Tazskool

Command Line Options

--user_data_location=<folder>

This option is largely superseded by the "User data location" option in the Preferences screen.

This option let's you override the default base folder for the FM user-specific data such as savegames, tactics and so on. By default and without using this command line option the user data location is "Sports Interactive/Football Manager 2006" inside your documents folders (Windows 2000/XP and above: C:\Documents and Settings\<your username>\My Documents\, Mac: <your home folder>/Documents/).

If you use this option it has to be an absolute path, in the format: "/[drive/volume]/path/to/folder"

First it should be pointed out that the internal path separator in FM is the Unix-style path separator, which is the forward slash ("/"). Starting a command line path with this forward slash indicates that the path is absolute - in other words, it specifies the entire path from the root of your disk (and is not relative to an existing folder). The --user_data_location has to be an absolute path.

On Windows you can for example use: --user_data_location="/c:/fm2006", which will use the "fm2006" folder on the root of your C:\ drive. You can use spaces in the path as long as you provide the double quotes: --user_data_location="/c:/football manager 2006 saves", and you can specify sub-folders: --user_data_location="/c:/sports interactive/fm 2006"

On Mac you use the same system, except that the Mac uses volume names rather than drive letters. It is important to remember that the volume name has to be included in these absolute paths: --user_data_location="/my-disk/my games/fm 2006", where "my-disk" is the name of your hard disk (mounted volume).

Inside your user data location the game will create the "games", "tactics", etc folders it uses to categorise various user-specific content.


--custom_temporary_folder=<full path to temporary folder>

The game supports customising the temporary folder. Default location is on the system drive in the user-specific application data folder (which isn't usually the default system temporary folder).

This option lets you change this to a specific path.

The path has to be absolute:

--custom_temporary_folder="/c:/some path/to FM temp folder/"


--temporary_folder_in_user_data_folder=[true/false]

This is the 'simple' option to move the temporary folder from the system drive to another location.

Using this option (set it to true), sets the FM temporary folder to "Temporary" inside your user data folder, so it can be used in conjunction with the user data folder setting to move it elsewhere.

This option is available from the Preferences screen, in the "General" section under "User Data Folder".

If this option is set it will override the --custom_temporary_folder option described above.


--load_game=<full path with file name>

The game supports passing a savegame on the command line - if this is specified and the file and path is valid, the game will automatically load this savegame when it starts up.

Like the database location above, it supports absolute path by using the forward slash (/) as the first character:

--load_game="/c:/my game folder/my game.fm"

If you don't specify a path at all it will use the current savegame folder ("games" inside the user data folder):

--load_game="my game.fm"

You don't have to specify the file extension (.fm) for loading a game - in fact, it's entirely ignored and it works even if it is incorrect:

--load_game="my game"



--external_ip=[true|false]

This lets you control whether or not the game will try to find your proper external IP. If you are behind a router of some sort then this must be on to display your correct internet address in the Game Status screen, otherwise it will only display you local address. It is not necessary to for the game to find the external IP, however, except for display purposes, so in case you have problems with running the game as a server (see the in-game Preferences) then you can try to turn off this external address lookup by passing FM the command line option:

--external_ip=0

This option is enabled by default.



--cpu_count=[N]

If for some reason you want to enable in-game threading even if you do not have a dual processor or hyper-threading enabled computer, you can do so by passing this command line option to FM.

--cpu_count=2

Will force FM to assume you have two processors even if you actually haven't.


--reset_preferences[=true|setting_name]

This option clears all the in-game preferences and in essence means that you start the game as if you ran it the first time after you installed it. This means that unless you add command line options to regulate its fullscreen/windowed state it will start in full screen when you give it the --reset_preferences command line option.

This option can be used in two ways:

The first is in its default version,

--reset_preferences

or

--reset_preferences=true

These will clear all of the settings. The other way is like this:

--reset_preferences=skin

In other words, --reset_preferences=<name> where <name> is the name of the setting you want to remove. The above example will remove the skin setting, therefore forcing the game to run using the default skin.


--windowed=[true|false]

If you want to force the game to run in windowed mode then you pass it the --windowed command line option. If there is insufficient space available in windowed mode this will not work. A monitor that supports a maximum of 1024x768 will not have sufficient available desktop space for the game to run in the minimum required resolution of 1024x768 because the Windows taskbar takes up some space (as well as the FM window borders). In this case there is a workaround, see "--small_screen" below.

--windowed=true


--small_screen=[true|false]

The minimum required and supported resolution to play FM is 1024x760. By todays standards this should be fine. However if you have an older monitor that only supports 800x600 you can force the game to accept this by passing:

--small_screen=true

on the command line. Otherwise the game will give you an error.

Another potential use for this is that if you want to run the game in windowed mode on a 1024x768 monitor you will also need to pass it the --small_screen command line option. The reason for this is that in windowed mode the actual available resolution is less than the minimum requirements of 1024x768 - the Windows taskbar takes up some, and the borders of the FM window also takes up some space. So to get FM running in windowed mode on a 1024x768 monitor you would need to pass:

--small_screen --windowed


--fullscreen=[true|false]

This is the inverse of "--windowed" and forces the game to start up in full screen.


--power_save=[0-10]

The game is reasonably clever when it comes to CPU usage, so that if it doesn't need to use CPU for any calculations it will only use the bare minimum to run. Such a situation is normally when you are not moving forward in the game world but browsing around looking for players or other teams.

Please note that there are situations the game will use as much CPU as it can even if you are not moving forward in time in the game world. If this is the case then there are matches being played in the background at the same time as you are browsing players, teams, etc.

The --power_save option to a certain extent lets you override the cpu usage:

--power_save=10

will tell the game that as much as possible it should always pause 10 ms between each cycle, in other words this means there will be 100 cycles per second. CPU usage on Windows in this scenario is generally 0-1%.

10 is the maximum value and the highest "power save" available.

0 is the minimum value and lowest value. 0 is basically "real time", meaning that the game will use as much CPU as it can possibly grab all the time.

The only real useful usage of this *might* be on laptops, but even that is probably arguable.

Please note that even if you specify a --power_save this does *not* mean that the game will *never* use a higher amount of CPU. All it means that generally it will try to use less than it probably would ask for normally.

*IMPORTANT* Using --power_save may/will cause the game to run slower than it otherwise would, and may cause stuttering during matches.


--fullscreen_height=[N]

If you want to run in full screen on a "non-standard" resolution then you can use this option to specify what resolution you want to run. Use with care - if the resolution is incorrect or unsupported on your system the game will not start up properly.

--fullscreen_height=1050

Tells FM that the vertical resolution is 1050 pixels.

This option is particularly useful for running the game in fullscreen on wide screen monitors.


--fullscreen_width=[N]

If you want to run in full screen on a "non-standard" resolution then you can use this option to specify what resolution you want to run. Use with care - if the resolution is incorrect or unsupported on your system the game will not start up properly.

--fullscreen_width=1400

Tells FM that the vertical resolution is 1400 pixels.

This option is particularly useful for running the game in fullscreen on wide screen monitors.



--always_reload_skin=[true|false]

This option forces a full reload of the *same* skin if you press "Confirm" from the Preferences screen. It is meant mainly for FM content authors to be able to reload the same skin without having to change the skin twice. Please note that this option *does not* turn off the skin caching, so content authors would most likely want to use this command line option in combination with turning off the skin cache feature.