NG_Regens Manager 26 Beta Guide

This beta release connects straight to your running Football Manager 26 to discover regens and staff without exporting shortlists, and it now supports both FM26 and FM24 at the same time. You can run either title independently or even in parallel, and the walkthrough below applies equally to both versions—just read every FM26 reference as FM24 when needed. Follow the steps below to install the new packs, wire up the memory reader, and activate your assignments.

Video tutorial

You can also follow along in my YouTube video tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRm0GYOKoyc

Download the picture pack

Grab the combined player and staff facepack before launching the manager.

Main Player and Staff Pack

Reuse your NG_Regens 25 pack or grab the latest archive with the integrated staff portraits, then drop it into your FM26 graphics folder.

Download NG_Regens_MainPack.zip

Folder layout:

Your FM26 graphics folder is the same place you keep any real-world logo or face packs. For most setups it lives at Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 26\graphics\.

Unzip NG_Regens_MainPack.zip there and you will get Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 26\graphics\NG_Regens\ - that is the folder to point the setup wizard at.

Install NG_Regens Manager 26

Download NG_Regens Manager 26 Installer

Accessing ngregens.org servers

Because Sports Interactive is patching the game very frequently right now, NG_Regens Manager needs to reach the ngregens.org servers to fetch the latest memory settings. Without those settings the scanner won't run properly. Make sure your firewall or antivirus is not blocking it. If your news section or updates page won't load properly (as shown in the screenshots) you are probably affected. Once SI slows down its update pace I will bake the values directly into the software and this won't be needed.

News section failing to load due to blocked ngregens.org access

Updates page failing to load due to blocked ngregens.org access

Link your save and generate assignments

Launch Football Manager 26 and load the save you want to populate. Leave the game running in the background.

Back in NG_Regens Manager 26, click Generate to open your profile list. Use Add Profile, give it any name you like, select FM26 as the profile type, then hit Create.
With the profile created, highlight it and choose Activate this profile to launch the activation wizard.
In the wizard, pick the first option to read everything directly from Football Manager 26.
Click Start Memory Scan so the beta can harvest player and staff data straight from your running save.

Microsoft Visual C++ redistributable required

If the software crashes immediately after you click Start Memory Scan, you likely still need the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable package. Install the latest supported version directly from Microsoft: Download the VC++ redistributable.

After a successful scan you will see totals for players and staff. Press Generate & Activate to build the config file and push assignments in one go.

Whenever you need to generate additional faces (new youth intake, new season, etc.), repeat the same steps. The wizard will include an extra choice for handling existing assignments:
- Preserve mode (default) Keeps all current face assignments intact and only generates portraits for newly found players — the best option for almost every situation.
- Generate mode Clears your existing mappings and regenerates portraits for everyone, replacing faces you have already assigned.

Important FM26 memory-scan workflow

We've discovered something important about FM26. It only seems to populate the memory region I'm scanning with players when loading a save. If you load your save and then get a youth intake during that same session, those new players won't appear in memory until the next time you load your savegame.

For now, the correct process is: Play until you get your youth intake → Save your game → Quit to the Start Screen → Load your save → Run a Preserve Mode generation → Reload FM26

Another thing worth mentioning is how FM recycles player IDs (and FM26 does this extremely aggressively). Here's a quick example:

An Italian newgen with ID 123456 appears at an Italian club. When you generate the config, he gets assigned an Italian face → He isn't signed, gets released on a free, and eventually retires → During the next youth intake, a Nigerian newgen with ID 123456 appears somewhere. He's a completely different player, but since we're still mapping ID 123456 to that Italian picture, he ends up with the same Italian face.

The good news: my software can detect these cases and reassign the correct pictures. Just remember this only happens after another memory scan—and keep in mind the earlier note about reloading your savegame.
I hope that clears up why youth intake players initially show the wrong photos. This also happens in FM24, just not nearly as severely as in FM26.