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

[Double0Seven]

21 minutes ago, Daveincid said:

I just updated the guide with screenshots. I would add the continenal club competitions for Europe too.

 

Cheers

Daveincid

Maybe adjust your resolution and zoom in a bit? I cant really read it atm. Screenshots are a bit blurry. 

[Daveincid]

Gerade eben schrieb Double0Seven:

Maybe adjust your resolution and zoom in a bit? I cant really read it atm. Screenshots are a bit blurry. 

When I go higher, there will be not shown everything. But it' should be visible how the mechanics works.

[BamBamBam]

3 hours ago, Daveincid said:

in terms of realism or speed?

Speed i'm guessing slows it down alot. But also regarding results and realism.

[Daveincid]

vor 3 Minuten schrieb BamBamBam:

Speed i'm guessing slows it down alot. But also regarding results and realism.

Speed depends on your CPU and on how much leagues you are simulating. For the best mixture from speed/realism I would set at least the continental club competition to full detail.

[BamBamBam]

17 minutes ago, Daveincid said:

Speed depends on your CPU and on how much leagues you are simulating. For the best mixture from speed/realism I would set at least the continental club competition to full detail.

Got a Ryzen 7 1700 with 16gb ram

[Daveincid]

vor 1 Minute schrieb BamBamBam:

Got a Ryzen 7 1700 with 16gb ram

Patience is afforded, but 8core is good for full detail.

[KOSGS1]

Big thanks for the thread! Really cool to read through some of your suggestions. 
 

I play on a laptop with Ryzen 7 4800H 8GB RAM, just wondered what would be considered the ‘sweet spot’ for CPU like this...scared to load up a longer term save only for the game to start grinding to a halt after 4 or 5 seasons

[Daveincid]

vor 5 Minuten schrieb KOSGS1:

Big thanks for the thread! Really cool to read through some of your suggestions. 
 

I play on a laptop with Ryzen 7 4800H 8GB RAM, just wondered what would be considered the ‘sweet spot’ for CPU like this...scared to load up a longer term save only for the game to start grinding to a halt after 4 or 5 seasons

I'm glad you like it I just recommended a laptop with that CPU to my best friend. IMO best value/performance in the high-end section. Like I always said, everybody see's it different, there is no right or wrong in this topic. 

With that CPU I would use my recommended setup for a realistic long-term save, or with patience, maybe even try all in 

Cheers

Daveincid

[mhaffy]

I am still pondering what database set up to go with for my long term career save when FM21 is released. For many years I have been using the same set up of 13 Nations with 28 playable leagues, no view only leagues and no added players with a large database giving c66k players at the start with 2 star estimated game speed. A tweet from Miles indicated that FM21 had been optimised and was faster than FM20 with significant improvements to save game time. With this in mind I have been testing different set ups and there are indeed improvements versus FM20 (my detailed results are on another thread in this forum).

My primary aim from making changes is to improve the transfer market so that it will be easier to offload my surplus players. My long term career save is always Chelsea in English Premier League. To achieve this I wanted to increase the number of playable leagues and nations whilst minimising the increase in player numbers. Switching from a large to a small database was my first step and I then decided to drop Chile and Uruguay from my normal set up to enable me to add additional European nations and playable leagues.

The set up that I have been testing is now 17 Nations with 30 playable leagues, c67k players and still 2 star estimated game speed. With Brexit and changes to WP rules, i was wondering if it was worth me reducing the playable leagues in Brazil and Argentina from 2 to 1 each and adding the top League in Turkey. The overall player count would only increase by 380 and there would be 18 nations but 29 playable leagues. Game speed should be pretty similar (maybe quicker as 1 less playable league to process?).

Would it be worth making this change - is it worth loading the Turkish league and dropping Brazil and Argentina to being top league only? Not sure if there will be a big hit in the potential regen talent from Brazil and Argentina by doing this. Presumably including the Turkish league may help transfer market and my ability to offload surplus players.

Summary

[Daveincid]

vor 8 Minuten schrieb mhaffy:

I am still pondering what database set up to go with for my long term career save when FM21 is released. For many years I have been using the same set up of 13 Nations with 28 playable leagues, no view only leagues and no added players with a large database giving c66k players at the start with 2 star estimated game speed. A tweet from Miles indicated that FM21 had been optimised and was faster than FM20 with significant improvements to save game time. With this in mind I have been testing different set ups and there are indeed improvements versus FM20 (my detailed results are on another thread in this forum).

My primary aim from making changes is to improve the transfer market so that it will be easier to offload my surplus players. My long term career save is always Chelsea in English Premier League. To achieve this I wanted to increase the number of playable leagues and nations whilst minimising the increase in player numbers. Switching from a large to a small database was my first step and I then decided to drop Chile and Uruguay from my normal set up to enable me to add additional European nations and playable leagues.

The set up that I have been testing is now 17 Nations with 30 playable leagues, c67k players and still 2 star estimated game speed. With Brexit and changes to WP rules, i was wondering if it was worth me reducing the playable leagues in Brazil and Argentina from 2 to 1 each and adding the top League in Turkey. The overall player count would only increase by 380 and there would be 18 nations but 29 playable leagues. Game speed should be pretty similar (maybe quicker as 1 less playable league to process?).

Would it be worth making this change - is it worth loading the Turkish league and dropping Brazil and Argentina to being top league only? Not sure if there will be a big hit in the potential regen talent from Brazil and Argentina by doing this. Presumably including the Turkish league may help transfer market and my ability to offload surplus players.

Summary

Like I wrote at the start. There is no right or wrong.  But you will not notice such a big difference with one league more or less.  It's not about the talent, this is regulated by the AI pretty well. It's about stronger AI to stay competitive. Playersize is almost irrelevant if you take 80k or 60k. the estimate speed can be ignored too, it's an indicator, nothing more. Every single person has a different intepretation of fast or slow. 

Your setup is good with the neighbour-nations, usually there is a higher transfer-activity by default, because they are set in the editor as "transfer-preferences". So if you want a long-term-save that is well balanced, and you are struggling if it's enough, I would stay at "the more, the better". 

 

Cheers

Daveincid

[mhaffy]

15 minutes ago, Daveincid said:

Like I wrote at the start. There is no right or wrong.  But you will not notice such a big difference with one league more or less.  It's not about the talent, this is regulated by the AI pretty well. It's about stronger AI to stay competitive. Playersize is almost irrelevant if you take 80k or 60k. the estimate speed can be ignored too, it's an indicator, nothing more. Every single person has a different intepretation of fast or slow. 

Your setup is good with the neighbour-nations, usually there is a higher transfer-activity by default, because they are set in the editor as "transfer-preferences". So if you want a long-term-save that is well balanced, and you are struggling if it's enough, I would stay at "the more, the better". 

 

Cheers

Daveincid

Thanks, i agree that "the more, the better" holds true but for everyone it is obviously a balance between acceptable speed versus degree of realism etc and everyones "sweet spot" is different. The set up I have kept for years has been fine in terms of game speed and I would not really like to adversely impact that with any changes. The optimisation (mainly in save times) adds a bit of headroom to include more playable leagues to hopefully improve the transfer market without adversely impacting my game speed experience. 

Would be interested in your view on whether trade off re adding Turkish top league and dropping 2nd tier in Brazil and Argentina would be worthwhile.

Edited November 23, 2020 by mhaffy

[Daveincid]

Gerade eben schrieb mhaffy:

Thanks, i agree that "the more, the better" holds true but for everyone it is obviously a balance between acceptable speed versus degree of realism etc and everyones "sweet spot" is different. The set up I have kep for years has been fine in terms of game speed and I would not really like to adversely impact that with any changes. The optimisation (mainly in save times) adds a bit of headroom to include more playable leagues to hopefully improve the transfer market without adversely impacting my game speed experience. 

Would be interested in your view on whether trade off re adding Turkish top league and dropping 2nd tier in Brazil and Argentina would be worthwhile.

Yup, if your headroom is that small, it's worth to drop brazil 2nd tier and Argentina 2nd. tier for turkish top league

[mhaffy]

On 15/11/2020 at 13:58, Daveincid said:

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. 

If you use graphics packs should you unitick "Use caching to decrease page loading times" that appears under Preferences, Interface? Is your comment re game speed above based upon unticking?

[Daveincid]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb mhaffy:

If you use graphics packs should you unitick "Use caching to decrease page loading times" that appears under Preferences, Interface? Is your comment re game speed above based upon unticking?

Always use "caching to decrease page loading times". 

[mhaffy]

Just now, Daveincid said:

Always use "caching to decrease page loading times". 

Interesting -caching is ticked by default and  hovering over the option in FM it says "Tick to cache the skin for better performance; only untick if adding graphics or editing the skin".

This would seem to infer you should untick if graphics loaded....

[Reiver]

I think you should untick to load new graphics. after running then you should be able to tick it again.

[Daveincid]

vor 1 Minute schrieb mhaffy:

Interesting -caching is ticked by default and  hovering over the option in FM it says "Tick to cache the skin for better performance; only untick if adding graphics or editing the skin".

This would seem to infer you should untick if graphics loaded....

it says if you tick it, it reduces loading times, so I honestly don't know what the point of discussion is? So could we go back to the main topic, please? I am sure there is another place to discuss this 

[mhaffy]

1 minute ago, Reiver said:

I think you should untick to load new graphics. after running then you should be able to tick it again.

Aahh ok - was thinking of adding facepacks etc for a change and don't want to impack game speed. Have 16gb ram so hopefully no memory issues by keeping ticked when playing. The hover over comment seemed a bit confusing.

[Daveincid]

Gerade eben schrieb mhaffy:

Aahh ok - was thinking of adding facepacks etc for a change and don't want to impack game speed. Have 16gb ram so hopefully no memory issues by keeping ticked when playing. The hover over comment seemed a bit confusing.

I already said, graphics won't impact game speed

[KiLLu12258]

@Daveincid thank you! can you post those screenshots with higher resolution?

 

I have problems to read it, even if i safe it and zoom it up.

[Daveincid]

vor 1 Minute schrieb KiLLu12258:

@Daveincid thank you! can you post those screenshots with higher resolution?

 

I have problems to read it, even if i safe it and zoom it up.

You are welcome! already mentioned on the first page. other resolution won't show all nations, that's why I posted it in this way. But you should recognize which ones are playable, view only and view only below and hopefully the guide helped you to setup your own db

 

Cheers

Daveincid

 

[Nahuelzn]

Question: Have anyone got into problems (not speed issues, I mean game breaking issues) in long term saved when loading a database with 200k players?

I usually load between 20/30 leagues and 120/130k players. But I upgraded my pc and want to try a bigger database for the new saves once I can load custom leagues.

[Daveincid]

Gerade eben schrieb Nahuelzn:

Question: Have anyone got into problems (not speed issues, I mean game breaking issues) in long term saved when loading a database with 200k players?

I usually load between 20/30 leagues and 120/130k players. But I upgraded my pc and want to try a bigger database for the new saves once I can load custom leagues.

the only problems in my longterm-holiday-save in year 2045 are:

- Reputation Bug from RBSalzburg being the biggest club in the world (is locked and reviewed in the bug forum)

- Too much money for Chinese Clubs which isn't spend wisely by the AI (Head Researcher of China explained me the circumstances, so it's actually pretty realistic as it is). It's just looking a bit weird, but nothing gamebreaking.

- Too many high PA players (File from myself which reduce this issue will be available a couple of days after full release)

Beside that, this beta fm21 is by far, the best in terms of realism. 

 

Cheers

Daveincid

[Chappie.dm]

On 15/11/2020 at 13:58, Daveincid said:

Loading top 5 nations and top 2 in South America playable and top 20 as view only with a small/medium/big db: Beside you can watch the table of the top 20 Leagues there isn't any signifficant difference to the setup above. So it's a immersive upgrade to see some more stats, nothing more.

Great thread. I have a couple of questions though: I have a four year old laptop and tend to load the top divisions of the top leagues (England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France). My laptop handles it pretty well but my first question is should I load all the divisions in these countries?

 

Next question: will having 20 nations as view only make a significant difference to the performance of my laptop?

[Daveincid]

vor 1 Minute schrieb Chappie.dm:

Great thread. I have a couple of questions though: I have a four year old laptop and tend to load the top divisions of the top leagues (England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France). My laptop handles it pretty well but my first question is should I load all the divisions in these countries?

 

Next question: will having 20 nations as view only make a significant difference to the performance of my laptop?

Thanks! Impossible to say with theese informations. It's like "I have a 4 years old car, will he be able to hit 160mph? Ferrari yes, a dacia problably not.

I wouldn't load more than 2 leagues a Nation. 

Significant no, but you will notice.

 

Cheers

Daveincid

[Chappie.dm]

5 minutes ago, Daveincid said:

Thanks! Impossible to say with theese informations. It's like "I have a 4 years old car, will he be able to hit 160mph? Ferrari yes, a dacia problably not.

I wouldn't load more than 2 leagues a Nation. 

Significant no, but you will notice.

 

Cheers

Daveincid

Thanks. I guessed as much. I will experiment with this and see at what point my laptop gives up the ghost. To be fair FM21 runs a little quicker than FM20.

 

Thanks for the help.

[Daveincid]

Gerade eben schrieb Chappie.dm:

Thanks. I guessed as much. I will experiment with this and see at what point my laptop gives up the ghost. To be fair FM21 runs a little quicker than FM20.

 

Thanks for the help.

Cool! If you tested it, and something should be completely different as stated in the guide, please let me know.

 

Cheers

Daveincid

[Daveincid]

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.

[pedromanuelpinto]

Hi,

 

I'm very interested in this topic. Since some years ago I try to add some reality, but I have a low spec pc (laptop spec, i5 CPU, 8 GB Ram, Intel Graphic and SSD drive) 

 

1) Before this topic, I usually play with:

     France, Germany, England, Spain, Italy, with playable option, and Portugal (my country) with view only.

 

2) After I read this topic I'm thinking of doing:

     France, Germany, England, Spain, Italy, with playable option, and Portugal (my country), Brasil and Argentina with view only. 

 

 

Note: 

- For this two I use always Large DB with Europe and South America Continents with the option "players from top division clubs"

- When I select the club that I will play I will add the division above where I stand, for example if I go to Serie B I will add Serie C. I don't like to change clubs during the save. 

This will leave the DB with 65 000 players, that give me 2 star performance. I think that the max of DB should be 75 k / 80 k.

 

Should I pass Argentina and Brasil do playable and add some more leagues with view (for exemple, holland, norways, slovenia, turkey, greece,...)

Edited November 23, 2020 by pedromanuelpinto

[Daveincid]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb pedromanuelpinto:

Hi,

 

I'm very interested in this topic. Since some years ago I try to add some reality, but I have a low spec pc (laptop spec, i5 CPU, 8 GB Ram, Intel Graphic and SSD drive) 

 

Before this topic, I usually play with:

France, Germany, England, Spain, Italy, with playable option, and Portugal (my country) with view only.

Note: When I select the club that I will play I will add the division above where I stand, for example if I go to Serie B I will add Serie C. I don't like to change clubs during the save. 

 

After I read this topic I'm thinking of doing:

France, Germany, England, Spain, Italy, with playable option, and Portugal (my country), Brasil and Argentina with view only.

 

For this two I use always Large DB with Europe and South America Continents with the option "players from top division clubs"

 

This will leave the DB with 65 000 players, that give me 2 star performance. I think that the max of DB should be 75 k / 80 k.

 

What do you think?

sounds good, maybe set Portugal as playable too. I would just set the international cups (Champions League, Europa League, Conference League as simulated in full detail. Otherwise the top5 will even have a bigger advantage than they already have.

 

Cheers 

Daveincid

[pedromanuelpinto]

5 minutes ago, Daveincid said:

sounds good, maybe set Portugal as playable too. I would just set the international cups (Champions League, Europa League, Conference League as simulated in full detail. Otherwise the top5 will even have a bigger advantage than they already have.

 

Cheers 

Daveincid

Hi,

 

Thanks for the feedback. 

So the in game option to choose the details for the international cups so the game isn't to slow right?

 

Regarding the leagues I will put:

- Spain, England, Italy, Germany, France, Portugal, Argentina and Brasil with playable.

- China, Colombia, Croatian, Denmark, Greece, Holland, Mexican, Norway, Russian, Scottish, Slovenian, Swiss, Turkis, USA and Ukranian with visible,

- Large DB, with Europe and South America Continents with top divisions players.

- I will put just 1st division of all countries except the one that I will choose to p lay.

Note: I will have 1,5 star of game speed.

 

This is the most balanced way?

 

 

[Daveincid]

Gerade eben schrieb pedromanuelpinto:

Hi,

 

Thanks for the feedback. 

So the in game option to choose the details for the international cups so the game isn't to slow right?

 

Regarding the leagues I will put:

- Spain, England, Italy, Germany, France, Portugal, Argentina and Brasil with playable.

- China, Colombia, Croatian, Denmark, Greece, Holland, Mexican, Norway, Russian, Scottish, Slovenian, Swiss, Turkis, USA and Ukranian with visible,

- Large DB, with Europe and South America Continents with top divisions players.

- I will put just 1st division of all countries except the one that I will choose to p lay.

Note: I will have 1,5 star of game speed.

 

This is the most balanced way?

 

 

full detail will slow your game down.

Depends on your goal in the save. If you want to play for 5-10 years, I would do it. If you won't play that long, I wouldn't.

I would add Belgium, Sweden, Austria, Serbia, Romania and consider removing Slovenia.

[pedromanuelpinto]

I usually play 3-5 years. No more than that.

I will add that nations and will just put Full details in the competions that you recomend.

This should give a nice speed?

[Daveincid]

Gerade eben schrieb pedromanuelpinto:

I usually play 3-5 years. No more than that.

I will add that nations and will just put Full details in the competions that you recomend.

This should give a nice speed?

You play it, so if it's too slow for you, remove Leagues or decrease detail-level, if not, you're good

Have fun!

 

Cheers

Daveincid

[pedromanuelpinto]

Many thanks for the help. Great topic.

[Daveincid]

Gerade eben schrieb pedromanuelpinto:

Many thanks for the help. Great topic.

You are welcome

[PatrickReynolds]

Great guide and awesome that you're answering so many good questions @Daveincid.

I am setting up a long term worldwide journeyman (no badges, sunday league). Given the impressive speed of fm21 so far, I am considering loading all the leagues (mix of playable/view only) and large database, with INTL, Club continental and my league on full sim. I run an i7-1065g7 on my laptop and i5-8400 on my desktop.

For the playable/view only mix, I'm thinking of only putting the lower leagues where I might get a job on playable to start, then slowly changing some of the bigger ones to playable as my reputation increases and I might actually get jobs there. Will that unbalance things weirdly if it takes a decade or more to get to that level?

To me, the speed of the game is the biggest plus for saves like this. Am I biting off more than I can chew?

I played the beta somewhat like this, and speed seemed OK, but worried I may run into issues down the line.

[Daveincid]

vor 3 Minuten schrieb PatrickReynolds:

Great guide and awesome that you're answering so many good questions @Daveincid.

I am setting up a long term worldwide journeyman (no badges, sunday league). Given the impressive speed of fm21 so far, I am considering loading all the leagues (mix of playable/view only) and large database, with INTL, Club continental and my league on full sim. I run an i7-1065g7 on my laptop and i5-8400 on my desktop.

For the playable/view only mix, I'm thinking of only putting the lower leagues where I might get a job on playable to start, then slowly changing some of the bigger ones to playable as my reputation increases and I might actually get jobs there. Will that unbalance things weirdly if it takes a decade or more to get to that level?

To me, the speed of the game is the biggest plus for saves like this. Am I biting off more than I can chew?

I played the beta somewhat like this, and speed seemed OK, but worried I may run into issues down the line.

I'm happy to help people! But too many questions means to me, the guide isn't perfect yet 

IMO you just give yourself and the nation you play an advantage, because you treat all the other leagues exactly the same, there will be not that big unbalance in general, just a less natural development in general. As long as you set the full detail level to full with international conpetitions you should be fine! 

I hope you understood what I mean!

 

Cheers

Daveincid

[PatrickReynolds]

7 minutes ago, Daveincid said:

I'm happy to help people! But too many questions means to me, the guide isn't perfect yet 

IMO you just give yourself and the nation you play an advantage, because you treat all the other leagues exactly the same, there will be not that big unbalance in general, just a less natural development in general. As long as you set the full detail level to full with international conpetitions you should be fine! 

I hope you understood what I mean!

 

Cheers

Daveincid

I guess my question way more aimed at if you think I have the processing power to run all leagues playable, or mix of view only, and if the game will get slower over time.

[Daveincid]

vor 1 Minute schrieb PatrickReynolds:

I guess my question way more aimed at if you think I have the processing power to run all leagues playable, or mix of view only, and if the game will get slower over time.

The game will slow down over time, but not as significantly as I think it was in the times of fm2013 or so.  So if you feel comfortable at the start, I am pretty sure you will be during your whole save.

[dire_f]

I have noted that in order to atleast get realistic top scorer statistics you need to have full detail on the league. If you have a top league run with full detail the top stikers can get 30+ goals (I've seen Ronaldo get 39 and Haaland (iirc) even). But if you're not using the match engine to sim results there are very few strikers who even reaches 20 goals. This was true for the Beta and initial testing shows that the same seem to apply to the full game. I'm currently running Serie A with full detail and players from that league have taken the top 2 spots in the Golden Shoe award in both first two simmed seasons, whereas Mauro Icardi for example was the top scorer in LaLiga (playing for Real) in season 2 with 16. I'm using full detail on CL aswell and Luis Suarez almost matched Icardis goal tally that season in the CL.

I'm not certain it affects the total amount of goals scored, or if its just a matter of distribution between players, but my suspicion is that it is. I've seen three teams with 100+ goals in the PL using full detail during the same season (Beta) and for leagues without full detail the top teams struggle to reach 80. 

If anyone else has any input, or could check in current saves, regarding goal distribution I'd love to hear it.  

[Daveincid]

Gerade eben schrieb dire_f:

I have noted that in order to atleast get realistic top scorer statistics you need to have full detail on the league. If you have a top league run with full detail the top stikers can get 30+ goals (I've seen Ronaldo get 39 and Haaland (iirc) even). But if you're not using the match engine to sim results there are very few strikers who even reaches 20 goals. This was true for the Beta and initial testing shows that the same seem to apply to the full game. I'm currently running Serie A with full detail and players from that league have taken the top 2 spots in the Golden Shoe award in both first two simmed seasons, whereas Mauro Icardi for example was the top scorer in LaLiga (playing for Real) in season 2 with 16. I'm using full detail on CL aswell and Luis Suarez almost matched Icardis goal tally that season in the CL.

I'm not certain it affects the total amount of goals scored, or if its just a matter of distribution between players, but my suspicion is that it is. I've seen three teams with 100+ goals in the PL using full detail during the same season (Beta) and for leagues without full detail the top teams struggle to reach 80. 

If anyone else has any input, or could check in current saves, regarding goal distribution I'd love to hear it.  

I always said that this would be the case If you want a realistic game experience, load as much as leagues playable AND with full details. 

There was some moaning in the forum that the AI can't simulate players like Messi or CR7. Well......Lansana Dramé: "Hold my beer"

 

Cheers

Daveincid

 

[dire_f]

2 hours ago, Daveincid said:

I always said that this would be the case If you want a realistic game experience, load as much as leagues playable AND with full details. 

There was some moaning in the forum that the AI can't simulate players like Messi or CR7. Well......Lansana Dramé: "Hold my beer"

 

Cheers

Daveincid

 

Indeed. The only thing I'd remark on in your excellent first post then was that there was no middle ground in terms of leagues run at full detail. Most recommendations, if you dont have a monster CPU, included only running your own leage in full detail. I'd suggest running the top 4 or 5 leagues with full details (so not all leagues) in order to simulate ratings and goal amounts in a realistic fashion for all top teams and players. However there might be a huge effect on performance even going from 1 to 5 leagues in full detail?

 

[Daveincid]

vor 6 Minuten schrieb dire_f:

Indeed. The only thing I'd remark on in your excellent first post then was that there was no middle ground in terms of leagues run at full detail. Most recommendations, if you dont have a monster CPU, included only running your own leage in full detail. I'd suggest running the top 4 or 5 leagues with full details (so not all leagues) in order to simulate ratings and goal amounts in a realistic fashion for all top teams and players. However there might be a huge effect on performance even going from 1 to 5 leagues in full detail?

 

My guide is indeed a bit influenced on my own style of play, so the more, the better. But as I already said twice, its only a rough guideline. Tweak it as you want, there is no right or wrong. But I am currenty do some testing with @Brother Ben's performance benchmark 2020, I haven't validated it yet, but it seems, fm21 handles multicore better than fm20. So your loss of speed shouldn't be that big as in the past. I encourage everybody to do the upcoming Performance Benchmark for fm21, it will help you to see the difference of the full detail level pretty good.

 

Edited November 24, 2020 by Daveincid

[dire_f]

1 hour ago, Daveincid said:

My guide is indeed a bit influenced on my own style of play, so the more, the better. But as I already said twice, its only a rough guideline. Tweak it as you want, there is no right or wrong. But I am currenty do some testing with @Brother Ben's performance benchmark 2020, I haven't validated it yet, but it seems, fm21 handles multicore better than fm20. So your loss of speed shouldn't be that big as in the past. I encourage everybody to do the upcoming Performance Benchmark for fm21, it will help you to see the difference of the full detail level pretty good.

 

I'll give it a go when I have some spare time. Thanks!

[PatrickReynolds]

Interesting considerations, I didn't realize before the massive difference between simming in full or not. It looks like you can change detail level and playable/view only leagues even after you've started your save, so at least there is a little less pressure to 'get it right' from the start :).

 

[Abaddon879]

On 15/11/2020 at 13:58, Daveincid said:

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

- Loading arround top 20 nations playable with the first 2 leagues, all the others view-only or in a playable league view-only below, international games, continental-club-competition-games 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. Especially the full detail for european competition are really important. Without this, the game calculates with much less factors like CA of a team, reputation of players or team.  Like I said at the beginning, there is no wrong or right. my example is just my personal opinion. Top 20 nations can be for example serbia instead of switzerland, or denmark instead of austria. top 20 again is just a guideline, the more, the better.

Down below a screenshot of an example for my recommended setup:

 

 

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 only the league you play, with a small/medium/big db: There will be only the players loaded from the active leagues in the nation you play, and some worldwide superstars like messi, ronaldo or a few more (big db). Newgens will appear only in your league/nation and only a few in the worldwide top clubs.

I only recommend this setting if you have a very weak system, or you prefer a superfast gameplay.

- Loading top 5 nations and top 2 in South America with a small/medium/big db: There will be a higher transfer activity between these nations. Later ingame (arround 10 years) it will lead to a total domination of the loaded leagues and the national teams from theese nations vs all the others. Gamespeed is still decent with most setups. If you prefer that the whole game is replicated kind of realistic, I do not recomend this setup.

- Loading top 5 nations and top 2 in South America playable and top 20 as view only with a small/medium/big db: Beside you can watch the table of the top 20 Leagues there isn't any signifficant difference to the setup above. So it's a immersive upgrade to see some more stats, nothing more.

- 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. Transfer activity in the view only leagues are little, but they exist. They will not be that competitive as in the playable leagues but close enough IMO.

- 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, national games 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, national games 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

- Loading all nations playable, international games, national games and the games in your league simulated in full detail, with small/medium/big db:

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

Leagues which are't included in the vanilla version will benefit from this setup.

- 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 increase 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.

- Loading all nations playable + custom files from all over the world:

As soon as the editor is available, it won't take long and the custom league files are available. If you wanna integrate them with the best speed/realism ratio, I would check the League reputation stars from all continents and load the higher ones first.

I love the idea behind this, but definitely find your opening post very text heavy and difficult to follow. The bold headings are far too long and would ideally be condensed into more concise ideas.

Presuming most people start in Europe, it might be worth giving 3 example setups to suit different computer specs (Low-end, Average, High-end).
For example something like this maybe (presuming starting in England, otherwise replace neighbouring leagues as appropriate):

Low-End (Dual-core 1.8Ghz+)
Database size: Small

Primary League - Lowest league to manage in +1
Starting Nation

Major Leagues - Top league only
England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain

 

Average (4-core 2.5Ghz+)
Database size: Medium

Primary League - Top 3+ leagues
Starting Nation

Major Leagues - Top league only
England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain

Neighbouring Leagues - Top league only
Ireland, N.Ireland, Scotland, Wales

 

High-End (8-core 3.0Ghz+)
Database size: Large

Primary League - All leagues
Starting Nation

Major Leagues - Top 2 leagues
England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain

Neighbouring Leagues - Top league only
Ireland, N.Ireland, Scotland, Wales

Additional Detail - Top league only
Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,  Sweden, Switzerland 
Argentina, Brazil
USA

One thing I'm trying out currently to give a good overall world simulation is to use the current FIFA Top 50 World Rankings (https://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/ranking-table/men/), and select the top leagues of all available countries. With a small database, continental rep players, and international players added, this comes to around 130k players. The 47 leagues from 38 countries may cause some speed issues however.

Edited November 24, 2020 by Abaddon879

[Daveincid]

vor 57 Minuten schrieb Abaddon879:

I love the idea behind this, but definitely find your opening post very text heavy and difficult to follow. The bold headings are far too long and would ideally be condensed into more concise ideas.

Presuming most people start in Europe, it might be worth giving 3 example setups to suit different computer specs (Low-end, Average, High-end).
For example something like this maybe (presuming starting in England, otherwise replace neighbouring leagues as appropriate):

Low-End (Dual-core 1.8Ghz+)
Database size: Small

Primary League - Lowest league to manage in +1
Starting Nation

Major Leagues - Top league only
England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain

 

Average (4-core 2.5Ghz+)
Database size: Medium

Primary League - Top 3+ leagues
Starting Nation

Major Leagues - Top league only
England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain

Neighbouring Leagues - Top league only
Ireland, N.Ireland, Scotland, Wales

 

High-End (8-core 3.0Ghz+)
Database size: Large

Primary League - All leagues
Starting Nation

Major Leagues - Top 2 leagues
England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain

Neighbouring Leagues - Top league only
Ireland, N.Ireland, Scotland, Wales

Additional Detail - Top league only
Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,  Sweden, Switzerland 
Argentina, Brazil
USA

One thing I'm trying out currently to give a good overall world simulation is to use the current FIFA Top 50 World Rankings (https://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/ranking-table/men/), and select the top leagues of all available countries. With a small database, continental rep players, and international players added, this comes to around 130k players. The 47 leagues from 38 countries may cause some speed issues however.

Thank you for this feedback! It really makes more sense as you made it in your post. I update it when I find the time (so many projects).

Nice idea about the rankings!

 

Cheers

Daveincid

[PatrickReynolds]

@Daveincid, just re-reading your first suggested setup. Am I understanding correctly that you recommend the top divisions in each "top 20" playable league be simulated in full as well as the national cups for these leagues, plus international and continental club competitions? Just making sure I understand your suggestions :). 

[Daveincid]

vor einer Stunde schrieb PatrickReynolds:

@Daveincid, just re-reading your first suggested setup. Am I understanding correctly that you recommend the top divisions in each "top 20" playable league be simulated in full as well as the national cups for these leagues, plus international and continental club competitions? Just making sure I understand your suggestions :). 

 Sorry it's not my strenght to be that clear. English isn't my native language. No, the top20 are default. 

Edited November 24, 2020 by Daveincid
missunderstandig