Here we go Boyz, it's the FM09 Demo Impressions (release: 7PM EDT) Impressions thread

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Big Fo

I get a thrill from watching seeing a well-placed through ball setting up a one-on-one to my striker in the 3D view.

Any tactical tips that you guys have found effective? My defense is really solid but I'm having to rely on corners and free kicks for a lot of my goals.

I got through time-wise an entire demo-run this weekend (after multiple restarts and fiddling around), and I intend to do some deeper digging into tactics from now until 11/14. I will start a tactics thread tonight in the soccer forum to discuss the insights I am having, and problems I am encountering, and will toss a link in HERE then.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by illinifan999

I don't know if this is what you're talking about but in the display and sounds part of the preferences there is an option to select the graphical detail in the 3D match view.

I need to find that tonight.. can't believe on my dual core 3 GB ram, decent video card pc, it's choppy as all get out.

[path12]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

I need to find that tonight.. can't believe on my dual core 3 GB ram, decent video card pc, it's choppy as all get out.

I thought mine was running really choppy as well until I realized that it was more the fact I was just watching extended highlights -- the choppiness was the intervals between highlights stopping and starting.....

[dbd1963]

I seem to have discovered a problem -- I don't see how to get a copy of the game for my Mac. I tried pre-ordering through Amazon.com/uk but they said they couldn't send it to me. Anyone know how to get a copy for Mac?

[Shepp]

The game should ship with the Mac and PC versions in the same package.

[DaddyTorgo]

Yes. I believes it does.

[samifan24]

Originally Posted by dbd1963

I seem to have discovered a problem -- I don't see how to get a copy of the game for my Mac. I tried pre-ordering through Amazon.com/uk but they said they couldn't send it to me. Anyone know how to get a copy for Mac?

The game ships on a dual disc. The Mac version is "included" with the PC version.

[dbd1963]

Well, I couldn't get them to send me that disc with both the PC and Mac version on it. Has anyone else had success in getting it sent to the States?

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by path12

I thought mine was running really choppy as well until I realized that it was more the fact I was just watching extended highlights -- the choppiness was the intervals between highlights stopping and starting.....

I'll have to look at settings..

that being said.. if FOF had something like this, I would be in gaming heaven!

[Shepp]

Originally Posted by dbd1963

Well, I couldn't get them to send me that disc with both the PC and Mac version on it. Has anyone else had success in getting it sent to the States?

Amazon/uk will not ship you FM09 to the US. You will either have to get WWSM09, which is the same game but titled differently for the US market, or you'll have to find a service that will ship overseas. For the last two years I've used GoGamer. I've also used Gameplay.com before but their transactions are in UK pounds and you'll need to take the exchange rate into consideration.

hxxp://www.gogamer.com/Football-Manager-2009--I--PC-Games_stcVVproductId53506825VVcatId444758VVviewprod.htm

[dbd1963]

Originally Posted by Shepp

Amazon/uk will not ship you FM09 to the US. You will either have to get WWSM09, which is the same game but titled differently for the US market, or you'll have to find a service that will ship overseas. For the last two years I've used GoGamer. I've also used Gameplay.com before but their transactions are in UK pounds and you'll need to take the exchange rate into consideration.

hxxp://www.gogamer.com/Football-Manager-2009--I--PC-Games_stcVVproductId53506825VVcatId444758VVviewprod.htm

Thank you, Shepp, that's just what I was looking for.

[NoSkillz]

To those who can run the game with 3D, can you post your system specs on here?

I'm looking to upgrade my graphics card for this game (and others) but I just want to see what others are running to make sure I don't buy another card that still doesn't work for the game.

BTW: I'll need to get an AGP card by the looks of things based on my current setup...still need to see what my power supply is at to find a suitable card. Any suggestions, by the way, would be appreciated!

[condors]

i have a nvidia geforece 6200se (not exactly a top of the line card) and it runs without any problems.

[Sweed]

System specs..
BFG 8500 gt 512 mb ram
amd 3500+ 2.2 ghz
2 gig ram
xp media center edition

[Scholes]

I can't even get the game started... I get the "FM.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close...."

After looking around the SI forums, there are a lot of people having this problem with out of date video cards.

I don't even care about the 3D. Isn't there a way to just play and view games in 2d? I sure hope they can figure something out.

[Qrusher14242]

i played it for a few games on a Athlon 1600 with a Radeon9800 and the 3d worked. But in the third game it crashed A defender passed it back to the keeper and it just sat there. Couldnt click on anything, but could go out to windows and back. The typing bug is terrible, takes forever to type anything in the press conference.

The 3d is ok, kinda stuttery. But my defenders suck. Always leaving gaps open for crappy teams to exploit. The feedback always says 'so and so has made terrible decisions and has cost us. Has missed many intereceptions'.
Also the other team i was facing had 3 guys injured by the half lol I'll go back to 08 for now.

[Icy]

For any unknown reason the game is soooo slow for me with a top end PC. Even the starting screen with the SI logo loads so slow and shuttering instead of a fluid animation.

My PC is an AMD Dual Core 4200 with 3GB RAM, Dual WD HD in RAID 0 for performance and an NVIDIA 7600 GT with 256Mb RAM. It's way over the minimal requirements, in fact it can run at max quallity any other game.

The thing is that WinXP was installed from zero 1 week ago when i bought the two new HD's, with all the latest drivers and Windows SP3, so it can't be more clean and up to date.

I really don't know what to do, but the whole game lags a lot, even the menus take a second when i click on something, it's not immediate like in any other application. Of course the 3D view is even worse, so laggy and impossible to watch.

[AlexB]

Only played 4 games so far: seems OK, couple of small bugs so far, but no crashes, freezes or game killers.

I really don't like the 20 point slider system in FM: never have, never will - it's over complicated IMO -
Much rather have 5 options Ultra-Defensive to All Out Attack
4 passing options: short, mixed, direct, long
3 for tempo: quick, normal, slow
3 for pressing: high, normal, low
Defensive line only needs 5: hold 18 yard line, deep, normal, push up, half way line
Keep the existing 3 bar sliders and check boxes, add more for overlapping runs for FB, hug touchline for wingers and you're most of the way to having all of the options you need.

So this year if I play I'm purely going to use the preset tactics and try and save myself the frustration. I will still adjust individual instructions according to my players' dribbling, long shots, crossing and through balls and see how it goes. So far every game the preset tactics appear to have a massive gap between midfield and attack which isn't all that promising, but then and again I've won 2 drawn 2...

I like the transfer rumours: I'm using it as a lower league way of seeing which players may be interested in coming on loan: if they're linked to other clubs at my level there's got to be a chance. A major bug bear of mine is why you can filter for players interested in joining permanently, but not those willing to come on loan - at least this might be a halfway house.

Overall it feels like an improvement on FM08 and FM07: the 3D is OK, but it's still not as fun as it used to be. I can quite easily accept that could as easily be me as the game though!

[AlexB]

Seeing the posts above, I'm running a Dell Intel Dual Core 6300 @ 1.86GHz, 1Gb of RAM, 256MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro graphics card

This is way under Icy's spec, but I've found the game and the 3D run fine so far

[Icy]

Found that i'm not the only one having this problem with the whole game, from interface to 2d/3d being so laggy in an high end machine. It seems the problem happens more or is related to AMD machines, great :/

[Flasch186]

Im on an Intel Laptop Dell XPS M1710 and the game runs well enough, I suppose outside of my annoyances with things anyways.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by Scholes

I can't even get the game started... I get the "FM.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close...."

After looking around the SI forums, there are a lot of people having this problem with out of date video cards.

I don't even care about the 3D. Isn't there a way to just play and view games in 2d? I sure hope they can figure something out.

Yes, the game is supposed to automatically switch to 2d if your computer isn't up to specs to run 3d. You also have the choice on the preference screen of using only 2d. My guess is it's a relatively simple bug that doesn't get past the 3d check when trying to load so crashes instead of going into 2d only mode?


I did see on the SI boards that they are now shooting for a release day patch to take care of the injuries and graphic chip set\card issues. I know they have said it appears the game isn't recognizing some intel on-board chip sets. Hopefully that will take care of you guys that haven't been able to run the game.

[Icy]

Pheeeewww, fixed it, i couldn't imagine my life without FM

The first thing i noticed was that if i set the game CPU affinity to just one of the CPU's, the game ran faster and almost not shuttering, so i figured it was related to FM09 not handling well the Dual core processor from AMD.

A google search told me about "AMD Dual-Core Optimizer Version 1.1.4", downloaded it, installed it and now the game interface lag is gone, the 3D runs at high quality and i have zero lag or shuttering. If you have an AMD dual core processor, install that driver, reboot and the problem is gone.

Here is the link to download it from AMD, it's the third download link, that says "AMD Dual-Core Optimizer Version 1.1.4".

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/..._13118,00.html

[GoldenEagle]

How can we expect the soccer forum to grow if we don't put the most popular threads in it?

[MJ4H]

The demo won't even start on my laptop. Terrible.

[Mike1409]

Originally Posted by MJ4H

The demo won't even start on my laptop. Terrible.

Mine either.

[cartman]

Originally Posted by GoldenEagle

How can we expect the soccer forum to grow if we don't put the most popular threads in it?

If it hasn't caught on by now, it won't.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by MJ4H

The demo won't even start on my laptop. Terrible.

How old/what video cards do these laptops have? ...

(as we'll be working hard to ensure things are as compatible as possible via. patching etc. and obviously the more information we have about systems which have problems the easier it'll be for us to ensure we help everyone)

[Cringer]

Originally Posted by GoldenEagle

How can we expect the soccer forum to grow if we don't put the most popular threads in it?

But it is so darn hard to do a couple of clicks to go to another forum.

[MJ4H]

Geforce 4 FX Go I think. Its an HP zd7120 laptop.

[GMO78]

How do I get WWSM09 or FM09 shipped to Canada?
Amazon.com won't ship WWSM09 to Canada and Amazon.ca doesn't have it.

Thanks.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by Icy

Found that i'm not the only one having this problem with the whole game, from interface to 2d/3d being so laggy in an high end machine. It seems the problem happens more or is related to AMD machines, great :/

For what it's worth, I'm on an AMD machine, but only a single core (the 3500+). I wasn't having any problems when I first got the game, but recently there's been some lag with the match engine.

[NoSkillz]

Originally Posted by GMO78

How do I get WWSM09 or FM09 shipped to Canada?
Amazon.com won't ship WWSM09 to Canada and Amazon.ca doesn't have it.

Thanks.

Last year I did the digital download of WWSM but I had way too many problems with it and swore I wouldn't do the same this year.

So I decided to import FM09 from sendit.com. I live in Canada as well - I ordered it two weeks ago and it still isn't here but I expect it sometime this week.

[Marc Vaughan]

If you're having problems with lag - ESPECIALLY if running a single processor system then please try turning off threading within the options and see if that helps.

(the game really should do this automatically - apologies for it not doing this)

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

If you're having problems with lag - ESPECIALLY if running a single processor system then please try turning off threading within the options and see if that helps.

(the game really should do this automatically - apologies for it not doing this)

It utilizes quad-cores? Uh, oh. Now you're starting to get me interested.