.

[mije1983]

Almost ready to order my new pc for FM12 now it's nearly payday, but before I do, does anyone know the main differences between these 2 motherboards? There only seems to be £10 difference in the price so which would be better?

ASUS® P8P67 LE: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, CrossFireX™

ASUS® P8H67-M: M-ATX, DDR3, USB 2.0, SATA 6.0Gb/s, CrossFireX™

[iAmGory]

Without looking the P8H67-M - M-ATX - I would guess it's MicroATX?

Tuffers Ill spec you a machine for 800quid depending on your need, any preferences? I'm an IT Engineer so I (presumably, debatable) know what I'm doing.

[tuffers007]

Without looking the P8H67-M - M-ATX - I would guess it's MicroATX?

Tuffers Ill spec you a machine for 800quid depending on your need, any preferences? I'm an IT Engineer so I (presumably, debatable) know what I'm doing.

that would great as i know nothing about computers!!!!!!

needs= fm12 (obviously) music, photos.

cheers mate i really appreciate your help

[the_unhinged_one]

I'm looking to replace my 8yr old Desktop with the new release coming up. I'd like to get a quality package with enough quality to hopefully get me through a few more versions of the game and play with quite a few leagues loaded.

I'm way out of my depth here, I have a Pentium 2 for crying out loud. Now they're talking about multi core processors...... ??

Would really appreciate it somebody could give me a good spec to aim at, I haven't played with a lot of leagues loaded since FM05 as the old slugger couldn't really handle too much. I'm not keen on building my own, but if it keeps the costs down I'm more than willing to try.

[iAmGory]

I threw tuffers a build - Intel i5, 12gb ram, GeForce 550Ti, 1tb Sata II drive w/ 64mb cache (FM/general use only, wouldn't recommend for hardcore gaming) and it's sitting at sub £600 from Scan.co.uk. Thats with no monitor or OS.

[x42bn6]

I'm looking to replace my 8yr old Desktop with the new release coming up. I'd like to get a quality package with enough quality to hopefully get me through a few more versions of the game and play with quite a few leagues loaded.

I'm way out of my depth here, I have a Pentium 2 for crying out loud. Now they're talking about multi core processors...... ??

Would really appreciate it somebody could give me a good spec to aim at, I haven't played with a lot of leagues loaded since FM05 as the old slugger couldn't really handle too much. I'm not keen on building my own, but if it keeps the costs down I'm more than willing to try.

What's your budget?

[the_unhinged_one]

What's your budget?

Budget around €1000. Could stretch to a little more if would make a big difference in performance.

[the_unhinged_one]

I threw tuffers a build - Intel i5, 12gb ram, GeForce 550Ti, 1tb Sata II drive w/ 64mb cache (FM/general use only, wouldn't recommend for hardcore gaming) and it's sitting at sub £600 from Scan.co.uk. Thats with no monitor or OS.

Cheers, I'll have a look there for starters.

[NUFCAlex]

I just recently bought a new PC with the following specs:

8GB RAM

Intel Quad core 2.9 GHz

64 bit Win 7

1.5 TB hard drive

When starting a new game i can select just over half of the countries in Europe with the star system going down to about 3 or less but not sure if this would be an accurate relection of my system performance.

[x42bn6]

Budget around €1000. Could stretch to a little more if would make a big difference in performance.

Start with something like this: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/229226-FM-2011-Official-System-Specs-Thread?p=7073668&viewfull=1#post7073668

Bump up to an i5-2500K if you can overclock (or get someone to do it), which shouldn't add much. The biggest room for improvement will be the video card - given your PC is nearly 8 years old, you never know what you might want to do with your new PC (you might think it's just for FM and light gaming, but once you get a new PC, you will become greedy).

It also depends if you are building your own, or buying it assembled.

Feel free to come back here once you have a rough idea, and other forum members can comment.

I just recently bought a new PC with the following specs:

8GB RAM

Intel Quad core 2.9 GHz

64 bit Win 7

1.5 TB hard drive

When starting a new game i can select just over half of the countries in Europe with the star system going down to about 3 or less but not sure if this would be an accurate relection of my system performance.

Ignore the star ratings - just see what it feels like for yourself.

It also depends on what the processor is ("Quad-core" just about represents every Intel processor out there in the last few years, and some AMD processors too). It could be a Core 2 Quad (not very good nowadays), for example.

[iAmGory]

As x42bn6 said, Star ratings are pretty bugged - with that kit I would ignore star ratings. My Centrino laptop with 4gig ram gets the same as my i5 desktop with 8gig.

Tbh Overclocking for FM is a waste and generally a lot of people who "know all about overclocking" really only know "all about destroying your pc". True story - I was on the receiving end of that one when i was 19 and my mate told me he had been overclocking all his kit for years. One burnt out processor later, I decided it wasn't worth the risk lol

[x42bn6]

As x42bn6 said, Star ratings are pretty bugged - with that kit I would ignore star ratings. My Centrino laptop with 4gig ram gets the same as my i5 desktop with 8gig.

Tbh Overclocking for FM is a waste and generally a lot of people who "know all about overclocking" really only know "all about destroying your pc". True story - I was on the receiving end of that one when i was 19 and my mate told me he had been overclocking all his kit for years. One burnt out processor later, I decided it wasn't worth the risk lol

It's not a waste on newer processors - with a good case, wiring and sensible fan placement, you can overclock the i5-2500K to 4 GHz pretty easily - on air (i.e. without water-cooling) - that's a 700 MHz boost. With a heavy-duty cooling solution, you can even hit 5 GHz...

[Guest]

As x42bn6 said, Star ratings are pretty bugged - with that kit I would ignore star ratings. My Centrino laptop with 4gig ram gets the same as my i5 desktop with 8gig.

Tbh Overclocking for FM is a waste and generally a lot of people who "know all about overclocking" really only know "all about destroying your pc". True story - I was on the receiving end of that one when i was 19 and my mate told me he had been overclocking all his kit for years. One burnt out processor later, I decided it wasn't worth the risk lol

I've been running an i7-920 clocked to 3.8Ghz for over 2 years without any trouble, as z42bn6 has said it's all about keeping the cpu cool.

You wouldn't add a sports turbo to a car without installing an intercooler or upgrading the radiator. That one was for you Kriss.

[stevie_G_32201]

Not really paid much attention to this so might be a stupid question, but will Fm 12 take advantage of hyper threading?

[x42bn6]

Not really paid much attention to this so might be a stupid question, but will Fm 12 take advantage of hyper threading?

All software nowadays makes good use of threads in general so yes, it will. Hyperthreading has also been around since the Pentium 4 days...

[Guest]

What I've found is that hyper-threading is only currently (FM11) utilised when the game is processing 'full detail' matches.

[stevie_G_32201]

Quick question, With a game like Fm which is better, better processor or more ram?