FM24 - PC/Laptop advice thread *** PLEASE READ OPENING POST BEFORE POSTING ***

[thefmveteran86]

Not a pc question I ordered this PC monitor and it's being delivered today thoughts? https://www.amazon.co.uk/HUAWEI-Display-Monitor-Ultra-slim-Bezels/dp/B08ZZ17DZQ/ref=asc_df_B08ZZ17DZQ/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=499345461969&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1736374801491498111&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9046645&hvtargid=pla-1246367941615&psc=1&th=1&psc=1

[Uno88]

I’m not tech savvy at all. From the looks of things my old Mac won’t run FM23. Can anyone confirm.

 

Thanks

[kevhamster]

On 08/10/2022 at 07:35, maxi7 said:

Budget - Around £1300 Max ideally.

Desktop highly preferably no need for monitor.

Looking to run Large db with all major South American players loaded would like to go as high as 12 countries with top 2-3 divisions in each but all of SCO, ENG. Something that could handle extreme long term play in a save.

 

Currently PC Specs -

Processor - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz   3.40 GHz

RAM - 16GB

Graphic card - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti

So overall - the Graphics would need an upgrade but with the PC itself nearly 10 years old i feel its best for a new system so any advice is appreciated. 

More so with FM22, the computer would tend to freeze during processing, so if I had music on etc it would just run silent during these spikes as would say OBS if i was streaming FM.

 

Other interests - I mostly play simulation games, so processing power would be preference however I feel if I am going for a big upgrade in system then a fairly decentish graphics card would be preferable. Something that would perform well for a while. 

Cheers! 

Something like this would do the job for you: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z690-pc/7vGSqB!ugm/

[kevhamster]

On 08/10/2022 at 12:45, tugboat said:

Hi guys,

Iv'e just found out i can get 15% off at Argos and was looking at getting a gaming laptop from there and have come up with these ones, could i please get your opinions on which one i should go with please. It's only for FM and are these a bit of overkill,i would like large databases and many season's .

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/2002518

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/2002556

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/1113374

cheaper ones

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/2018636

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/2002491

The best one is this one: https://www.argos.co.uk/product/1113374

Given the £500 difference pre-discount, I'd consider this one better value for money: https://www.argos.co.uk/product/2018636

The benchmark scores aren't a million miles away:

So, up to you whether you want to go for the raw power of the most expensive one, or take a little bit of a performance hit in comparison and save some money.

[kevhamster]

On 08/10/2022 at 13:59, thnigelfc said:

would this pc be fast enough to run  about 12 leagues on fm23 ..its £400 if not anybody have one that does for around same price?

Firstly as per the OP we won't comment on how many leagues a PC will run to your satisfaction as that's very subjective and we don't know what your expectations are.

But in terms of this PC, I'd personally avoid it as the CPU is a 6 year old model that is pretty weak by current standards, and the slow speed will be compounded by the fact the OS will be running off of a HDD rather than a SSD.

https://www.box.co.uk/DT.VTZEK.007-Acer-Veriton-N4-VN4670GT-Intel-Core-i5-8_3595874.html will be a far better option in terms of specs - looking at the case I don't think you'll be able to upgrade this easily if you want to change things up in the future, but if you have no plans to upgrade any components then this is the best spec I can find at £400 or under.

 

[kevhamster]

8 hours ago, thefmveteran86 said:

Not a pc question I ordered this PC monitor and it's being delivered today thoughts? https://www.amazon.co.uk/HUAWEI-Display-Monitor-Ultra-slim-Bezels/dp/B08ZZ17DZQ/ref=asc_df_B08ZZ17DZQ/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=499345461969&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1736374801491498111&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9046645&hvtargid=pla-1246367941615&psc=1&th=1&psc=1

Looks fine to me.

[kevhamster]

5 hours ago, Uno88 said:

I’m not tech savvy at all. From the looks of things my old Mac won’t run FM23. Can anyone confirm.

 

Thanks

Specs-wise, it would run but is likely to be very slow.  Based on what I can see on https://everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac-core-i5-2.5-21-inch-aluminum-mid-2011-thunderbolt-specs.html, the CPU is i5-2400S and that combined with 4GB of RAM which is very slow by current standards means you've got a computer which is probably going to struggle for performance quite a lot.

Not sure in terms of OS compatibility at it does seem to be an old version of MacOS, which is probably expected given the age of the machine.  @EdL would you be able to assist with this please?

[eXistenZ]

So dont know if this is the correct topic, but I got a surface laptop a while ago from work.

Now im basicly thinking for FM23 to have some parralel saves going. One with many leagues on  my gaming pc, and one lowerkey save for this laptop

Any speculation on how well it would go? I tried playing some democracy 4 which locked up....

 

             System Model: Surface Laptop Go
                     BIOS: 13.102.140 (type: UEFI)
                Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1035G1 CPU @ 1.00GHz (8 CPUs), ~1.2GHz
                   Memory: 8192MB RAM

 

[kevhamster]

45 minutes ago, eXistenZ said:

So dont know if this is the correct topic, but I got a surface laptop a while ago from work.

Now im basicly thinking for FM23 to have some parralel saves going. One with many leagues on  my gaming pc, and one lowerkey save for this laptop

Any speculation on how well it would go? I tried playing some democracy 4 which locked up....

 

             System Model: Surface Laptop Go
                     BIOS: 13.102.140 (type: UEFI)
                Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1035G1 CPU @ 1.00GHz (8 CPUs), ~1.2GHz
                   Memory: 8192MB RAM

 

My suggestion would be to download the demo of FM22 if you don't already own it and see how it goes.

It may be worth running some malware scanners on the Surface laptop, as Democracy 4 is one of the least demanding games which could be considered current, so the fact that it locked up is concerning.  The 10th generation Intel laptop CPU's weren't great, but they shouldn't struggle with any of the Democracy games.

[tugboat]

3 hours ago, kevhamster said:

The best one is this one: https://www.argos.co.uk/product/1113374

Given the £500 difference pre-discount, I'd consider this one better value for money: https://www.argos.co.uk/product/2018636

The benchmark scores aren't a million miles away:

So, up to you whether you want to go for the raw power of the most expensive one, or take a little bit of a performance hit in comparison and save some money.

Thanks Kev food for thought

[eXistenZ]

58 minutes ago, kevhamster said:

My suggestion would be to download the demo of FM22 if you don't already own it and see how it goes.

It may be worth running some malware scanners on the Surface laptop, as Democracy 4 is one of the least demanding games which could be considered current, so the fact that it locked up is concerning.  The 10th generation Intel laptop CPU's weren't great, but they shouldn't struggle with any of the Democracy games.

Yeah ill try with FM21. It did not lock up completly, but at just point was heavily lagging.

Mind you, this is a laptop where the fan freaks out when you charge it at the same time you watch YT... No wonder we got it for free

[kevhamster]

2 minutes ago, eXistenZ said:

Yeah ill try with FM21. It did not lock up completly, but at just point was heavily lagging.

Mind you, this is a laptop where the fan freaks out when you charge it at the same time you watch YT... No wonder we got it for free

If you don't mind keeping the desktop PC on, may be an idea to use the remote play feature on Steam to stream it to the laptop - that way the PC is still doing the work and the laptop is just streaming the game from the PC.

[Dav3186]

Hi, i need a laptop that will run FM23 very fast and my budget is £300-£500. Any suggestions please? Thanks

is this any good?

 

[kevhamster]

14 minutes ago, Dav3186 said:

Hi, i need a laptop that will run FM23 very fast and my budget is £300-£500. Any suggestions please? Thanks

is this any good?

 

Yes, it's fine.  You DM'd me and I responded in that with the best one in your price range.  Although this one will still do a decent job and as a bonus has 16GB RAM.

[Dav3186]

35 minutes ago, kevhamster said:

Yes, it's fine.  You DM'd me and I responded in that with the best one in your price range.  Although this one will still do a decent job and as a bonus has 16GB RAM.

Ah ok will check now, cheers mate 👍

[maxi7]

9 hours ago, kevhamster said:

Something like this would do the job for you: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z690-pc/7vGSqB!ugm/

Cheers, would this be overdoing it or do you feel it could fit my urge for say a far more graphically superior game to play down the line - https://www.scan.co.uk/products/scan-performance-rtx-intel-core-i7-12700f-16gb-ddr4-12gb-evga-rtx-3060-1tb-m2-ssd-win-11-see-info

[kevhamster]

33 minutes ago, maxi7 said:

Cheers, would this be overdoing it or do you feel it could fit my urge for say a far more graphically superior game to play down the line - https://www.scan.co.uk/products/scan-performance-rtx-intel-core-i7-12700f-16gb-ddr4-12gb-evga-rtx-3060-1tb-m2-ssd-win-11-see-info

You could amend the PC Specialist build I posted to have the same CPU and it would then be largely the same spec for a slightly cheaper price. 

The graphics card is overkill for FM, but if you are thinking of playing other games it's a worthwhile investment. 

Edited October 10, 2022 by kevhamster

[EdL]

14 hours ago, kevhamster said:

Specs-wise, it would run but is likely to be very slow.  Based on what I can see on https://everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac-core-i5-2.5-21-inch-aluminum-mid-2011-thunderbolt-specs.html, the CPU is i5-2400S and that combined with 4GB of RAM which is very slow by current standards means you've got a computer which is probably going to struggle for performance quite a lot.

Not sure in terms of OS compatibility at it does seem to be an old version of MacOS, which is probably expected given the age of the machine.  @EdL would you be able to assist with this please?

The minimum spec this year is MacOS 11, which for iMac comes out as a minimum "iMac (Mid 2014 or later)" so I'm afraid your device is too old (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_Big_Sur)

[mazey]

Hi guys wondering if you think this is a good deal it’s £499? 
 

[kevhamster]

15 minutes ago, mazey said:

Hi guys wondering if you think this is a good deal it’s £499? 
 

In theory yes, however my query is having found what I believe to be the listing (linked below), it says 16GB RAM in the header and then in the product info further down it says 8GB RAM.   So, with this conflicting info it's hard to know exactly what you're getting.  It's still not a bad deal even if it's 8GB RAM.  But, I've found product descriptions for computers on Amazon to be appalling, so I tend to steer clear of them for this kind of thing.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/HUAWEI-MateBook-D14-Windows-Exclusive/dp/B09R4X1LNT/ref=sr_1_4?crid=1D6YG280UU1AE&keywords=huawei+matebook+d14&qid=1665482640&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIzLjgwIiwicXNhIjoiMy4xOSIsInFzcCI6IjIuNjIifQ%3D%3D&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&sprefix=huawei+matebook+d14%2Caps%2C206&sr=8-4

Some of the Q&A's from people who've bought them do suggest it's 16GB RAM though.

The other thing is it doesn't specify exactly which CPU it has though, but given the speed it gives of 4.7GHz, it's almost definitely the i7-1165g7, which is a very capable laptop CPU.

If it is 16GB RAM, then it's a very good deal.

 

[mazey]

25 minutes ago, kevhamster said:

In theory yes, however my query is having found what I believe to be the listing (linked below), it says 16GB RAM in the header and then in the product info further down it says 8GB RAM.   So, with this conflicting info it's hard to know exactly what you're getting.  It's still not a bad deal even if it's 8GB RAM.  But, I've found product descriptions for computers on Amazon to be appalling, so I tend to steer clear of them for this kind of thing.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/HUAWEI-MateBook-D14-Windows-Exclusive/dp/B09R4X1LNT/ref=sr_1_4?crid=1D6YG280UU1AE&keywords=huawei+matebook+d14&qid=1665482640&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIzLjgwIiwicXNhIjoiMy4xOSIsInFzcCI6IjIuNjIifQ%3D%3D&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&sprefix=huawei+matebook+d14%2Caps%2C206&sr=8-4

Some of the Q&A's from people who've bought them do suggest it's 16GB RAM though.

The other thing is it doesn't specify exactly which CPU it has though, but given the speed it gives of 4.7GHz, it's almost definitely the i7-1165g7, which is a very capable laptop CPU.

If it is 16GB RAM, then it's a very good deal.

 

Thank you for your help very informative think I might get it especially if it is 16gb ram 

[Crabby3]

Has anyone seen any good deals on Amazon prime day for a good laptop? Still on the search for one looking at approx £300/400 thanks 

[Rizzle86]

Hello chaps. I am venturing back into the FM world after about a 12 year break!

I want to play on a laptop. Laptop is going to be used for FM and general use.

I have a budget of 600 but could stretch to 650 700. 

I just want something that will play the game at a decent pace and I am not waiting on loading screens all day. 

Thank you 

[kevhamster]

On 11/10/2022 at 21:51, Crabby3 said:

Has anyone seen any good deals on Amazon prime day for a good laptop? Still on the search for one looking at approx £300/400 thanks 

Can't see much on Amazon, but this is a good deal. 

https://www.box.co.uk/82LM0054UK-Lenovo-ideaPad-5-AMD-Ryzen-5-8GB-RAM-256_3596990.html

 

[kevhamster]

On 12/10/2022 at 13:14, Rizzle86 said:

Hello chaps. I am venturing back into the FM world after about a 12 year break!

I want to play on a laptop. Laptop is going to be used for FM and general use.

I have a budget of 600 but could stretch to 650 700. 

I just want something that will play the game at a decent pace and I am not waiting on loading screens all day. 

Thank you 

https://www.box.co.uk/82K200C3UK-Lenovo-ideaPad-Gaming-3-AMD-Ryzen-5-8GB-_3638080.html

 

[Rizzle86]

40 minutes ago, kevhamster said:

https://www.box.co.uk/82K200C3UK-Lenovo-ideaPad-Gaming-3-AMD-Ryzen-5-8GB-_3638080.html

 

Thanks Kev. Is there anything worthwhile on Argos Currys or John Lewis that you know of? 

[Mr.Blade]

Hi all, looking for a laptop that will run 3D smoothly and a good amount of leagues on a large database for around £600/700. Any suggestions? I don't play any other games apart from FM

 

 

[kevhamster]

15 hours ago, Rizzle86 said:

Thanks Kev. Is there anything worthwhile on Argos Currys or John Lewis that you know of? 

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/asus-vivobook-16x-x1603za-16-laptop-intel-core-i5-512-gb-ssd-silver-10240160.html

That one is an excellent deal.  You may need to turn the graphics settings down a little as it doesn't have a dedicated graphics card, however should be good for medium to high settings on 3D and in terms of processing speed should be excellent. 

[kevhamster]

10 hours ago, Mr.Blade said:

Hi all, looking for a laptop that will run 3D smoothly and a good amount of leagues on a large database for around £600/700. Any suggestions? I don't play any other games apart from FM

 

 

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/asus-tuf-dash-f15-15.6-gaming-laptop-intel-core-i5-rtx-3050-512-gb-ssd-10234366.html

[Mr.Blade]

7 hours ago, kevhamster said:

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/asus-tuf-dash-f15-15.6-gaming-laptop-intel-core-i5-rtx-3050-512-gb-ssd-10234366.html

Thank you for your help

[Bazz Playerz]

I'm thinking of pulling the trigger on 32 gb ram 3600mhz. But its mainly because i play fm, currently i have 16gb ram but windows reserves half of that.

Its a known bug but i cant seem to fix it. Will 32gb make a big difference with a lot of leagues loaded?

 

AMD Ryzen 7 2700 Eight-Core Processor             3.20 GHz

16,0 GB (7,93 GB beschikbaar)-(7,93 GB hardware reserved)

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 8GB

And 160 euros is a lot with the current gas bill. 

So if any of you most definitly smarter than me guys could give me some advice that would be much appreciated.

 

 

[EdL]

That hardware reserved seems mad, I have 2700X and 16GB of ram, so extremely similar setup and hardware reserved is 49MB

Not sure whats happening there but it seems.. wrong.

Generally speaking 16GB is absoluterly fine for FM and you wouldn't see any benefit for 32GB

[EdL]

had a quick google apparenmtly it can mean one of your sticks of RAM has a fault, but also found a video linked here with a couple of tips you could try (not verified!)

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/16gb-of-ram-but-8gb-hardware-reserved.3652729/

[Smurf]

6 hours ago, Bazz Playerz said:

currently i have 16gb ram but windows reserves half of that.

No - windows would reserve max 1gb.

If it's reserving more there's something wrong. 

https://www.softwaretesttips.com/hardware-reserved-memory-windows/#:~:text=The usual value of hardware,is faulty and requires fixes.

 

 

 

[Rizzle86]

On 10/10/2022 at 14:39, kevhamster said:

Yes, it's fine.  You DM'd me and I responded in that with the best one in your price range.  Although this one will still do a decent job and as a bonus has 16GB RAM.

I am looking at that same Laptop. Would it play FM with good speed? What was the other you suggested in the DM if you dont mind me asking please?

Thank you

[kevhamster]

3 hours ago, Rizzle86 said:

I am looking at that same Laptop. Would it play FM with good speed? What was the other you suggested in the DM if you dont mind me asking please?

Thank you

https://www.box.co.uk/82KD0008UK-Lenovo-V15-G2-Ryzen-7-8GB-RAM-256GB-SSD-_3614140.html

[rob110]

Laptop has died on me at worst possible time 

looking at either of these and not overly good with specs etc

will these allow me to run a save for least 20 years and still be rapid etc 

 

 

Medion Erazer Crawler E10 Intel Core i5 8GB RAM 512GB SSD Nvidia GTX 1650 15.6" Gaming Laptop

30029418
 

or

Acer Aspire 5 Intel Core i3 8GB RAM 256GB SSD Nvidia MX350 15.6" Laptop

any advice would help 

[kevhamster]

On 16/10/2022 at 07:52, rob110 said:

 

Laptop has died on me at worst possible time 

looking at either of these and not overly good with specs etc

will these allow me to run a save for least 20 years and still be rapid etc 

 

 

Medion Erazer Crawler E10 Intel Core i5 8GB RAM 512GB SSD Nvidia GTX 1650 15.6" Gaming Laptop

30029418
 

or

Acer Aspire 5 Intel Core i3 8GB RAM 256GB SSD Nvidia MX350 15.6" Laptop

any advice would help 

If you could provide links of what you're looking at, plus your budget then that'd be helpful.  The above descriptions don't give enough info on the specs to give an informed opinion.

[rob110]

Looking at this 

purely use is for fm and browsing the web

would this do the job .. run smoothly and enough leagues over a duration of time etc 

budget is around £500

[rob110]

Or this

and help would be appreciated 

[kevhamster]

53 minutes ago, rob110 said:

Looking at this 

purely use is for fm and browsing the web

would this do the job .. run smoothly and enough leagues over a duration of time etc 

budget is around £500

Out of the two, this is the one I'd choose.  The CPU's a bit stronger and you get a dedicated graphics card, so it'll be able to max out the 3D settings without an issue.

It will likely have a shorter battery life per charge and will probably get a bit warmer than the other one as a result, so it's all down to your preference in that regard.  If you keep it plugged in during use, then the battery life wouldn't be a factor.

[CelticCelticCeltic]

Can someone please advise if an Apple M1 Pro or a M2 would be better for performance for FM? 

 

M1 Pro says it has 8 performance cores - twice that of the M2. But only 2 efficiency cores - half of the M2. 

 

Unsure what best correlates to speeds when gaming 

[kevhamster]

2 minutes ago, CelticCelticCeltic said:

Can someone please advise if an Apple M1 Pro or a M2 would be better for performance for FM? 

 

M1 Pro says it has 8 performance cores - twice that of the M2. But only 2 efficiency cores - half of the M2. 

 

Unsure what best correlates to speeds when gaming 

"Unsure what best correlates to speeds when gaming " - this is a hard thing to answer as a sweeping statement, purely because not all games harness CPU power in the same way.  Based on what SI developers have told us in the past, the biggest single impact to FM speeds is single core performance, which the M2 appears to have the edge in, although based on the benchmark scores shown above the M1 Max is still the best overall when it comes to general use.

However, there doesn't appear to be a huge amount in it, and all of the Apple M1/M2 chips do a decent job when it comes to FM.

[CelticCelticCeltic]

3 minutes ago, kevhamster said:

"Unsure what best correlates to speeds when gaming " - this is a hard thing to answer as a sweeping statement, purely because not all games harness CPU power in the same way.  Based on what SI developers have told us in the past, the biggest single impact to FM speeds is single core performance, which the M2 appears to have the edge in, although based on the benchmark scores shown above the M1 Max is still the best overall when it comes to general use.

However, there doesn't appear to be a huge amount in it, and all of the Apple M1/M2 chips do a decent job when it comes to FM.

Thanks for quick reply! 

[Rizzle86]

On 21/09/2022 at 13:10, kemperboyd said:

Thanks man, that's actually the 3rd laptop I was looking at! That helps a lot. i've been waffling on which to buy and this is confirmation for me!

How did this one perform? Torn weather to get it or not

[karlcole]

Morning all, Looking for a laptop purely for FM when im working away. Id ideally like to be able to run 5/6 countires so maybe 20 leagues as i plan on doing a journeyman save.

 

budget around £600 but can stretch if one is just above budget.

 

Thanks

[kevhamster]

1 hour ago, karlcole said:

Morning all, Looking for a laptop purely for FM when im working away. Id ideally like to be able to run 5/6 countires so maybe 20 leagues as i plan on doing a journeyman save.

 

budget around £600 but can stretch if one is just above budget.

 

Thanks

I'd go for this: https://www.currys.co.uk/products/asus-vivobook-16x-x1603za-16-laptop-intel-core-i5-512-gb-ssd-silver-10240160.html

Edit: Just seen it's actually out of stock.  Bear with me.

Edit 2: https://www.box.co.uk/S413EA-AM1887W-ASUS-VivoBook-14-Intel-Core-i5-16GB-RAM-_4089273.html

Edited October 19, 2022 by kevhamster

[karlcole]

13 minutes ago, kevhamster said:

I'd go for this: https://www.currys.co.uk/products/asus-vivobook-16x-x1603za-16-laptop-intel-core-i5-512-gb-ssd-silver-10240160.html

Edit: Just seen it's actually out of stock.  Bear with me.

Edit 2: https://www.box.co.uk/S413EA-AM1887W-ASUS-VivoBook-14-Intel-Core-i5-16GB-RAM-_4089273.html

Thanks Kev,

 

would it be worth paying the extra and going for an I7?

 

thanks 

[kevhamster]

14 minutes ago, karlcole said:

Thanks Kev,

 

would it be worth paying the extra and going for an I7?

 

thanks 

Potentially. Did you have a specific one in mind? If so, drop the link and I'll compare. 

[karlcole]

13 minutes ago, kevhamster said:

Potentially. Did you have a specific one in mind? If so, drop the link and I'll compare. 

Was looking at these

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/nav/pt/laptops/mc/48361/screenband/15-to-16/pmlld/intel-core-i7/c/new?sortOrder=1