August 2019, 5 months ago, was the last time I posted here on FIFAFX, that saw the culmination of my exploits with Nottingham Forest, taking them from mid-table Championship fodder, to the giddy heights of European royalty, with regular domestic success in between, mission accomplished you could say.
Now, here we are in January 2020 and its the turn of FIFA 20, but this time on the PC, after receiving a high spec gaming PC from my wife for Christmas, it has opened up the world of PC gaming, and modding, and is currently my go-to gaming platform of choice.
I was wary of the fiddling, setup and maintenance of a gaming PC, as opposed to the instant-access of the PS4 pro, but I am pleasantly surprised at how all ‘PS4-like’ the PC gaming environment is, from powering on the PC to being inside a game is less than 20 seconds, the m.2 Super fast SSD boot drive certainly helps, and with the open architecture of the PC environment, there’s a multitude of possibilities with modding games, and FIFA is no exception, with the amazing Frosty editing suite allowing you to tinker with and change literally any value within the game, as shown above as a simple test, you can see the FIFAFX name emblazoned across the stadium fencing boards.
SO, lets get started, I have decided not to go for a championship side this year, instead opted to take a mid to lower tier Premier league team and attempt to turn them into world beaters, so have chosen Crystal Palace, a few good players but nothing special, plenty to work with.
I’m playing on World Class level, with 6 min halves, semi-assisted crossing and passing, everything else assisted, using the Operation Sports sliders and the FIFER Career Mode Realism Mod, which is incredible, it adds an absolute ton of authenticity and realism to the mode, from accurate squads, realistic transfers and fees, accurate team budgets, improves the scouting, there are so many additions it would take ages to list them, but if you want to check it out, its here: FIFER Mod
The Mods I’m using for my setup are as follows: the FIFER realism Mod, FIFER CM gameplay Mod, FIFAFX EPL scoreboard and GFXMod game play broadcast cam mod, plus I’m using Re-shade software with my own custom shader settings which uses luma sharpening, adapative sharpening, clarity, vibrancy and levels adjustments which all combine to make the turfs look a more realistic vibrant, lush green, and increases LOD ( level of detail) so things like pitch wear and tear, divots, markings etc ll stand out and pop more.
You can see an example of a match below with the default FIFA 20 GFX on the left and with Re-Shade enabled on the right:
Our first on-pitch action was in the form of the pre-season Emirates cup, in which we reached the final, only to lose on penalties to SC Braga of Portugal, but picked up a handy £3.2 million in prize money for our efforts.
Injuries are a thing in FIFA 20, I lost Zaha in pre-season to a broken toe and he was out 5 weeks, similarly Andros Townsend picked up a bruised shoulder 2 matches into the season and lost him for 3 matches, so with my very limited £16 mil transfer kitty, I signed Tod Cantwell from Norwich as a backup winger for £7 mil and Plano, a RM from Valladolid for £10 mil.
My standout player in the first 6 matches of the season has been Cheikhou Kouyaté, a solid DMF who bosses games and chips in with a fair few goals, bagging a hat-trick against Norwich in a 3-1 win.
Club Objectives are re-aligned and more realistic with the realism mod, ours are shown below:
Very achievable I think.
The game play mod mentioned above really adds challenge to the career mode, as I am able to pick off teams like Norwich and Brighton, but just last night came up against a Chelsea side who tore me to pieces 3-0, I never got a look in, the mod makes the better teams, quite a bit better, this is reflected in our current early league position.
I’ll leave you with a short video showing a couple of goals scored so far this season, note the absolute corker from Cheikhou Kouyaté in the middle of the video, it feels so good to be able to score goals like this again, as they were extremely rare, or absent entirely from PES 2020.
FIFAFX.com 
Paul – great first post back and I see you’ve already streaked ahead. I started my Leeds CM as a quickfire tester with the manager name A A Manager, but now I’ve started putting down roots I think I will continue with it.
I’ll be using that reshader from today – should get a chance to apply it today before work – as I have never seen a football game look or move as good as in your video above.
My menus in-game are currently light, yours are dark as in the league table above – how?!
It’s the gameplay that has me just as much buzzing with FIFA20 though. Currently losing more than winning on Professional. I really don’t think I could play vanilla for very long (I had a session a month or two ago when I got my Origin pass on PC), but FIFER’s modded version (CM and gameplay) is fantastic, your add-ons improve things too AND I expect to be able to make my own tweaks in due course. Frosty makes me chuckle every time I think about it. Without anyone even really knowing about it, FIFA gets the slick modding application that PES could really do with instead of all the headache-inducing piecemeal modding on that side.
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Cheers NG, It feels good to be back invested in a FIFA CM once again.
The Reshade tweak as you can see, definitely makes the game look so much more vibrant, playing night time cup matches last night, I was in awe at how realistic the lighting and turf looked.
As for the dark menus, I’m not sure, I’m pretty sure I haven’t changed anything in-game, if there even is a ‘dark mode’ setting, so maybe its one of the mods, but I think we are using the same ones?
I’d recommend getting the ‘Live editor’ download for FIFA, lets you hook into the game in real time and you can amend a mass of things, player names, your manager name and appearance, can change stadiums mid career, boots, appearance, even camera settings.
Google ‘FIFA Live editor’ and you’ll see it, I got mine from Soccergaming website.
The Realism mod and game play tweaks do elevate the game, there are a few off things such as high technique players automatically doing flair passes like back heels etc too often, and press conference responses being a bit off but just small things, the heavier weightier game play really feels nice and strikes a nice balance between FIFA’s usual responsiveness, and that retro-PES type feel.
And is quite ironic that the game with the best, and already faultless presentation, has the slickest, easiest to use modding tools.
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Paul — I just realised after I posted, it’s because I’m in another division – the Championship – with a different colour scheme. I forget that FIFA slicks everything up.
I’ll be grabbing that Live Editor and changing my manager name for one thing, and having a look at others too. I’ve already recorded highlights of a match for tomorrow with A A Manager and the little cutaways to the sidelines during play are very PES2020-like, but I don’t remember either game doing that before this year. Coinicidence that they both went for tthat? I suppose it’s a staple of TV football coverage to cut to the manager at times so it’s not that strange the two games should independently decide to go that way.
Just on the game now and it’s more than holding up over sessions. If this pans out it could be my first proper FIFA since ’15.
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NG – That will be it, come to think of it I did notice the lighter menus in the Championship.
I have another mod I’ll send you later that adds sky sports logos inside the main CM hub screens, such as on the news ticker, etc.
The manager cut scenes after goals were in FIFA last year, can see my baldy older fella in any of my Notts Forest videos.
All those Menu backgrounds and different ‘themes’ for each division, are all fully customisable in Frosty, you could easily create a ‘dark mode’ EFL branded type theme for your CM.
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Nice one Paul. Really looking forward to your FIFA exploits.
Were you aware that the last 1:15 of the video was blank?
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Chris99 – No I wasn’t, Thanks!
First time using HitFilm pro, the end title is a composite shot, I must have forgot to trim the comp after adding it in, leaving the dead space behind, and rendering it as was.
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I’m still getting exception handling errors on my Frosty mods, which seem to work anyway, but it’s a worry. As it’s so tricky describing my process, I recroded myself installing one and getting the error:
Anyone any ideas on this?
My hunch is that maybe my choosing to install FIFA20 in a custom location on another drive, outside of the customary Origin install folder, is perhaps the culprit. As there’s nothing else. NB: Origin and FIFA20 are both updated, and I also ran a verification before this.
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NG – I too have my FIFA installed in a non satndard directory, I’ve installed it not to C, but to my D:\ Drive (My secondary SSD) so my install folder is D:\Origin\FIFA20
in your frosty mod manager folder (the folder where frosty mod manager exe lives) theres a folder called ThirdParty? whats inside there?
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Paul – that’s just some Sky and Fox TV logos that I haven’t touched.
My Origin is installed on the C drive, but I chose to install FIFA20 to my own GAMES folder on my E drive. So the path isn’t */Origin/GAMES/FIFA20, it’s just E:/GAMES/FIFA20, which I’m guessing ‘could not find part of the path’ in the Exception message is referencing. The fact that a ModData folder is created and the mod(s) do work in-game means that Frosty is finding its target regardless, but I’m betting that part of the mod requires a consistent path as you have, I.e. Origin must be before it in the folder tree or it’s not finding it. It’s got to be this as I am sure you agree there is nothing else it could be. I will move my install folder when I get a chance to. I’ve only got 60GB spare on the C drive so the mountain might have to come to Mohammed
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NG – Ahh I see, yeah pretty much certain thats what it is, Frosty is hard coded to look in Origin for the path and isn’t finding it.
I reckon giving it the unified path, such as E:\Origin\Games\FIFA will sort it.
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I’ll be getting straight on it tomorrow if I get time before work. As things stand the mods work but clearly there are parts of the Realism mod that need a consistent path to certain parts of the installation folder, and they’re not hooking into them, and thus the message. None of the cosmetic mods or the gameplay mod do this.
Had another session today and Professional is properly kicking my arse, it’s like the start of an ML campaign with very few chances up front and constant danger at the other end. Leeds have one striker – one! That can’t be right either?!
Regardless, my feel of this early FIFA20(PCM), as I’ll have to call it, is that it’ll run and run. Don’t know if you play on Slow but the mods make it feel like slow. A better pace and handling than anything I’ve played on FIFA since ’15, or arguably ever.
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Playing on Normal.speed, the weight and feel plus the mods negate the need to play on slow.
Played 2 matches earlier, liverpool kicked my ass, only lost 2-1, but could have been 6-2., then a comfortable 2-0 win against Burnley, the contrast in abilities between teams is great, makes every match exciting, even had 4 fouls in the Burnley match.
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I’m seeing fouls too, as many as on PES2020, so only about 2 per match, but still loads better than the almost-0 of previous brushes with FIFA. I can’t get over how impressive it all feels. Slow the way to go for me.
Tonight I just had time to move my FIFA20 install folder from my SSD E drive to the same C drive that Origin is installed on. So its path was now C:/Program Files(x86)/Origin Games/FIFA20. Is this the same as your path? I ask, because of course I couldn’t resist applying Frosty mods — and it threw the same exception.
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NG – My Install Path is D:/Origin/Games/FIFA20
The D drive (SSD) is my ‘gaming’ drive, the C drive (m.2) just contains windows OS.
I have frosty editor and manager installed under D:\Downloads\FIFA Mods\ Frosty Mod Manager
So both FIFA 20 game files and frosty are on the same drive, but obviously different folders, I will record a video when I get cahnce and show you path and file locations and loading frosty mod manager up etc.
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Paul — all sorted!
Turned out it was simple — Frosty Mod Manager has to be located on the same drive as Origin and the game being modded. Working across drives is a no-no. It worked the first time after I moved Frosty to the C drive. All up and running and all I’ll need ot do now (Monday this’ll be) will be fine-tuning the logos and turfs etc and thet reshader too. Cheers for your help in this and I will be digging into the Editor next week in search of the ‘player name fade’ setting… Fouls I might actually leave well alone if this early positivity keeps up.
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Glad you’re all sorted, kinda makes sense the cross drives issue, I didn’t realise you had installed frosty on an entirely separate volume.
Re-Shade should still work, as you haven’t changed the location of the FIFA 20 exe.
If you are going to use the GFX Mod pitch preset mods I sent over, I recommend preset no.5 – it’s what I was using when I created the reshade settings so works best with that Turf, although if you are using my ReShade setting, you don’t actually need the GFX Mod Turf, just use his default Camera Mod that I sent over for the expanded height/zoom functions.
The Realism Mod uses that Fox Sports Vivo TV Overlay, which I’m not keen on, it looks a bit low res and bitty, I created my own sky sports and BBC sports ones, which work if you just put them underneath the realism mod so they take higher priority, theres a specific .BIG file for each Overlay ID though, 6105 is the premier league, if I can find the ID for the EFL then I can make you a tv overlay package of your choice.
I played around in frosty last night, uncovered all kinds of ref settings and foul settings, and found several ‘Player Indicator’ folders and values but nothing that was recognisable as a player name text value, it may be compiled inside a .BIG or DDS file.
Research needed.
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Just made an EFL Championship TV Logo Overlay Mod Package, shown below, will package it up and post on the ‘PC Mods’ section of the forum on this site.
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Paul — many thanks, they look fine and I will take your advice on the GFX/Re-shade too. I’m sneaking in a rare late Saturday night hour to get set up so I’m raring to go Monday. I want to spend Monday playing. Expect footage…
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Had 2 matches, only trouble was with the Broadcast cam mod which didn’t seem to want to ‘take’. I fiddled with the Frosty load order and all seems well. I got a nice low-down, semi-far zoomed look.
Also fiddled with Reshade for the first time, without a Chuny GFX mod. I like the sharp lifelike look I reached after some random turning off and on. I’m guessing you’ve fiddled with it a lot more than me… got a nice preset?
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And one other thing — I left a comment on the forum. Couldn’t see the scoreboards though, I had a good look.
By this time next week I should have contributed at least one mod of my own, more than likely that pesky player name above heads thing.
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NG – Just seen these comments, was busy over the weekend so apologies for the late reply.
RE the ReShade App, I sent you over my pre-set that i use with the files, was called ‘FIFAFX Shader Settings’ or similar? its an .ini file, you just drop that into the same folder as your FIFA 20 game files, and then press Alt & Home to bring up the reshade menus in game, and drop the arrow to the right of the default profile and select my FIFAFX settings.
I fine tunes these over about a week and uses adaptive sharpening to take into consideration the lighting etc, daytime/nighttime etc.
I fiddled about with Frosty last night and found a ‘PlayerIndicatorData’ xml file, in it is has a parameters section which contain opacity (presumably the fade) and duration, ie how long the name displays for then fades out, but there were no values for any of the parameters.
I also found a ‘OverheadPlayerIndicatorText’ value in frosty, there was one tick box labelled ‘Ignore Global Fade’ which I ticked and exported to a mod, and tried, but it had no effect.
I just need to create the actual Mod files for those Tv Logos, will do that later tonight and upload in the forum, was hoping to get it done friday but ran out of time.
I tend to use Height ( / Zoom 6 as a base with the GFX Camera Mod, then tweak from there for each individual stadium, look forward to your footage.
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* Height 9 / Zoom 6
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Paul – I had another late session last night to get set up properly, and arrived at a Height 10/Zoom 6 setting as my ideal one.
Crashes with the Realism mod running are the only wrinkle now. Three matches played, three crashes when it got back to the CM main menu. Each time I restarted, and my progress had been saved so I didn’t lose anything, but if regular this would majorly annoy me to the point where I would consider it better to play without the Realism mod, which would be a great shame considering all it does. I have a few things to try today to attempt to fix it. I know about changing the value from 0 to 1 in the Documents ini file. Any other potential fixes?
I played with the Reshader myself and found a gorgeous rich and sharp setting. I imagine the preset you sent over will be even better though so I’ll try that later.
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NG – Yes was gonna say, change the DIRECTX setting from 0 to 1 in the ini file in documents, hopefully that will help.
I’m still running on Frosty 10.5.8 with the Realism Mod, Gameplay Mod, GFX Camera Mod, and my Own TV Logo Mod and don’t experience any crashes.
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Paul – thought you’d like to see the fruits of your advice and help – cheers for it all – here is my first match after applying your reshade settings (what a great tool that is):
Best viewed in gorgeous 1440p as ever.
I’d reloaded all the mods from scratch here, and forgot the Broadcast camera mod. It’sgone back in since.
I’m running with the Realism mod, but I’m concerned about it. Not had any crashes since I twiddled the DirectX setting to 1. But one of the features of the realism mod is meant to be ‘English players rarely leave England’, which is as we know entirely realistic – they rarely ever do in reality (is there a nation of footballers less travelled than the English?). However I have a whole host of foreign clubs chasing my players! None have actually gone yet though…
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NG – Lovely!! watched the entire vid, the game looks gorgeous.
You played some beautiful stuff there and if that volley from Bamford had gone in right at the beginning……
This was WITH the broadcast cam mod surely? as the level of height and zoom you used in your vid isnt available with the standard cam settings, it looked lovely.
Gameplay still holding up for you?
I’ve had a few offers from foreign teams for my players too but they never, or rarely ever go.
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I also posted in the forums under PC Mods, the XML I found for player indicator data, and created a new thread for FIFER’s CM realism Mod, and posted some news that came out yesterday about it.
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Paul – it’s more than holding up, whether the FIFER gameplay mod is all that effective or not, or the gameplay created by the studio team is just that good this year, I’m loving the slow heaviness. FIFER’s gameplay mod of course lists all the values changed and I will be doing a deep dive this week to play with them myself. He unquestionably has got a ‘few more fouls’ out of the game. Respect due to the makers and modders though, a footy game is a hideously complex machine under the hood.
What’s changed at a deeper level for me though is the expectation I have of greater complexity. That’s partly a Football Manager thing, but also a weariness of nuPES ML. I think ML effectively ended in 2013.
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Good to hear NG, had a few matches myself last night, only a few though as I was stupidly tired, but the slow heavy gameplay is great, and I’m struggling, on PROFESSIONAL!!!
I won back to back league titles, FA Cups, Champions Leagues all on World Class last year, so a mix of tweaked FIFA game play, difficulty and the game play mods have definitely upped the challenge, which is great, actually enjoy being ass whipped by the big teams.
Going back to your footage, that Leeds v Forest game was WITH the camera mod sure?y to achieve that lower down zoomed out look ?
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Paul – definitely with the camera mod, I got confused with all the differing instances whilst adding and removing mods, I’m sure you know the feeling of that.
Also getting mauled on Professional regularl, that match is the only league win so far
Thought re your orum, is there any way to enable read-only mode, i.e. without the need to register first? If so I think it’d be a good idea. It’d encourage visitors. At the moment the immediate registration requirement will be a barrier to many.
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I will have a look into the forum thing NG, haven’t really played round with many of the settings, but most forums, at least any I have ever visited, all require you to register in order to get a username.
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great to see FIFAFX back Paul, will be following your progress with great interest. Keen to give FIFA20 a try but 19 is still holding up really well for me. My career mode with Exeter City on world class was surprisingly tricky to begin with – I got the impression from reading your and Darryl’s stories that world class had got a bit easier? – finishing bottom of League 2 in the first season and second bottom second season. Third season lost in the playoffs but then back to back automatic promotions and in season 6 we are lurking just outside the playoffs half way through. The youth system is glorious, have formed a much better connection with players than in past FIFAs by nurturing them all the way from scouting to the youth squad into the first team. And if Scotland in real life had players of the calibre of my GK Riley Wilson, left back Iain Reid and winger Euan Young we would truly be competitive on the international stage again!
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Thanks Abbeyhill. FIFA 19 was a great game, no wonder you’re enjoying it so muhc, as you know I had many great seasons on it last year taking Forest to European domination!
Must admit I’ve never really nurtured a youth player through to the first team, something I Must try in my new palace career.
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Paul – re. the forum, I mean if you give visitors the option to read it without having to register, you’re much more likely to have register-ers. At the moment the registration requirement just to look at it is a significant barrier to entry. Very few forums operate that way
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NG – I did take a look in the admin options but could not find any option to enforce this, probably a restraint of a free forum.
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Update: I’ve fixed it, No login needed now.
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Paul – I was going to say that a company offering a free forum would want more page impressions and views so there must be the option somewhere – excellent. As the FIFA snowball grows it has a great chance of growing with it, I’ll link on my blog and mention it in comments, at the moment my blog is in a curious twilight land between PES and FIFA, but I think FIFA20 will run and run for me and in time…
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Cheers NG, the option was whittled away under the multitude of admin layers, so took some finding, and agree, much better to be able to view forums without signing up.
I’ve added a few more sections to the forum too, for goal videos and other bits, hopefully it will grow in time.
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