Search the Community

Hello everyone, I created this thread in the hope that it will be useful to some of you who are interested in upgrading or straight up buying a computer / laptop for Football Manager. When FM19 launched back in November, I searched for this thread because I was also in the process of buying a PC, but it was then when I realised that there is no benchmarking thread for FM19. The principles of this benchmark test are the exact same that @Powermonger used when he started the FM17 Benchmarking Thread: I have loaded all 51 nations, using a large database, having a total player count of 141,670. Detail level settings are default as well. Just click on the hyperlinks below and download the 2 savegames. Benchmark A: Game starts on 20.08.18 and you need to go on holiday until 27.08.18 - Use a stopwatch to measure the time. Benchmark B: Game starts on 27.08.18 and you need to go on holiday until 07.09.18 - Use a stopwatch to measure the time. Benchmark C: Game starts on 27.08.18 and you need to go on holiday until 02.09.18. - Use a stopwatch to measure the time. - This test will take longer because it has Full Detail activated for England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. After you load the save, ensure that auto save interval is disabled, and also set processing to Fast (Less Responsive), found at Preferences, Match Settings. In order to get the most accurate / consistent result possible, I advise you to restart your PC / Laptop and then close everything that is unnecessary, leaving only FM opened. If you run the game on a laptop, don't forget to plug it in the socket before you begin. The format in which I advise you to post your results, it's exactly the same as in the yesteryears. I will provide you with my results, so you can just follow this template: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These are my results from the PC, I will also post the results from my laptop tomorow. Computer Type: PC / Laptop CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 @4000 MHz OC GPU: nVIDIA MSI GTX 1660 Ti Twin FrozR RAM: 16 GB DDR4 @3200 MHz OS: Windows 10 X64 Version 1809 Storage: SSD - PCIe M.2 SSD Benchmark A: 3 min 06 sec Benchmark B: 6 min 14 sec Benchmark C: 10 min 58 sec ------------------------------------------ I would encourage all of you who are using these benchmarks to post your results here because it really is a huge fountain of information for people that are looking to buy / upgrade their computers in their decisions. In regards to myself, I will create a results form after more of you will post the results, so everyone can see all the relevant results with just 1 click. Now that I have reached the end of this post, I will also post some tips for people wanting to get the best out of their computers / buying a computer for FM: - CPU. The faster it is, the faster the game will process through the days. The number of cores is relevant of course, but FM is also one of those games that favors the single core performance a lot more than the number of cores overall. This is where the clock speed becomes very important. The CPU is the most important piece of hardware when playing this particular game. - RAM. Without getting into too much technicalities, I will say this: 8GB DDR3 or DDR4 is enough to play FM comfortably, but the game truly shines when you have 16GB, especially if you have 15+ leagues loaded from 6-7 different nations. In regards to the speed of the RAM, it is more important than most people think: This game benefits a lot from high-frequency memory, so DDR4 is the best option. If you build a new computer at home, go for the DDR4 @3000 MHz or 3200 MHz, especially if you have an AMD Ryzen CPU (ryzen scales amazingly with faster memory). If you are purchasing a laptop, look for DDR4 @2400 Mhz and that should be absolutly great. - GPU. This is where people are divided in 2 cathegories: ones that play in 2D and others that enjoy the game in 3D. If you use 2D and are not bothered at all by 3D graphics or stable 60 fps, then you don't even need a dedicated GPU and you can save some money. However, if you go down this road, keep in mind that the integrated GPU will take RAM and if you don't have at least 8GB ... you are in a world of hurt. But if you are like me, and like the game in 3D, then you absolutly need a decent GPU. It doesn't need to be the most powerful on the market, but it has to be decent if you play the game @1080p and want smooth and stable 60fps. For comparison's sake, on my laptop, which I only use ocasionally, I have a GTX 1050 Ti and the game runs very well. - SSD VS HDD. The game speed itself will not depend upon this, as I have tested this theory a lot of times. What will hang in the balance though is the loading time of the game and in some cases, the Save Game / Load Game time. However, if you do use a lot of custom graphics, like skins and facepacks, etc, it's a good ideea to have the game (and these custom graphics) on a SSD, as this will ensure the fact that the game is very responsive in the UI. After having a conversation with @bomtarber26, I decided to make a video in regards to the way Football Manager 2019 (and every single previous edition) use the computer's resources. I think this is a good indicator for some of you that are on the fence in regards to the CPU/RAM/GPU usage.

Hi everyone, This is a bit long but I'd appreciate some support and thanks in advance for taking the time to read. Background: Me and my mate have been playing career games over the network since FM2010. Sometimes we get together in the same house and play over the wifi network (happy days) and sometimes from our own houses over internet (huge pain). Back in the days the game used to crash a lot (unexpected error) but the guys at SI have made considerable progress so we don't have many of those game crashes anymore where we almost killed each other while we decided which save to load from etc etc.. Anyway we somehow managed to come this far from 2010. But this year the game has been impossible to play over the network for us. We click the Inbox, messages take ages to load, you press the Space bar and it takes 5 seconds for the game to take that into play, you pause the match to go into tactics and it takes just AGES- like once a match lasted 35 minutes on key highlights... I was just wondering what the requirements really are for the game flow to be fast enough over network play (internet, not local). For example, what should be the internet speed, download speed, upload speed? What is the minimum pc requirements? Is it possible to have the same game play feel on a network game, as if you are playing a single career game? Doesnt have to be THAT fast but still... At this moment its just not working for us and we would appreciate some support. What are our internet speeds and computer configurations? I believe our internet and computer configurations are more than enough to play this game over the network. But let's see what you have to say We both have the exact same computers; MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011) 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7, 16GB 1333 MHz DDR3 Ram, AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1024 MB, Intel HD Graphics 3000 512 MB Internet speeds: Between 25-30 Mbps for Download and 7-10 Mbps for Upload. I think his was even 50Mbps/15Mbps. Rendering mode: Software Use caching to decrease page loading: Ticked Match graphics: Low Also see attached for Video Settings etc Where is the struggle? Whoever runs the server on their computer has no issues when browsing through the game or navigating from a player profile to Inbox for example - its almost as if you play a single player game. However for others it takes up to 15 seconds to load a page in the game which makes it extremely annoying. Sometimes you even disconnect. (speedtests were made at times when we thought the game was failing) What is the question? There must be something that we can do because at the moment its just not playable. We have tried all these below, so now I just want to ask: Are my computer and internet configurations enough to play this game over the network? If not, what should I upgrade? If yes, what are we doing wrong? Why should you write a reply if you think you could help? Since FM 2010 we had over 500+ hours played in our network games and unfortunately now we have only been able to have 150 hours of our tradition because we simply cannot play over the internet. Its just too slow. It makes us sad, really. Cheers for taking the time to read

How do you speed up the match like on fm mobile or is they no way to speed up the clock

Dear all, Unfortunately, the rendering option has been removed in fm 18. This helped a lot to increase the speed. Most of the problems for me occur on the main page when I press space bar to move on to the next day. Gameplay, on the other hand, is really fast. Can anyone provide advice on how I can drastically increase the speed? Attached you will find the generated DxDiag. Your help is highly appreciated. Best of wishes Albert DxDiag.txt

Hi all - any tips or config specs to make my FM18 run faster? It seems it takes 1 second for the next screen, after I click to run/confirm - either during matches or general inbox. No, my laptop is not slow: Intel i7 2.4GHz, 16GB RAM, 64-bit Great game. Thanks!

Hey guys, A couple of weeks back thiagotietze posted a tip on the forum about how to make FM run faster. This gave me the idea to merge all the little tips and tricks I've found over time into one post. Employing these things allows me to Play a game and exit it Browse the internet for a minute The game has processed and is ready for the next game to be played I posted it to Twitter the other day and got a great reaction so thought you guys might like it as well. For betting formating, screenshots etc. the tips can also be read here. # 1. Change rendering mode This is the simple and most important step for speeding up FM and will make your game run much faster. What it does, is that it will make the screen load faster every time you click on something. It does so by disabling some animations, but there really is no difference in how the game looks. The way to get the game to run faster is the following: Go to preferences and then the interface tab In rendering mode, it should read “GPU assisted” Change this to “software” Click confirm and you are ready to enjoy the game even more This is really easy to do and it makes the game much more enjoyable on low-end computers The tip is so good I really think it should have been the default setting and it puzzles me why it isn’t… anyway, on to the next tip! # 2. Change detail level One of the things FM spends the most time on is simulating all the games in which you do not play. While you cannot speed up the simulation time of a game, you can decrease the amount of games that are simulated. To do so you have to: Click the FM icon Click detail level This will take you to the detail level Here you can change “set international competition level" and "set club competition details levels to". I recommend changing these from default to minimum. # 3. Decrease number of leagues / use smaller database One of the easiest ways to increase the speed of the game is to reduce the number of leagues or use a smaller database. This is naturally something you select when you start the game. To ensure the game runs smooth you want to aim for +4 star in estimated game speed. My recommendation on a slow computer is to load the league you want to play in, and if you want to go good old journeyman on your FM game later, you can always add the league you want to play in. # 4. Switch off 3d graphics By default, FM will show matches in 3d. On slower computers, it can take a long time to load the 3d engine and you can significantly improve performance by switching it off. The way to do this is to head to: Preferences and then the match tab Untick the box “View matches in 3D” Click confirm I for one am old-school so I also prefer to watch the games in 2D. However, if you enjoy the 3D graphics and want to keep these you can improve performance by unchecking non-game effects where especially the stadium effects take a toll on your computer. # 5. Only watch key highlights By default in FM, the highlight mode will be set to extended. This means that games can quickly take 10 minutes. One of the first things I do on any Football Manager save is to go to preferences and change this. Go to preferences and then the match tab Under Highlight Mode change to “Key” Click confirm This will make the game show less highlights and only show the ones where there is a goal or it was close. # 6. Send your assistant to press conferences I for one am about as happy with the press in FM as Jose Mourinho is in real life. So, to avoid these, I just send my assistant. Instead of doing this every single time, you can send your assistant by default: Go to staff and responsibilities Set you assistant to go to press conferences **A word of caution:** This does have a gameplay effect and you should only send someone, who knows how to handle it (being media-friendly helps!). With that said, I rarely find press conferences to have a large effect and I have been very successful without handling any press conferences myself. # 7. Learn shortcuts This is actually the only tip in this post, where you have to do something by yourself. And that is to learn some shortcuts, which will dramatically increase the speed of the game. You can go to: Preferences and then click shortcuts to see an overview of the shortcuts. But from that it’s kinda hard to figure out what’s important so I’ll give you the top 10 FM shortcuts here (for the English language version of the game) Space bar: Clicks continue for you Ctrl+s: Saves the game Middle mouse scroll wheel click: Go to home screen Backspace or left arrow or back click: Go to previous screen Ctrl+f: Search F3: Go to squad screen F4: Go to inbox F7: Go to scouting F10: Go to schedule F11: Go to club information Ctrl+t: Go to tactics Learn these 10 bad boys, and you’ll speed up your game navigation dramatically. # 8. Use caching to decrease page loading times This is something that works in the background and will make FM run faster in general. And by default, it will be checked, however, if you have loaded skins you might have unchecked it. What you want to do is the following: Go to preferences and then the interface tab In the bottom left corner you have “appearance Make sure the box “use caching to decrease page loading times” is ticked Click confirm # 9. Delete or rename inbox file - Should now be fixed after the latest update Ever noticed your inbox in FM getting incredibly slow? The reason for this is that the game is loading a large file. To dramatically increase your inbox speed do the following: a) Shut down FM b) Go the the location below >On PC: C:Users[Username]AppDataLocalSports InteractiveFootball Manager 2017Preferencesversion 3 >On Mac:~/Library/Application Support/Sports Interactive/Football Manager 2017/Preferences/version 3/ c) Delete or rename the file inbox_scrollbar_state.xml What you want to do is to to rename the file “inbox_scrollbar_state.xml”. I ususally rename it to “inbox_scrollbar_state_old1.xml” and the next one “old2” and so forth. This ensures if the game doesn’t work properly you can rename it to its original name again. d) Reload FM and enjoy your fast inbox Thank you to thiagotietze on the SI forums for discovering this tip. # 10. Enable Continue Game Timeout I saved one of the best for last. And especially if you play in windowed mode and browse reddit while FM processes, this trick will do wonders for your game. Originally developed for network games, this will make you go from one game to the next without stopping in between. Continue game timeout basically clicks continue for you. And if you enable it, the game automatically goes forward, unless you must make a decision. The way to enable it is this: Go to preferences and then the interface tab Under processing it says continue game timeout By default, it will say disabled. I have it set at 2 seconds, but you can also set instant, 5 seconds and 10 seconds Click confirm and you are ready to enjoy the game even more I can’t state how much of a difference this makes as it will basically take you from one game to the next. **A word of caution on continue game timeout** I do not use it when the transfer window is open. And the reason is very simple. If there is a week between two games, the game will likely simulate until it reaches a decision point. The most common decision point is the line-up before a game. So, if another team bids for a player you might want to buy, you will not see this until you have to play the next game and he might already be transferred to another team… … which I don’t want to happen. So to sum up... How to make Football Manager run faster: 1. Change rendering mode 2. Change detail level 3. Decrease number of leagues 4. Switch off 3d graphics 5. Only watch key highlights 6. Send your assistant to press conferences 7. Learn shortcuts 8. Use caching to decrease page loading times 9. Delete or rename inbox 10. Enable continue game timeout Hope you guys liked it and if you did, please leave a comment below. Or maybe you have a tip that I've missed? Either way, please leave a comment below. For me tips, trick and guides you can follow me on Twitter

Hello as like a lot of people my game works pretty slow after the update . Help me please

Hi Guys, Having played many versions of FM i've noticed a slow down in play mainly due to UI additions but most noticeable during commentary with the max speed seeming very slow Comparing the general game speed of FM 16 to FM 14 there has been a big slow down in processing I don't wish to go into pc spec talk as i'm running an i7 ssd 16gb machine, this is more of what seems to be a focus on interface rather than game speed with such a long term game this seems to be the wrong way to go. Am i the only one to feel this way?