Premier Manager 97 98 / PC Futbol 5 6 Trainer
This is a trainer i made a long time ago with a friend for the PC Futbol / Premier Manager series. I plan on adding more to it everytime i find time 🙂
If you have suggestions, please leave them in the comments!
Here is the list of features:
- No CD fix (PM 98, PCF 5, PCF 6)
- Remove free space errors (PM 97, PM 98)
- Unlimited transfers at a time (PM 97)
- Sign/align unlimited extra comm players (PM 97, PM 98, PCF 5, PCF 6)
- Sign players from teams with few players (fix the bug known as “Romario bug”) (PM 97)
- Players/Clubs always accept transfer offers (PM 97, PCF 5)
- Scout search less restrictive (PM 97)
Download latest version:
Note: In Premier Manager 98 if you get the error “the game can’t be saved”, because you didn’t use the installer, you just need to create the folder “TACTICS” in the game folder.
Changelog:
Version 0.14
Added “Sign unlimited extra-comm players” for Premier Manager 98
Added “Align unlimited extra-comm players” for Premier Manager 98
Version 0.13
Added “No CD check” for Premier Manager 98
Added “Remove free space errors” for Premier Manager 98
Version 0.12
Initial release
This is some great stuff! It would be cool to be able to change teams or add managers between seasons in regular manager mode in PM97.
Thanks so much for this Kevin!
After years long investigation I was finally able to install PM 97/98 on 64-bit Win7 thanks to a simple 16-bit emulator I stumbled upon. 97 works out of the box (only minor color problems) but 98 put up a good CD-check fight, which this trainer solved. CD/ISOs can be ditched after full “custom” install has been performed. 98 menu-fade misalignment can be solved by turning OFF transitions (top of screen menu, or edit MANAGER.INI) but the color issue remains.
I just freshly set 97/98 up so I’ve yet to determine if DxWnd can additionally be used to fix even the minor color stuff. Gameplay hacks may come in handy too. Amazing too see these games receiving fan support over 20 years after their release. PM is still my only and favorite manager type to play, with perfect balance of complexity, difficulty, and enjoyment.
Btw, does anyone knows if hefty “PCF5DAT.PKF” files (both identical and present on both CDs) can be ditched? Played shortly with them and without them seemingly without problems. Maybe they become needed later into the game, when game starts filling up its database after years have passed in-game? Or are they part of “PC Futbol” games I am not familiar with (in that case I obviously don’t need them). Seems wasteful to keep 2x300MB if I won’t need it because I also backup everything on cloud which are rather limited. Thanks!
Thanks so much for this Kevin!
After years long investigation I was finally able to install PM 97/98 on 64-bit Win7 thanks to a simple 16-bit emulator I stumbled upon. 97 works out of the box (only minor color problems) but 98 put up a good CD-check fight, which this trainer solved. CD/ISOs can be ditched after full custom install has been performed. 98 menu-fade misalignment can be solved by turning OFF transitions (top of screen menu, or edit MANAGER.INI) but the color issue remains.
I found later DxWnd tool can be used to fix even the minor color issues. Gameplay hacks may come in handy too. Amazing too see these games receiving fan support over 20 years after their release. PM97 is still my only and favorite footie manager, with perfect balance of complexity, difficulty, and enjoyment.
Btw, does anyone know if hefty “PCF5DAT.PKF” files (both identical and present on both CDs) can be ditched? Played shortly with them and without them seemingly without problems. Maybe they become needed later into the game, when game starts filling up its database after years have passed in-game? Or are they part of “PC Futbol” games (in that case I obviously won’t need them).
@Marin it would be nice but this is probably very difficult to do, sadly!
@Nilex Which emulator did you use for PM97 ?
I never had success with DxWnd and many other tools to fix the rainbow color issue in PM97 (without emulators).
About PCF5DAT i don’t remember very well, but it’s not needed for the game itself, maybe it’s for the “database viewer” (dbasewin), there’s a cracked package of this game and it doesn’t include it but it has no picture of the players in dbasewin.
Excuse the late reply I was super busy and just got around to deal with PMs again. I’ll try to answer everything plus what else you may think of, as I’m not sure when comment will appear (commenting is bit iffy) and if I’ll still be dealing with PMs when you do read it. As there are no replay notification I probably won’t remember to check back again 🙂
Emulator is “winevdm” by otya128, found on GitHub. I only used it to perform the install from mounted ISO since it’s an 16-bit program. Here PM97 plays fine natively under Win7 64-bit (only slight discoloration of in-game cursors). I basically extracted winevdm and dragged SETUP.EXE onto emulator executable and that’s all it took for installer to do its job. Thank God for that since I have genetic aversion to virtual machines and overheads. It may be capable for far more than that but at the moment I don’t have a need for that. Would be a blast if it could run 16-bit games natively for example.
DxWnd is capable of fully fixing PM98, but 97 (& 99) is a different story I’m afraid. Sorry if I was misleading in previous post. Dev was unsuccessful at taming 97 as game uses non-standard code, but hasn’t given up. I couldn’t even get DW to ‘hook’ it hence my minor color issue remains. For other people it manifests in whole screen rainbow effect (luckily not me hehe). If you wish, link to relevant discussion thread on DW’s forum: https://sourceforge.net/p/dxwnd/discussion/general/thread/60c50cc4/. Demonstrates the futility of getting PM97 to run smoothly on modern OS, without VM stuff that is.
Where DW failed I found another solution: DDrawCompat (by narzoul), also on GitHub. Placing “ddraw.dll” in root folder fixes all color issues both in PM97 & PM99 (which has huge color issues). Sadly it comes at performance impact where even simple in-game window animations become very jittery. Maybe DW dev can make something out of it.
Regarding PCF5DAT I though so too but tests were inconclusive as both game and database behave the same with or without the file present. PM97’s player database never showed images, PM98’s one always has (no matter if file was in root or not, in both cases). I’m leaning toward them being used only in “Futbol” games but who knows. I’ll ditch them for now and retrieve if PM97/98 start bugging out down the line. Years will pass before I actually comprehensively play them to make a worthy conclusion.
Lastly I’m able to provide a poor-man’s No-CD for PM99 for interested travelers. Instead of mounting the whole CD-Image, game only requires “disk.id” file to be on the CD. Removing excess and mounting it with that one file shall fool PM99. Saves loads of space especially since CD-Images are usually resistant to compression.
That’s about it, was nice talking to you Kev! Take care 🙂
Could you explain how I could use the non cd fix to PC FĂştbol 6.0? Thanks
You need to select the pcfutbol exe and check “no-cd check”, then save the modified exe
i have patched the “manager.exe’ file for pm97 but the game still wont start, if i try to run it, i get the message that it needs at least 3mb to run. i am running the game in windows 10 and i have 50 gb free, so how do i make it recgonise this?
If you select the modified exe in the trainer, does it auto-checks the “Remove free space errors” option?
Thanks for all the detailed info @Nilex !
I’ve tested the latest version of DDrawCompat and for me everything works smoothly! It’s so good to play this again.
“Note: In Premier Manager 98 if you get the error “the game can’t be saved”, because you didn’t use the installer, you just need to create the folder “TACTICS” in the game folder.”
Thank you for this. I’m glad I found this.