Guide how to set up an optimal database for a balanced savegame and ways to increase realism (updated 03. May 21) *links updated*

[Daveincid]

vor 1 Minute schrieb kshkong97:

Sorry, what i meant is whether there's a difference if you don't load a nation vs loading it in view-only. 

Thanks so much for your quick responses!

unloaded Nation 

• No schedule, games are fully simulated in background
• No visible league table
• No full squads (only if you load them via the advanced db)
• No staff (After the first sacking of the real manager, there will be in most cases no new head-coach and other staff members)
• Low transfer-activity
• Games will be simulated with the quick Match-Engine
• Less injuries

Nation view only

• League-schedule
• League table
• No full squads (only if you load them via the advanced db)
• No staff (After the first sacking of the real manager, there will be in most cases no new head-coach and other staff members)
• Low to medium transfer-activity
• Games will be simulated with the quick Match-Engine
• Less injuries

[John Joe O'toole]

1. Dave, how long should it take to process when you hit continue? I know that’s a hard question because it depends on leagues loaded/players loaded. 
    
2. also is there a benchmark test for fm21 or just fm20? Thanks EDIT - found this now. 

Edited July 9, 2021 by John Joe O'toole

[Daveincid]

vor 4 Stunden schrieb John Joe O'toole:

1. Dave, how long should it take to process when you hit continue? I know that’s a hard question because it depends on leagues loaded/players loaded. 
    
2. also is there a benchmark test for fm21 or just fm20? Thanks EDIT - found this now. 

1. It's really a hard question^^ It's all about your own patience. 

2. perfect!

[Matcha]

Hi dave! By nation, do you mean the top 20 leagues? How do you find out what's the top 20 nations?

Edit: If i'm currently playing a low-tier league and by the time I get into the top league, most real players would be retired already. Does that mean I don't need to have that big of a database in the beginning?

Edited July 9, 2021 by Matcha

[Daveincid]

vor 20 Minuten schrieb Matcha:

Hi dave! By nation, do you mean the top 20 leagues? How do you find out what's the top 20 nations?

Hi Matcha, check out this hidden list in the first post: 

Most important Nations to load according to my database for a balanced world (1 highest, 4 lowest)

I usually set number 1 and 2 as playable, 3 view-only and number 4 I don't load at all. This guarantees you a balance between Continents aswell

 

There are slightly more Nations than 20. Alternatively you can go by the League-Reputation ingame. I recommend going by the list, as it takes the factor for a worldwide balance into account.

vor 22 Minuten schrieb Matcha:

Does that mean I don't need to have that big of a database in the beginning?

"Need" is relative and different from person to person. The whole guide is about playing FM as realistic as possible. For this way of play, it's needed (IMO).

Cheers

Daveincid

[speedstrz]

This may sound stupid but for the 

- Loading top 5 nations and top 2 in South America playable and top 20 as view only with players loaded from the top 20 nations with the advanced-db option: "

Does this mean I load in the Top 5 europeans league, Argentina and Brazil as playable and then the 20 countriesas view-only using the Add/Remove leagues? and then adding additonal players using the advanced setup?

Edited July 11, 2021 by speedstrz

[Daveincid]

vor 9 Stunden schrieb speedstrz:

This may sound stupid but for the 

- Loading top 5 nations and top 2 in South America playable and top 20 as view only with players loaded from the top 20 nations with the advanced-db option: "

Does this mean I load in the Top 5 europeans league, Argentina and Brazil as playable and then the 20 countriesas view-only using the Add/Remove leagues? and then adding additonal players using the advanced setup?

exactly

[TheMattB81]

On 12/07/2021 at 06:53, Daveincid said:

exactly

Where do i put the recommend setup file you have in the OP? I played it in the Sports Interactive Editor folder, but for some reason the game does not detect it. Does it require a particular database version?

 

EDIT - Ignore I figured it needed to go in a different folder to load the setup.

Edited July 14, 2021 by TheMattB81

[TheMattB81]

What are the top 20 nations playable as mentioned in the OP @Daveincid?

[Daveincid]

vor 3 Minuten schrieb TheMattB81:

What are the top 20 nations playable as mentioned in the OP @Daveincid?

Scroll 6 posts back including this one and you will find an answer

Cheers
Daveincid

Edited July 14, 2021 by Daveincid

[Diplomatt83]

Hi - this is a great post and thread, I've been reading it closely before starting my new save, I was hoping you could give me an idea on how the below setup looks:

I have a new laptop:  MSI 15m Stealth,  i7-11375H @ 3.30GHz, 3302 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s), 16GB, 1tb SSD

I'll be starting as Derby and perhaps later in my save move around. The ones in green were in your screenshot as playable on page 1 and the other 5 in black I added after reading more of the thread:

 

COUNTRY	LEAGUES	TYPE	DETAIL LEVEL	RATIONALE
NORTHERN EUROPE
England	4	Playable	Full detail	TOP 5
Scotland	2	Playable / view only below		NEIGHBOUR
Denmark	1	Playable / view only below
Norway	1	Playable / view only below
Sweden	1	Playable / view only below
SOUTHERN EUROPE
Spain	2	Playable / view only below	Full detail	TOP 5
Italy	2	Playable / view only below	Full detail	TOP 5
Portugal	1	Playable / view only below
Greece	1	Playable / view only below
WESTERN EUROPE
France	2	Playable / view only below	Full detail	TOP 5
Germany	2	Playable / view only below	Full detail	TOP 5
Netherlands	1	Playable / view only below
Belgium	1	Playable / view only below
Austria	1	Playable / view only below
Switzerland	1	Playable / view only below
EASTERN EUROPE
Russia	1	Playable / view only below
Ukraine	1	Playable / view only below
ASIA
Turkey	1	Playable / view only below
S Korea	1	Playable / view only below
China	1	Playable / view only below
Qatar	1	Playable / view only below
UAE	1	Playable / view only below
Saudi	1	Playable / view only below
AFRICA
S Africa	1	Playable / view only below
NORTH AMERICA
Mexico	1	Playable / view only below
USA	1	Playable / view only below
SOUTH AMERICA
Argentina	1	Playable / view only below
Brazil	1	Playable / view only below
TOTAL
28	36

 

In addition, I'm planning on adding players from all continents (minus "based in nation" and "of nationality" - so all checkboxes apart from 2 on each continent.

My questions are:

1 - Am I loading too much for my laptop? It only has 4 cores but I think it's a pretty decent one. (I'm okay with it taking a bit of time, but would rather it didn't slow to a crawl later in my save).

2 - I initially had more on full detail but again got worried about taking on too much, should I add more on full detail?

3 - Do you think the above setup looks decent?

 

Any opinions would be great - thank you!

 

[Daveincid]

@Diplomatt83

Thank you!

If you want to load without custom Nations this is pretty decent!

1. It won't be fast in general so it's down to your patience. In general the game slows down later, but not as much as in older FM's (IMO)

2. I wouldn't set more leagues on full detail but adding International competitions and continental club conpetitions on full detail.

3. See my first sentence^^
 

Cheers

Daveincid

[Diplomatt83]

8 minutes ago, Daveincid said:

@Diplomatt83

Thank you!

If you want to load without custom Nations this is pretty decent!

1. It won't be fast in general so it's down to your patience. In general the game slows down later, but not as much as in older FM's (IMO)

2. I wouldn't set more leagues on full detail but adding International competitions and continental club conpetitions on full detail.

3. See my first sentence^^
 

Cheers

Daveincid

Great stuff - yep, I'll add international comps and continental club comps on full detail as you suggested.

Many thanks!

[Carlybarley]

I wish to join the horde of people asking the same question over and over again.

What kind of database should I run?

I like my long-term saves, I found that the one I was currently running in Italy (2030...) was getting a bit slow, with 100k lads being loaded up. rather than the 80k i started the game with.

Though, from reading your lovely essays, it seems player count is an illusion, so a better question would be "how many leagues can I run on *playable*?" before the game starts having a fit. I did try out your benchmarks via the other thread. Benchmark a) was 4.30 and benchmark b)  was 17.29... (though I must admit I was youtube during this time because I aint waiting around).

Personally I love watching the other clubs in europe, their rise and fall, over a long save. So I tend to load a whole heap of leagues... I basically look up the UEFA coefficients and run the top 25 countries with their top two leagues every year xD

But alas, either my computer is getting slower or FM is getting more demanding (or yes). So i was looking for some solid advice on the above. 

How many leagues can I get away with in full playable mode.

anyway, thank you for reading. 

 

Type: Desktop

Model: 

CPU Model: AMD-FX8350

CPU Base Frequency: 4118MHz

CPU Turbo Frequency: pfft heck if i know. I have not touched it.

RAM: 32GB ddr3

RAM Clockspeed: 2200Mhz

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX - 2060

Graphics Level in 3D: Highest

Storage Type: HDD (I might move it over to my SSD though... I just didn't figure it would make much of a difference...)

[Daveincid]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb Carlybarley:

What kind of database should I run?

In the end it's always the same. I suggest a minimum-dbfor a worldwide balanced save-game. Everything else is more demanding.    So I personally would go for that db:

 Loading top 20 nations playable, all the others leagues view-only, international games, games from National-Teams and the games in your league simulated in full detail, with small/medium/big db:

Cheers

Daveincid

Edited July 26, 2021 by Daveincid

[lohwenjie]

Wow, what a wonderful tread. Just a curious note, if we start a db with let say 100k players, what will be the amount of players in 10 years time? Because I realized that the amount of players will increase every year due to regen etc. If I start at your recommended db, the speed of the game will be slow in 10 years time. Is this the case?

[Daveincid]

vor 5 Stunden schrieb lohwenjie:

Wow, what a wonderful tread. Just a curious note, if we start a db with let say 100k players, what will be the amount of players in 10 years time? Because I realized that the amount of players will increase every year due to regen etc. If I start at your recommended db, the speed of the game will be slow in 10 years time. Is this the case?

thank you! the total number of players varies from year because of retirements etc. So down to my experience if you load 100k players, there will be maybe 95k at some point and on another date it will be 110k. Overall it's quite stable. 

The game-speed will slow down, but IMO it's not that strong as in previous FM's.

Cheers

Daveincid

[Hovis Dexter]

On 27/07/2021 at 11:14, lohwenjie said:

Wow, what a wonderful tread. Just a curious note, if we start a db with let say 100k players, what will be the amount of players in 10 years time? Because I realized that the amount of players will increase every year due to regen etc. If I start at your recommended db, the speed of the game will be slow in 10 years time. Is this the case?

I'm in 2047 and have 130k players and I'm almost 100% sure that this is the same number of players that I initially started with.

[Aquarius_DJ]

On 26/07/2021 at 22:16, Daveincid said:

In the end it's always the same. I suggest a minimum-dbfor a worldwide balanced save-game. Everything else is more demanding.    So I personally would go for that db:

 Loading top 20 nations playable, all the others leagues view-only, international games, games from National-Teams and the games in your league simulated in full detail, with small/medium/big db:

Cheers

Daveincid

Great topic! When you say 'loading top 20 nations playable', do you mean every league/level of that nation?

I want to start a save in England Blue Square North/South. Does it make sense to add for example the French national league? Or the Belgium third league? Or should I stick to the highest levels?

Edited July 29, 2021 by Aquarius_DJ

[Daveincid]

Gerade eben schrieb Aquarius_DJ:

Great topic! When you say 'loading top 20 nations playable', do you mean every league/level of that nation?

I want to start a save in England Blue Square North/South. Does it make sense to add for example the French national league? Of the Belgium third league? Or should I stick to the highest levels?

Usually I would set the top-division as playable and view-only to the others. If your PC can handle more then you could set the biggest 2nd. leagues as playable too.

[Pinception]

This has been really helpful thanks. I've just bought fm21 after a 15+ year break from the game so getting used to all the changes. 

Can you possibly help with some questions please? 

1) is there an impact on players that are loaned to non-visible clubs? I started with a small game just to get back into it, and have English leagues down to league 2 visible. I have a bunch of players loaned out in the league below (vanarama national) and so the clubs they are at have no visible fixtures. Do those players still get simulated playing time and performance, and if so is there any difference than if the league were loaded? 

2) what do you mean by "no staff" for unloaded and view only leagues - are you saying those teams literally won't have staff members? Does this affect the club's performance, or is it just about a reduced number of staff available for recruitment? 

3) what is the actual impact on the game in terms of results for matches simulated via quick engine vs full engine? Like, what factors are taken into account or not? 

Thank you

[Daveincid]

vor 6 Minuten schrieb Pinception:

 

This has been really helpful thanks. I've just bought fm21 after a 15+ year break from the game so getting used to all the changes. 

 

It's great to have some "fm- seniors" back in the community

1.)  Theese games are still simulated in the background, but it's not visible for you. They will still develop to some degree. If it's better or worse also depends on a lot of other factors so I won't worry too much about that.

2.) 

vor 9 Minuten schrieb Pinception:

are you saying those teams literally won't have staff members?

yup, that's exactly what I'm saying.

vor 10 Minuten schrieb Pinception:

Does this affect the club's performance, or is it just about a reduced number of staff available for recruitment? 

It affects the AI-Club-Performance because a Team without a assistant-manager or even a head coach etc. lacks on several smaller things which all together gives the human player quite a big advantage if you don't select a lot of leagues as playable, especially in international competitions like CL, EL etc.

3.) I'm not a Programmer of the game so I can't give you a clear answer to that question. It just takes a lot more factors into the calculation which gives you more realistic results.

Cheers

Daveincid

[Pinception]

8 hours ago, Daveincid said:

It's great to have some "fm- seniors" back in the community

1.)  Theese games are still simulated in the background, but it's not visible for you. They will still develop to some degree. If it's better or worse also depends on a lot of other factors so I won't worry too much about that.

2.) 

yup, that's exactly what I'm saying.

It affects the AI-Club-Performance because a Team without a assistant-manager or even a head coach etc. lacks on several smaller things which all together gives the human player quite a big advantage if you don't select a lot of leagues as playable, especially in international competitions like CL, EL etc.

3.) I'm not a Programmer of the game so I can't give you a clear answer to that question. It just takes a lot more factors into the calculation which gives you more realistic results.

Cheers

Daveincid

That's awesome, thanks so much for the quick reply. So I guess that if the players are unhappy about lack of playing it's just because they're not being "selected" behind the scenes, rather than not playing due to the matches not existing. 

Cool info on the player/club performance though. I guess that really then comes down to how much you want a level of "realism" in terms of dynamic change over time as clubs change staff/players. i.e. in an unloaded league I guess the outcomes will be pretty much the same year-on-year, whereas in a loaded league you would have more potential for AI changes behind the scenes that result in clubs moving position (getting stronger/weaker over time)

I'm assuming then that this is much more of an issue if you intend to play longer saves like going 5+ years into the simulation? Current year and next are probably relatively unchanged given the existing DB, but the more live simulation there is the more potential there would be for outlier events that have significant knock-on effects further down the line?

[Daveincid]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb Pinception:

players are unhappy about lack of playing it's just because they're not being "selected" behind the scenes, rather than not playing due to the matches not existing. 

I would say so, yes.

vor 3 Minuten schrieb Pinception:

Cool info on the player/club performance though. I guess that really then comes down to how much you want a level of "realism" in terms of dynamic change over time as clubs change staff/players. i.e. in an unloaded league I guess the outcomes will be pretty much the same year-on-year, whereas in a loaded league you would have more potential for AI changes behind the scenes that result in clubs moving position (getting stronger/weaker over time)

Exactly.  Setting a league to playable already helps a lot. If you want slightly more dynamics in that league you can simulate them on full details too. 

vor 6 Minuten schrieb Pinception:

'm assuming then that this is much more of an issue if you intend to play longer saves like going 5+ years into the simulation? Current year and next are probably relatively unchanged given the existing DB, but the more live simulation there is the more potential there would be for outlier events that have significant knock-on effects further down the line?

correct^^

[FComniworld]

Hey man , 

 

Im just wondering, I clicked on all players in the advanced section ( 400k players loaded ) , but only loaded my league I plan on managing in as playable.

I was expecting regens everywhere, but I checked the whole intake of japan in 2021 and there was just 1 signing there total. 

Wouldnt this cause the japanese player pool to dry up eventually ? 

Can this be fixed by adding those countries as playable for a season alone ( so the AI generates players etc etc ) 

[Daveincid]

Gerade eben schrieb FComniworld:

Hey man , 

 

Im just wondering, I clicked on all players in the advanced section ( 400k players loaded ) , but only loaded my league I plan on managing in as playable.

I was expecting regens everywhere, but I checked the whole intake of japan in 2021 and there was just 1 signing there total. 

Wouldnt this cause the japanese player pool to dry up eventually ? 

Can this be fixed by adding those countries as playable for a season alone ( so the AI generates players etc etc ) 

Japanese players aren't included because of license-issues. if you want that there are real players you need to download a database which has them. If you want at least fictional players you need to set the japanese league as playable, then you will also get newgens.

Cheers

Daveincid

[FComniworld]

Sorry to come in and ask again , but just want to double check what i think I have understood so far from this and several other threads.

 

1. The cpu will keep the amount of players roughly equal throughout the save after you have created it and balance it roughly the way it was created. Playable vs view only or not loaded doesn’t make a difference in this regard.

2. if 1 is true then loading custom leagues for countries like Egypt and Nigeria with the option ticked to generate players for playable leagues will create extra players originally not in the game and generate more more regens for them in the long  run as retired players will have to be replaced , I was able to confirm extra players generated at the start as my newly generated save had 435k players instead of the previously max of 404k. Will the cpu keep this amount if I disable everything down to not even loaded in the long run or when I completely remove them will the dB size slowly decrease ?

3. if 2 is not true ( no dB decrease over time ) and my goal is to generate more regens in certain areas of the world then this can be done by adding the leagues for the first season , then deleting them ?

 

Cheers

[Daveincid]

vor 8 Minuten schrieb FComniworld:

1. The cpu will keep the amount of players roughly equal throughout the save after you have created it and balance it roughly the way it was created. Playable vs view only or not loaded doesn’t make a difference in this regard.

Mostly correct. I'm not 100% sure how it affects it when it's not loaded but it should be at least similar.

 

vor 9 Minuten schrieb FComniworld:

2. if 1 is true then loading custom leagues for countries like Egypt and Nigeria with the option ticked to generate players for playable leagues will create extra players originally not in the game and generate more more regens for them in the long  run as retired players will have to be replaced , I was able to confirm extra players generated at the start as my newly generated save had 435k players instead of the previously max of 404k. Will the cpu keep this amount if I disable everything down to not even loaded in the long run or when I completely remove them will the dB size slowly decrease ?

I don't know, I never considered to disable a league at some point of the game.

vor 11 Minuten schrieb FComniworld:

3. if 2 is not true ( no dB decrease over time ) and my goal is to generate more regens in certain areas of the world then this can be done by adding the leagues for the first season , then deleting them ?

Why you do not simply add players via the advanced db-option? You can theoretically load all players of the database and select only 1 league. It's completely against my personal understanding in terms of balance but everyone it's own

 

Cheers
Daveincid

[Delvi]

Il 15/11/2020 in 14:58 , Daveincid ha scritto:

• custom data in general slows down performance. There are big differences what kind of custom data is used. As orientation you can go by file size. Larger files need more processing time. LLM-files for example are quite heavy.

First of all thank you for this great guide! I would like to know what do you mean by custom data, are the .fmf file in editor data affecting the speed performance of the game?

[Daveincid]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb Delvi:

First of all thank you for this great guide! I would like to know what do you mean by custom data, are the .fmf file in editor data affecting the speed performance of the game?

league-files, new competitions. All files you have in your "editor data"-folder

[Delvi]

20 minuti fa, Daveincid ha scritto:

league-files, new competitions. All files you have in your "editor data"-folder

I understand, there I have only .fmf files, do they affect the performance as well? 

[Daveincid]

vor 1 Minute schrieb Delvi:

I understand, there I have only .fmf files, do they affect the performance as well? 

yes, some of them more, some less, as I wrote in the guide

[Delvi]

I understand, I just don't understand how, to be honest. For instance, if I edit the skills of a player through the editor, this will be uploaded when I create the new game, the computer is not reading the files in the editor data folder afterwards, it will read only the file in the games folder.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Delvi

[Daveincid]

vor 1 Minute schrieb Delvi:

I understand, I just don't understand how, to be honest. For instance, if I edit the skills of a player through the editor, this will be uploaded when I create the new game, the computer is not reading anymore the files in the editor data folder.

I don't really understand what you mean I'm sorry

[Delvi]

I try to elaborate it:

- I do some editing using the editor and so are created several .fmf files in the "editor data" folder

- I create a new career, these files are uploaded

- then the PC load all leagues, data etc.

- I save the .fm file, which is located in the "games" folder

From this moment, the PC is reading only the .fm in the games folder, even if you will delete the files in the "editor data" folder, this will not affect the game at all.

[Daveincid]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb Delvi:

I try to elaborate it:

- I do some editing using the editor and so are created several .fmf files in the "editor data" folder

- I create a new career, these files are uploaded

- then the PC load all leagues, data etc.

- I save the .fm file, which is located in the "games" folder

From this moment, the PC is reading only the .fm in the games folder, even if you will delete the files in the "editor data" folder, this will not affect the game at all.

As I said...some kind of files do affect speed more than others. More leagues will slow down your PC, custom competition will slow down your PC. If you edit a players rating this won't affect speed. Transfer-files won't affect speed neither.

[Delvi]

4 minuti fa, Daveincid ha scritto:

As I said...some kind of files do affect speed more than others. More leagues will slow down your PC, custom competition will slow down your PC. If you edit a players rating this won't affect speed. Transfer-files won't affect speed neither.

Thank you. This makes sense to me now.

[middleweight165]

@Daveincid

My typical setup is 

- Small db

- All selected nations playable - Argentina, Brazil, China, England, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, USA

I tend to only manage in Europe Top 5 but I want transfer realism and to increase my ability to sell my own players.  

I saw in a post above you recommended " Loading top 20 nations playable, all the others leagues view-only, international games, games from National-Teams and the games in your league simulated in full detail, with small/medium/big db:"

I feel like your recommended setup compared to mine would run the game a lot slower, but this is not based on any technical knowledge, just a feeling

I'm wondering what your thoughts are on my current set up compared to your recommended setup?

Thanks!

[Daveincid]

vor 9 Minuten schrieb middleweight165:

I feel like your recommended setup compared to mine would run the game a lot slower, but this is not based on any technical knowledge, just a feeling

This will definetly be the case compared to your setup.  The guide has the focus to "increase realism", with the least impact on speed as possible. So with a low-end-system you will struggle anyway, even a mid-range-system will be slower as you might played the game before.

I'm not a magician, I try to optimize it that you'll get the most out of each PC-Configuration. To play the game quick while using my recommendation isn't really possible.

 

vor 13 Minuten schrieb middleweight165:

I'm wondering what your thoughts are on my current set up compared to your recommended setup?

It's the kind of setups I do not recommend at all because it leaves out a lot of the game-world. 

Cheers
Daveincid 

[crpcarrot]

can you do this on an existing save ie change the the setting halfway though a season

[Daveincid]

vor 1 Minute schrieb crpcarrot:

can you do this on an existing save ie change the the setting halfway though a season

Yes and No. You can add leagues as playable aswell as change the detail-level, but I don't know how accurate it will be because I never considered this as a good option to be honest.
You can't add Leagues of Nations which aren't included in the default game. 

[craiglowerson1984]

Hi Dave, 

Since I last asked about recommended setup I have purchased a new gaming laptop.

Spec: MSI GF63 Thin 15.6" Gaming Laptop

Intel® Core™ i5-10500H Processor

RAM: 8 GB / Storage: 512 GB SSD

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 4 GB

I'm hoping you suggest loading more than 1 league compared to my last laptop. 

 

Cheers in advance fella

 

[Daveincid]

vor 4 Minuten schrieb craiglowerson1984:

Hi Dave, 

Since I last asked about recommended setup I have purchased a new gaming laptop.

Spec: MSI GF63 Thin 15.6" Gaming Laptop

Intel® Core™ i5-10500H Processor

RAM: 8 GB / Storage: 512 GB SSD

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 4 GB

I'm hoping you suggest loading more than 1 league compared to my last laptop. 

 

Cheers in advance fella

 

3-4 should run fine if you have enough patience

[Britrock]

I just upped my save from only one country loaded (Greece, with two divisions) to 20 nations (the top division from the top 15 Euro leagues, Brazil, Argentina, China, USA and Mexico) and there isn't really that much of a difference in processing speed from what I've seen in my first season with this setup. The game takes longer as there's so many more teams that are now making bids for my players, but I was surprised at how little difference it's actually made.

Edited August 31, 2021 by Britrock

[Daveincid]

vor 19 Minuten schrieb Britrock:

I just upped my save from only one country loaded (Greece, with two divisions) to 20 nations (the top division from the top 15 Euro leagues, Brazil, Argentina, China, USA and Mexico) and there isn't really that much of a difference in processing speed from what I've seen in my first season with this setup. The game takes longer as there's so many more teams that are now making bids for my players, but I was surprised at how little difference it's actually made.

It's great to get some feedback which shows that I don't talk **** all the time Enjoy your save!

[Almerk]

Amazing guide. Dave, what if I want to start in lower English league (e.g. level 8 or 9), there are several parallel leagues. What should I do with detail level of these leagues around?  

I've this mod - England Level 10 + Cups for FM21 (fixed loans for L7-10) by Flik

Спойлер

Conference back to 24 teams from season 2
North/South back to 24 teams from season 2
Reg Prems - 21+22 1st season - all 22 teams season 2
Reg 1st - 7*19+20 teams 1st season - 8*20 teams season 2
County league - 14 various size leagues 1st season - 16*20 teams season 2
Count league 2 - 20*various size leagues 1st season - 17*20 teams season 2

 

[Daveincid]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb Almerk:

Amazing guide. Dave, what if I want to start in lower English league (e.g. level 8 or 9), there are several parallel leagues. What should I do with detail level of these leagues around?  

I've this mod - England Level 10 + Cups for FM21 (fixed loans for L7-10) by Flik

  Unsichtbaren Inhalt anzeigen

Conference back to 24 teams from season 2
North/South back to 24 teams from season 2
Reg Prems - 21+22 1st season - all 22 teams season 2
Reg 1st - 7*19+20 teams 1st season - 8*20 teams season 2
County league - 14 various size leagues 1st season - 16*20 teams season 2
Count league 2 - 20*various size leagues 1st season - 17*20 teams season 2

 

Thank you! You haven't posted any information of you PC/Laptop, so how should I know? It's difficult to say for this big Lower-League-Files. Usually it slows down the game the most. As I wrote in the guide it is only a rough guideline. With the performance-benchmark-thread and my guide you should be able to find the perfect setup by yourself

Cheers

Daveincid

[Lesnarking]

On 15.11.2020 at 16:58, Daveincid said:

I realized, that many people don't really understand how the setup works exactly. So I made this guide to give you some kind of overview  how it works.  Any constructive feedback is welcome. 

It's impossible to show everyones different way of play. This is only a rough guideline for a orientation.This is my view of fm, so if you are seeing it different, that's completely fine.  Maybe some mechanics changed in fm21 which I haven't tested yet, I will update the guide if necessary.

I created a short video version. It's not as detailed as the thread but it gives you a short overview:

 

 

General:

There are differences between unloaded Nations, view-ony, playable and playable with full details. In a Nation, you can select some leagues playable, view-only, or unloaded. The effect is roughly the same as for a whole Nation:

unloaded Nation 

• No schedule, games are fully simulated in background
• No visible league table
• No full squads (only if you load them via the advanced db)
• No staff (After the first sacking of the real manager, there will be in most cases no new head-coach and other staff members)
• Low transfer-activity
• Games will be simulated with the quick Match-Engine
• Less injuries

Nation view only

• League-schedule
• League table
• No full squads (only if you load them via the advanced db)
• No staff (After the first sacking of the real manager, there will be in most cases no new head-coach and other staff members)
• Low to medium transfer-activity
• Games will be simulated with the quick Match-Engine
• Less injuries

Nation playable

• League-schedule
• League table
• Full Squads
• Existing Staff
• Realistic transfer-activity
• Some games will be simulated with the Full Match Engine.
• increase of injuries

Nation playable + full detail

• League-schedule
• League table
• Full Squads
• Existing Staff
• Realistic transfer-activity
• Games will be fully simulated
• More injuries than only playable

What is the benefit of simulating Leagues in full detail?

You will get more realistic stats and results. The player development takes more calculations into account.  If you simulate other Leagues and Nations with full detail you will get a stronger AI, especially when you play against them.

What slows the game processing speed down the most:

• Setting leagues to simulate in full detail uses multicore pretty heavy. 
•  A lot of leagues playable 
• custom data in general slows down performance. There are big differences what kind of custom data is used. As orientation you can go by file size. Larger files need more processing time. LLM-files for example are quite heavy.
• Incredible amount of players loaded also affects performance. Down to my experience, if you don't load 200k+ players, this effect is not that big compared to the others
• All custom graphics loaded do not have any influence at game speed at all. As far as I know it has some influence in terms of RAM usage

Extra Tip:

As a human manager you have some "benefits" over the AI. You can be much better in transfers because you don't "feel" pressure or concerns which teams have IRL. I think that's a reason why the AI is not that aggressive vs a human player fighting against a specific talent. It looks like a weak programmed AI, for me it is just insane programming-skills by SI-devs.  WIth that in mind, you might not just buy a  wonderkid for 20 million while managing a team that would never do that IRL, even if it would be possible. This gave me a much more immersive game-experience.

Most important Nations to load according to my database for a balanced world (1 highest, 4 lowest)

I usually set number 1 and 2 as playable, 3 view-only and number 4 I don't load at all. This guarantees you a balance between Continents aswell

  Reveal hidden contents

 1. Most Important (Worldwide Balance)

Egypt

Algeria

Argentinia

Australia

Brazil

China

DR Kongo

Germany

England

France

Iran

Italy

Japan

Qatar

Marokko

Mexiko

Portugal

Russia

Saudi Arabia

Spain

South Africa

South Korea

Tunisia

USA

UAE

 

2. Important (Worldwide Balance)

Angola

Aserbaidschan

Bahrain

Belgium

Benin

Bulgaria

Burkina Faso

Chile

Costa Rica

Denmark

Ecuador

El Salvador

Ivory Coast

Finnland

Ghana

Greece

Guinea

Honduras

Irak

Israel

Jamaica

Cameroon

Kasachstan

Columbia

Croatia

Libya

Mali

Nee Zealand

Holland

Nigeria

Norway

Austria

Paraguay

Peru

Poland

Republic of  Congo

Romania

Zambia

Scotland

Schweden

Switzerland

Senegal

Serbia

Slowakia

Slowenia

Syria

Thailand

Czechia

Turkey

Uganda

Ukraine

Hungary

Uruguay

Usbekistan 3. Important (Worldwide Balance)   Albania Equatorial Guinea Armenia Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegowina Botswana Estland Gabun Gambia Georgien Guatemala Haiti India Indonesia Irland Island Jordania Canada Cap Verde Kenia Cuba Quwait Lettland Libanon Litauen Luxemburg Malawi Malaysia Montenegro Mosambik Nordirland North Corea North Mazedonien Panama Ruanda Zimbabwe Singapur Sudan Togo Trinidad and Tobago Turkmenistan Venezuela Vietnam Wales Belarus Cyprus 4. Less Important   Afghanistan American Samoa Andorra Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda Aruba Äthiopien Bahamas Bangladesch Barbados Belize Bermuda Bhutan Bonaire British Virgin Islands Brunei Burundi Cayman Inseln Cook Islands Curaçao Djibouti Dominica Dominikanische Republik Eritrea Eswatini Färoerinseln Fidschi Franz Guyana Gibraltar Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guinea-Bissau Guyana Hong Kong Jemen Kambodscha Kirgisien Kiribati Komoren Kosovo Laos Lesotho Liberia Liechtenstein Macao Madagaskar Malediven Malta Martinique Mauretanien Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia Moldawien Mongolei Montserrat Myanmar Namibia Nepal Neukaledonien Nicaragua Niger Nördliche Marianen Oman Osttimor Pakistan Palästina Papua New Guinea Philippines Puerto Rico Réunion Saint Barthélemy Saint Martin (France) Salomonen Samoa San Marino Sansibar São Tomé and Príncipe Seychellen Sierra Leone Sint Maarten (Netherlands) Somalia Sri Lanka St Kitts and Nevis St Lucia St Pierre and Miquelon St Vincent and the Grenadines Südsudan Suriname Tadschikistan Tahiti Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) Tansania Tonga Tschad Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu US Virgin Islands Vanuatu Wallis and Futuna Zentralafrikanische Republik

My recommended setup for a longterm or just a balanced savegame:

recommendedsetupbyDaveincid.fmf 21 kB · 843 downloads

 

 

 

detail level

I recommend to set all national teams simulated in full detail as well as the european competition if you play in Europe. You can change this to every other continent if you play there. Also the top 20 leagues. I would set at least the top division and the cup as simulated in full detail.

 

These are some examples of setups that I think people use most. It's not that easy to create a compact overview. I hope it's not too much info

 

- Loading top 5 nations and top 2 in South America playable and top 20 as view only with a small/medium/big db: 

This is the lowest setup I recommend

- Loading top 5 nations and top 2 in South America playable and top 20 as view only with players loaded from the top 20 nations with the advanced-db option: 

You will have a higher player count, and these players from the top 20 will be newly generated in the future. This leads to a more balanced gameworld. It will give you a decent db for low to mid-range systems.

- Loading top 5 nations and top 2 in South America playable and all others as view only with players loaded from all nations with the advanced-db option:

It gives you a big db an a overview of players around the world. IMO it feels much better than the setup above, because there is a wider variety of players from different nations. The loss of processing speed is little but maybe already too much for low-end systems.

- Loading top 20 nations playable, all the others leagues view-only, international games, games from National-Teams and the games in your league simulated in full detail, with small/medium/big db:

This is the start of a balanced world for longer saves. It depends how many playable leagues your system can run at a decent speed. For some it's 15 nations for some 30.

- Loading top 20 nations playable, all the others view-only, international games, games from National-Teams and the games in your league simulated in full detail, with the advanced db-option for all players from first divison and national reputation

This setup Is IMO the general sweetspot for a realistic longterm-save. Mid-range processor recommended.

- Loading all nations playable, international games, games from National-Teams and the games in your league simulated in full detail, with players loaded from all nations with the advanced-db option (ca 194k players):

This setup guarantees you a balanced game world and high transfer activity around the globe. Leagues which aren't available with the vanilla version will have problems in being competitive in the long run. As soon as you are setting games to simulated in full detail, I recommend a modern 8-core 16-threaded processor

- Loading all nations playable, all games simulated in full detail:

Without a monster CPU or plenty of time, I do not recommend this setup. Processing-speed is very long and the gain of realism doesn't really weights up the time of processing compared to the setup above. But if your CPU can handle it, it really does make a lot of fun!

- Loading all nations playable, all games simulated in full detail with all players in the db(ca 500k players):

This setup will give you all players in the db. So there will be a player from 6th. division in sweden without seeing the league being active in the game. This slows down your system pretty much in relation to what you are getting for. I do not recomend this setup.

If you want to improve realism with a special skin, take a look here:

If you don't know if your PC/Laptop is low/mid/high-end you can check the following thread:

https://community.sigames.com/topic/539412-fm21-performance-benchmarking-thread/

 

To discuss about realism in FM21 @Junkhead has created this wonderful thread. Sharing ideas, your own and all other stuff that can be linked in this area.

https://community.sigames.com/topic/539688-fm21-realism-thread/

I have created a megapack to increase the realism of Football Manager 2021, you can find it here:

https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/545609-fm21-increase-realism-megapack-by-daveincid

There is a great megapack from @davie77 which makes all Nations playable ingame. I worked close together with him and tested his files, so I know about the high quality-standard.

https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/550750-fm21-around-the-globe-megapack-by-dave-46-completed

I also recommend the data-updates from @pr0

https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/539013-fm21-transfers-data-update-packs-by-pr0-fmtu/

I finally found my way on social media, feel free to take a look in here to get more informations about my projects for Football Manager 2021

https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/546553-daveincids-info-channels-for-the-increase-realism-megapack-and-more/

 

 

Cheers

Daveincid

 

 

 

 

 

2022 realistic player attributes update pls

[Daveincid]

vor 23 Minuten schrieb Lesnarking:

2022 realistic player attributes update pls

Have you even read what this topic is about?....

[middleweight165]

Just some feedback, I switched to FM21 recently and have been using @Daveincid setup for my games. I don't see a dramatic difference in speed. between this setup and the basic setup i was using previously of the top 5 leagues in full. I have recently bought a new laptop though so that will have contributed One thing I have noticed, which is obvious but has been a pleasant change for me is the amount of job offers I receive from different countries.