Farming Simulator 2008

Farmer - Simulator 2008
Also known as: Farmer - Simulator 2008 (UK), Landwirtschafts - Simulator 2008 (DE), Farming Simulator Classic (PL) Developer: GIANTS Software Publishers: Astragon (DE, UK) (Physical, Digital), Software Pyramide (DE), CD Projekt (PL) Platform: Windows Released in EU: 2012 (Farming Simulator Classic) Released in UK: October 9, 2008 Released in DE: April 14, 2008 (Original), 2012 (KNAX Club release) This game has a hidden developer message. This game has unused objects. This game has unused graphics. This game has debugging material.

This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.

Farming Simulator 2008 may fool some into thinking it was a title released for the Sega Dreamcast, due to its scrappy and out of touch graphics. But unlike the said graphics, the gameplay idea was quite revolutionary for the tractor/farming simulation genre.

To do: Regional differences (German, Polish) Revisional differences (Original, Classic/SpielSpass) Prerelease and Bugs subpage

Debug Tools

A debugging tool exists within the game and can be activated by going to Appdata\Roaming\FarmingSimulator2008\game.xml and under <development> set <controls> to true. Now, when in game, the game offers access to a variety of debugging tools.

Debug keybindings

To do: Find out what F6 and F11 do.

Some debugging tools are activated through a keybind. Those tools are the following:

Console

Pressing ~ opens the game's console.

Development console

FPS Counter

By pressing F2, an FPS counter is opened in the top right corner of the screen. This counter is overlapping with the in-game clock, hence it may be quite hard to read.

The counter activated in the top right corner of the screen.

Trailer animations

Pressing F3 plays the tipping animation on all trailers present in the loaded savegame.

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  The animation being played on the small tipper.

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  Even if the trailer has some grain inside of it, the animation will still play.

Wireframe renders

Pressing F4 renders wireframes of every rendered 3D model.

The wireframes toggled on.

Light sources, collision bounds and unknown property rendering

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Find out what the unknown property is.

Pressing F5 toggles a render of every light source present in the loaded savegame. Pressing the key again scrolls through more 3D related renders. Other than light sources, collision bounds and an unknown model property can be viewed.

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  Render of all present light sources.

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  Render of all present collision bounds.

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  Render of the abovementioned unknown property.

Various map cameras

By pressing F7, various camera views placed around the map can be toggled. They can be scrolled through by repeatedly pressing the F7 key. The views include:

• A view of the map under the terrain model.
• A view the farm silo.
• Views of indoor, outdoor and tipping camera placements for all present tractors and harvesters.
• A view of the last frame before this option was toggled.

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  The camera view under the terrain model.

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  The camera view of the silo.

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  The tipping camera view of the Fendt 716 Vario.

Various savegame stats

Pressing F9 allows you to scroll through various statistics related to the loaded savegame. The viewable stats are the following:

• Rendering stats.
• Physics stats.
• Profiler stats.
• Animation stats.
• Effect stats.

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  Rendering stats.

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  Physics stats.

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  Profiler stats.

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  Animation stats.

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  Effect stats.

Connect to NVIDIA PhysX Visual Debugger

Pressing F9 connects the game to an open Nvidia PhysiX Visual Debugger window.

(Source: Morc)

Console Commands

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Find out all command functions.

Upon opening the console, starting a line and pressing Tab ↹, the player can scroll through a selection of debugging commands. The commands are executed by pressing ↵ Return. The available commands are the following:

Command name	Command function
ambient	Something currently unknown.
enableFramerateLimit	Enables the framerate limit.
exit	Closes the game.
framerateLimitFPS	Forces a set framerate limit.
globalClipDistance	Changes the global render distance.
globalCullOverride	Enables/disables unseen geometry rendering.
listEntities	Lists all entities present in the loaded savegame.
listResources	Lists the sources of all entities present in the loaded savegame.
parallelRenderingAndPhysics	Switches the rendering and physics processes to run on different CPU threads.
profilerSaveHistory	Enables/disables profiler.csv saving.
q	Closes the game.
quit	Closes the game.
reload	Reloads a resource with given name.
reloadAll	Reloads all resources with same given type.
showControlMeshSubds	Something currently unknown.
show_fps	Toggles the FPS counter.
sortGeometry	Something currently unknown.
subdsActiveDistance	Something currently unknown, likely related to the distance at which terrain subdivisions are active.
subdsLevelOverride	Something currently unknown, likely related to the terrain model's subdivisions.
subdsMaxLevel	Something currently unknown, likely related to the maximum level of subdivisions the terrain model can have.

# ambient command activated in the console

Unused Bergmann HTW trailer

The wagon loaded in place of tipper_01

The trailer's odd collision shape, resulting in the said abnormal behavior

In the trailers folder there is a completely unused Bergmann HTW silage wagon. Loading it into the game does not work as the .xml file is seemingly supposed to be used with an older version of GIANTS Engine, evidenced by the file using <trailer> brackets instead of <vehicle> ones.

Fixing the bracket issue allows the trailer to be loaded, however the trailer is pretty much unusable due to an absurd collision shape, hence the trailer flinging and swaying around when attached to a tractor. Other than that, the wheel movement is broken, but the trailer works for it's intended use, which is transporting grain. Good luck doing that though...

The trailer is featured in multiple prerelease captures, in which it seemed to work properly. The trailer was likely never updated to work on the final version of GIANTS Engine either because of the Bergmann licensing, or due to the lower model quality compared to the other vehicles.

The wagon's appearance in a prerelease screenshot

(Source: Boleklolo, Benzinly)

"Respect Copyright Laws" sticker on Large Tipper

The Large Tipper has a sticker on it's tailgate with the text "Respektuj Prawo Autorskie", which translates to "Respect Copyright Laws". Oddly, despite GIANTS Software being located in Switzerland, the text is written in Polish, and what makes this even weirder is that this text is also present in the original German release, not just the Polish one.

The sticker on the tipper's tailgate.

The tipper's texture.

(Source: Boleklolo, Benzinly)