This guide now goes into its second year.
The goal is to help you to set up your save-game as balanced as possible for different strong PC/Laptop-Systems.
It should also give you some information on how the whole setup-system works, what’s important to keep in mind and much more. FM22 Guide How to increase realism in Football Manager 22
It's impossible to show everyone’s different way of playing. This is only a rough guideline for a orientation. This is my view of fm, so if you are seeing it differently, that's completely fine. ;) !Please do not ask me in the comments what setup I recommend for System X or Y. Sometimes I answer them via PM, if the message is friendly and I have some free resources, which is very rare!
Every setup can be customized by yourself how it suits you the most. Please note:
The downloadable setups might be larger as you played the game before. I know that this can be frustrating as the game can be very slow that way. Playing Football Manager „realistic“ will let your CPU burn, always
General:
There are differences between unloaded leagues, view-only, playable and playable with full details:
unloaded league
No schedule, games are fully simulated in the 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
„fictional“ finances (no existing bank balance, only a „fictional“ calculated one)
Games will be simulated with the quick Match-Engine
League „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
„fictional“ finances (no existing bank balance, only a „fictional“ calculated one)
Games will be simulated with the quick Match-Engine
League playable
League-schedule
League table
Full Squads
Existing Staff
Realistic transfer-activity
Accurate simulation of the financial system
Some games will be simulated with the Full Match Engine.
League playable + full details
League-schedule
League table
Full Squads
Existing Staff
Realistic transfer-activity
Accurate simulation of the financial system
Games will be fully simulated
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 (Development per average is similar, but more diverse). If you simulate other leagues in Nations where you’re not currently managing 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 are playable
custom data in general slows down performance. There are big differences in what kind of custom data is used. As an orientation you can go by file size. Larger files need more processing time. (not always, but especially lower-league-files do have quite a big impact.)
An 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 mentioned above
All custom graphics loaded do not have any influence on the game speed at all. As far as I know it has some influence in terms of RAM usage
Extra Tips:
1. 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 about 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.
2. Disable the first transfer window. The game starts (in most cases) in summer 21. In real-life, transfers already happened, so if you enable that transfer window you’ll get much less accurate transfers, especially in the first year.
3. If you are struggling to choose the right setup for your Laptop/PC and it’s only about 2 or 3 more leagues, then even add 5;)
4. Stick to the setup you’ve chosen at the start during your save game. I wouldn’t add additional leagues or remove some. If your game becomes too slow I would first set some fully simulated competitions to default. This has a much bigger impact on the „day to day“-performance.
5. Ignore the performance stars when you choose a setup. They are only a rough orientation and can be misleading. Especially with the advanced database-setup and custom detail levels.
6. As a general rule: In every Club, where you see existing players (not the greyed out ones), There will be newgens generated. If the whole Club has no existing players in 2021, there won’t be any in 2031.
Detail level
I recommend setting all national teams simulated in full detail as well as the continental club competitions. If this slows down your game already too much, you can change this to only the Continent you are currently managing in. I’ll show you how I set up the detail level for each setup (small, medium, large) on my youtube-video.
Available setups for the default game:
Every setup contains all players from existing leagues within the game. So even the small setup has over 200k players. As I mentioned already, my setups are quite demanding but especially the „small“ one might be faster as you think. Small: 40 playable leagues in 35 Nations with 204k players
This setup adds the top division in 35/53 Nations as well as the 2nd division in England, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. All the other leagues are all „view“ only with players added via the advanced database. This setup already guarantees you a well-balanced transfer-market, and strong competitors (see the benefit of the playable league over „view only“). This database is already very demanding. For those who this is already way above their limit, I recommend setting the detail level completely to default. If it’s still too slow, see „additional setups“. Medium: 64 playable leagues in 41 Nations with 212k players
This setup mainly goes down the league-pyramid and adds 2nd and 3rd divisions of the bigger Nations but also some top-divisions of smaller Nations. If you can’t choose between this or the small one, take the „medium“ setup Large: 97 playable leagues in 53 Nations with 220k players
The smell of a burning CPU can be quite romantic right? Almost the same as being at a campfire with your partner Jokes aside, this setup adds at least the top division of every Nation and a lot of 2nd and 3rd divisions as well. Just be aware: Once you had 1 long-term-save game with such a setup, there will be no way back anymore^^. Additional setups:
In my guide for FM21 I wrote about much smaller setups but only 1 setup to download (recommended setup). This year I wanted to make a change. In this file there are 2 smaller setups included. Those setups are meant to be for those who: 1. have a weak laptop/PC or 2. prefer playing FM as quick as possible but with a tiny bit of realism too. Database setup:
This file is needed for every league setup. It adds players from all over the world for at least the top division. It’s also designed to add players for all „view-only“ leagues. So if you might have wondered why some leagues aren’t loaded as „view-only“, it’s because there aren’t enough players available in the database, so I don’t see a need to have them added, as they do not produce any players in the future.
If you don't know if your PC/Laptop is low/mid/high-end you can check this amazing thready by @Brother Ben:
https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/559348-fm22-performance-benchmarking-thread/
To discuss about realism in FM22 @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 2022, you can find it here: (I recommend using it of course;)
https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/545609-fm21-increase-realism-megapack-by-daveincid
There is a great megapack from @DaveTheEditor which makes a lot of additional Nations playable in the game. I worked closely together with him and tested his files, so I know about the high quality-standard he provides.
https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/560283-fm22-aroundtheglobe-megapack-by-davetheeditor-release-07032022/
I also recommend the data updates from @pr0
https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/559312-fm22-transfers-data-update-packs-by-thenotoriouspr0-fmtu/
Q&A Q: „Yo Dave, what setup should I choose? I have a PC, thanks“ A: Yooo, someone forgot to read the first few sentences;): Please do not ask me in the comments what setup I recommend for system X or Y. Sometimes (almost never) I answer them via PM, if the message is friendly and I have some free resources. Q: „Where do I need to place those files?“ A: „The setups need to be placed here: C:\Users\yourname\Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2022\game_setup“.
The database setup („all players from default leagues“) needs to be placed here: C:\Users\yourname\Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2022\db setups
Q: „It still doesn’t work….“ A: „Watch my YouTube-video, it’s shown there“ Q: „I’m on a Mac…“ A: „Worth considering switching to PC then;)“ I don’t have a Mac, so I can’t help you with that I’m sorry! Q: „Where do I need to set the detail level“ A: „Watch my youtube-video, it’s shown there“ Q: „Why does this guide not include any custom leagues?“ A: „Because the guide should work for everyone“. „There might be custom ones available somewhere :D“ Q: „Where can I find it?“ A: „ask Dr. Google or send me a PM“ Q: „I might found a mistake in one of the setups“ A: „Send me a PM“ Q: „Does it work for FM16, FM17, FM18, FM19, FM20, FM21?“ A: „No“ Q: „So it works for FM15? What about FM-Mobile? A: „No, No, No, No, No, No“
I hope I was able to help you with one of the toughest decisions BEFORE you start your save-game:) In case I missed something or you think I’ve made a mistake, PM’s are open
Cheers
Daveincid Download setups: https://www.mediafire.com/file/y7vgclsa7613l1p/Daveincid%27s_FM22_setups_default_game.zip/file
They happen, even more with my mods (filter in player search: "players injured and then select GK as position. Also changed in my mods:) Impossible due to personal rights (real players cannot commit a crime in-game and I'm 100% sure its not part of the plans of SI to add them for newgens in any way) I do think players are diving in FM. If not, it could be funny indeed, but I do not see a gain of realism if you as a manager could advice a player to dive. This should be triggered by a bad player personality. 8th tier, everything said here. I'm not happy with the high passing-frequency either. I hope this will be changed in FM23. I wouldn't even care if they just manipulate the percentage down to just have lower %'s. I do think there are mods available for that. In my mods, I've slightly increased the chairman's goals for top-clubs in some cases, so they get unhappy more quickly for some Clubs. Keep in mind that most Chairman's are not Sugar Daddy's, so they actually do not forking out millions per week in wages, rent, transfer fees etc. The majority is still elected and employed by the club. Players do talk ***** about you. You sometimes see this in the news-feed or even in your inbox-messages. I do agree that there is potential left. I also agree that interviews in FM are mostly boring and I'm leaving them to my assistant. But they are also boring in real life too, so FM still got it right there
