Football Manager 2013 (FM13) & Windows 10

Now, I’m sure you’ve arrived here as an avid Footballer Manager 2013 fan (yes, it’s not strange – many of us are still playing this game despite us being a third of the way through 2016) whose immensely frustrated due to crazy issues going on with your Football Manager game.  You’re not alone, many of us have battled, some have won, a lot still have hope, and some have lost.  Already feels like a game of football doesn’t it?

What’s Wrong

Well basically, we can’t really blame FM2013 – I know that’ll come as a relief to many.

Windows 10 came along in the middle of 2015 and due to Microsoft’s very generous offer of a free upgrade for many users, including Windows 8 users, an awful lot of us took them up on this offer and upgraded our PC’s.

However, some of us are football fans – and some of us play Football Manager 2013 – and unfortunately Windows 10 doesn’t like FM2013.

There’s not a specific problem that’s happening on all PC’s – it depends to be dependent on local setup.

The kinds of problems reported are:

• Game fails to start
• Game starts but nothing is displayed
• Match Preview screen goes fuzzy / has garbled graphics displayed.
• Parts or all of the pitch appear black in 3D match day.

Here’s the Bad News…

Sports Interactive – the makers of Football Manager – say that Windows 10 is not a supported OS for this version of Football Manager, therefore they unfortunately will not be investigating this issue or issuing a patch.  In fact, any version except the current version of Football Manager (2016) is unsupported on Windows 10 – so it’s the same story for FM2014 and FM2015 too (well, I guess you were looking for an excuse to upgrade, right?).

So we’re on our own.  All is not quite lost yet though – we’ve got some things to try that may work for you.  However, it’s important to remember that any and all combinations of the below may be required and unfortunately, not everyone has managed to get FM2013 working properly on their Windows 10 PC (myself included 🙁 ).

Ways to Fix It

Give these a go – they won’t do any harm and may well restore your FM2013 experience to it’s former glory.

• Delete the FM cache – In C:\Users\[your name]\App Data\Local\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2013 delete the ‘cache’ folder.  This will for a cache regenerate next time you start the game (make sure the game is not running whilst you do this!).
• Go to Steam and verify the integrity of the game.
• Ensure all the latest Windows Updates are installed – particularly the .net framework and Direct X ones.
• Update your graphics card drivers to the latest version.
• Use ‘Compatibility Mode’ when running the fm.exe file – select ‘Windows 8’.

If All Else Fails…

In the end, sometimes, we have to say goodbye to even the greatest of games.  This may well be the time that many of us have to say goodbye to Football Manager 2013.  The alternative is of course rolling back Windows 8 – which can only be done for around a month post Windows 10 installation (so I believe) although you are of course free to do a fresh install of Windows 8 from your disc.  However, you’re then not up-to-date with your OS – and given as it’s a freebie, it’s worth having.

Good news is, there’s some reasonable deals on (Windows 10 compatible!) Football Manager 2016 – available currently for around £23-30 depending on where you shop (it’s on Amazon too of course – if you’re a creature of habit!  Currently £28.99).  If you think you can wait around a month from now, there’s a good chance that there might be an even better offer directly on Steam – last year on the day of the Champions League Final, the price of FM2015 was slashed.

If you somehow have the willpower to wait a bit longer then you can always wait for approximately another 6 months when FM2017 is out – although, if you do, expect to pay a pretty penny for it near release date (£50ish quid maybe?).

The good news is Windows 10 is apparently going to be the last ‘major version’ of Windows released – Microsoft instead indicating that they are preferring to go down a more incremental update route.  This should mean that, if we like, we should probably (hopefully) have many stress free years of gaming from FM2016!

Don’t Forget!

Got any more tips?  Managed to get it working?  Frustrated at not getting it working?  Please leave us a comment below.  There’s a legion of Football Manager fans out here waiting to thank/help you!