How to speed up Football Manager

The bane of any Football Manager player’s life: a slow game. We’ve all been there. Your laptop sounds like a jet engine, and you can barely move the mouse, let alone click. Sometimes, the culprit is an ancient laptop from 2009 (and yes, it might be time to upgrade). However, many of us these days have decent laptops, and some of you have even splurged on specialist gaming machines just to play Football Manager—respect for that. Regardless of your setup, there are plenty of in-game tweaks you can make to speed up your experience and enjoy the game more. Let’s dive in, starting with some lesser-known tricks and finishing with the obvious ones you might have overlooked.

Less news subscriptions

How to access this setting:

1. Load up the game.
2. Click on Inbox (top left).
3. Select Social Feed.
4. Click on Manage (bottom right).

By default, Football Manager subscribes you to a ton of news items. For example, in my save, I was following 121 news items, many of which were completely irrelevant. If you’re doing a journeyman save, you might still be following updates from previous jobs. In my case, I was tracking the South African FA Cup Player of the Year while managing in Argentina—hardly essential information. These subscriptions slow down game processing, so it’s worth tailoring them to your current save to speed things up.

Change the graphic quality of the match engine

How to access this setting:

1. Load up the game.
2. Click on FM (top right).
3. Select Preferences.
4. Search for ‘3D’ in the search bar.

For most of us, the default graphics settings work fine. My fairly standard MacBook, for instance, suggests ‘High’ quality. However, if your laptop struggles with the 3D match engine, consider lowering the graphics quality. The match engine uses a lot of processing power, so reducing it can help if your game slows down during matches. If you only play in 2D, set the graphics to ‘Low’ since it won’t affect your experience.

Tick ‘Use caching to decrease page loading times

How to access this setting:

1. Load up the game.
2. Click on FM (top right).
3. Select Preferences.
4. Search for ‘Cache’ in the search bar.

This setting is automatically enabled unless you’ve downloaded custom graphics (like logo or kit packs), in which case you’ve probably been told to disable it temporarily. Once you’ve made your changes, be sure to turn caching back on. I’m no tech wizard, but enabling this option significantly reduces page loading times. Just make sure it’s ticked once you’re done tweaking your graphics.

Change detail level

How to access this setting:

1. Load up the game.
2. Click on FM (top right).
3. Select Detail Level.

Football Manager spends a lot of time simulating matches you don’t even play. While you can’t speed up the core simulation, you can reduce the number of games being simulated in detail. Adjusting the ‘Detail Level’ setting has a significant impact on processing speed. For example, you can load more leagues but set their detail level to ‘None,’ which keeps your laptop’s performance steady while maintaining a broader, more immersive game world.

Enable continue game timeout and have fewer stops in play

How to access this setting:

1. Load up the game.
2. Click on FM (top right).
3. Select Preferences.
4. Search for ‘Fewer Stops’ and ‘Continue Game’ in the search bar.

Shoutout to the9llamas for these tips—I didn’t even know they existed. While these won’t make the game itself perform better, they will drastically reduce how long it takes to progress through seasons.

• Continue Game Timeout: Automatically progresses the game without needing to click ‘Continue,’ saving loads of time.
• Fewer Stops in Play: Reduces unnecessary interruptions, making the game flow smoothly.

Just remember to turn these features off during transfer windows if you want to keep a close eye on your deals.

Load less leagues

How to adjust this:

• When setting up a new game, select ‘Advanced Setup’ to customize which leagues to load.

This one’s a no-brainer: the more leagues and players you load, the slower your game will be. Only include leagues you genuinely need or want to see in your game world. It’ll significantly improve processing speed.

Laptop optimisations

If all else fails, there are general laptop optimizations you can try. While I’m not a tech expert, these should be straightforward for anyone familiar with computers:

• Close Background Programs: Shut down unnecessary apps to free up RAM and CPU.
• Use High-Performance Mode: Set your laptop’s power settings to ‘High Performance’ to allocate maximum resources to the game.
• Update Drivers: Ensure your graphics and system drivers are up to date.
• Clear Storage: Make sure there’s enough free disk space on the drive where FM is installed.
• Lower Screen Resolution: Reducing the resolution can improve performance.
• Add More RAM: If possible, upgrading your RAM can make a huge difference in simulation speed.

If you’re struggling with a slow Football Manager experience, at least one of these tips should help. Whether it’s tweaking in-game settings or optimizing your laptop, there’s plenty you can do to speed things up. If you have any other tips or tricks, drop them in the comments! My game is running smoothly for now, but who knows—your advice might just save someone else’s save. Happy managing!

About the Author

William Reid

William is the admin of Out of Context Football Manager, an X account that focuses on FM news. He's worked for LADbible Group and is VG's resident FM expert.