Need to play FM 2018 - Please help!

[seraphim22]

Hi all,

Thank you for your time initially.

I am looking for a new laptop, and really need some advice, I don't know which cpu is best/gpu is good enough to run it and at a price which is the best!

What I need the laptop for:

FM 2018 - I want to speed through days as this is a major hassle with how long it can take, and be able to play the matches in 3D on medium settings at least
No other games are necessary, so want to optimise for FM 2018.

Watching netflix/downloading and watching films, youtube, web browsing.

What I would like:

An SDD - I know they are much much quicker, I would need at least 256gb, should be enough for me. So please go with this!

My budget?

I'm very tight with money ...I would like to spend no more than 300 pounds at maximum.


So please recommend! I'm still not sure whether a dual core or quad core is better for FM 2018 and no idea on the required GPU for such a game.

A desktop is not an option, just so you know so please don't suggest!)

Thank you for your help!!

 

[herrwizo]

As stated on the developer's website:

"Football Manager 2018 requires very low-end hardware to run. FM18 can run easily at high graphics settings on 1080p screen resolution using graphics cards and hardware released 5 years ago."

System requirements:

Minimum: Pentium 4 3.4 GHz / Athlonx XP 3200+, 2GB RAM, 7GB HDD space, DX9 compatible GPU with 256MB VRAM
Recommended: Core 2 Duo E8300 or Athlon II x3 700e, Geforce GT640/RadeonR7 7650K, 4GB RAM

In other words - you should be fine no matter what laptop you pick. As long as it is not using 10-year old tech

Forgot to add: it would be great to include an SSD, and at least 8GB of memory, since web browsing can be taxing on memory. But at your price limit, this is virtually impossible. You would have to double that amount.

 

[seraphim22]

As stated on the developer's website:

"Football Manager 2018 requires very low-end hardware to run. FM18 can run easily at high graphics settings on 1080p screen resolution using graphics cards and hardware released 5 years ago."

System requirements:

Minimum: Pentium 4 3.4 GHz / Athlonx XP 3200+, 2GB RAM, 7GB HDD space, DX9 compatible GPU with 256MB VRAM
Recommended: Core 2 Duo E8300 or Athlon II x3 700e, Geforce GT640/RadeonR7 7650K, 4GB RAM

In other words - you should be fine no matter what laptop you pick. As long as it is not using 10-year old tech

Forgot to add: it would be great to include an SSD, and at least 8GB of memory, since web browsing can be taxing on memory. But at your price limit, this is virtually impossible. You would have to double that amount.

Hi Herr, thanks for your words.

However I'm not sure where to even start looking. Could you possibly suggest a few potential laptops with links to where I can buy them? At the moment I have an Asus, running a dual core 2.8ghz cpu and to be honest, I want much faster than this! it takes maybe at least 20minutes to sim a month in game.

I know it says it can run on very low specs, and it's true, but I will get awful performance simming through the game/changing day to day. Do you play FM 2018? I've also had previous laptops with bad GPU's and it could not handle FM's 3D match well enough.

(Fyi this is my current laptop,
Name: Asus R510J.
Cpu: Intel Core I5-4200h 2.8ghz
gpu: Nvidia geforce 940m
Ram: 8gb)

(However if you check my previous threads, you'll see I spilt wine on it a year ago and haven't managed to fix the screen.)

 

[herrwizo]

Your specs are actually very good (for a laptop). And better than you would be able to get for 300 pounds, to be honest. It is a dual core CPU with hyperthreading, but quite fast one. Very decent GPU as well, for that game. More than enough RAM.

You could add an SSD to it instead of your current HDD, and it will feel much faster overall.

Try to monitor your CPU usage while sitting idle at desktop and while simming and report back the results. Your performance simply doesn't sound right - you might have some software in the background (malware, or even antivirus that scans all the time) that eats the CPU time, or the CPU is throttling due to overheating, therefore you get very low performance in the game.

Spilling the fluid might also have damaged something. Did you ask how much repair would cost? Repairing and adding an SSD would certainly not be a bad thing to consider, very cost effective. But report CPU usage first, we need to see what is going on.

 

[seraphim22]

Your specs are actually very good (for a laptop). And better than you would be able to get for 300 pounds, to be honest. It is a dual core CPU with hyperthreading, but quite fast one. Very decent GPU as well, for that game. More than enough RAM.

You could add an SSD to it instead of your current HDD, and it will feel much faster overall.

Try to monitor your CPU usage while sitting idle at desktop and while simming and report back the results. Your performance simply doesn't sound right - you might have some software in the background (malware, or even antivirus that scans all the time) that eats the CPU time, or the CPU is throttling due to overheating, therefore you get very low performance in the game.

Spilling the fluid might also have damaged something. Did you ask how much repair would cost? Repairing and adding an SSD would certainly not be a bad thing to consider, very cost effective. But report CPU usage first, we need to see what is going on.

Thanks, I'll try and provide more information tonight. In the meantime please check my old thread, this spillage happened a year ago. I scratched off a chip(hahahahah) on the motherboard which was like ash and it worked again. I damaged it no doubt but it's now working for a year+ after a major wine spill.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3379905/burnt-chip-chip-motherboard-boot-tweaks-interesting-appreciated.html

Item model number R510JX-DM300D
Screen Size 15.6 inches
Processor Count 2
RAM Size 8 GB
Computer Memory Type DDR3 SDRAM
Hard Drive Size 1000 GB
Hard Disk Technology Disco Duro
Graphics Chipset Brand Intel
Graphics Card Description nvidia geforce gtx 950m

Instead - please could you suggest and provide a link to buy a SDD that would be compatible with this laptop? I would like either 256gb/502gb.

I am going to attempt to fix the screen soon. do you have any advice for this? I'll post a picture laptop of how the connector to the motherboard looks like(it looks like someone took a blowtorch to it for a second or two). I'm hoping just replacing this cable with a new one will get the screen lighting up and work(I've noticed before that there is still a display, but you can only can see it faintly in perfect light/angle of the screen).

Reading elsewhere, is it possible that the chip I scratched off was the "screen power inverter"(which I believe provides power to light up the screen?) So by replacing the cable, I wouldn't be able to fix my screen?

 

[herrwizo]

Any 2.5" SATA SSD should fit (like Samsung 850/860 EVO), but you will have to take the current HDD out (it would replace it, not complement it). I'm no expert for screen fixing, but seems that it needs professional servicing.

 

[seraphim22]

Any 2.5" SATA SSD should fit (like Samsung 850/860 EVO), but you will have to take the current HDD out (it would replace it, not complement it). I'm no expert for screen fixing, but seems that it needs professional servicing.

Ok great, I'll look for one and update this post - it would solve the hdd/sdd issue. I'll look for a samsung 850/860 EVO. I'm fine with taking out HDD's and replacing with other's so no issue there.

Funny thing is I took my laptop after the spillage to a computer repair shop and they insisted and told me under no circumstances that it is fixable and it wouldn't work again - glad i proved him wrong here. I am in the Czech Republic right now though, slightly more difficult. I would hate to give it to someone else though, I'm sure the laptop can easily easily be broken at the moment, don't want to cause anything unnecessary!

For my brand of laptop, could you identify which screen cable I need? Really struggling to find precisely the one.

One potential solution I am considering is to buy a very thin screen with a hdmi connection, taping it to the front of my laptop and using it like this with my laptops hdmi port. It would look awful and add weight....but I can live with that.

 

[herrwizo]

Probably the best and only thing to do, if you can't get the screen fixed. You can even use a TV with HDMI as your monitor

 

[seraphim22]

That's what I'm currently doing but it's super annoying

Not to mention I have a hefty monitor