Farming Simulator 25: Best game.xml for Volumetric Crops

The “Volumetric” look in FS25 is achieved through a combination of high-density foliage and tessellation. In the game.xml, we focus on the Scalability block to force the engine to load asset LODs (Level of Detail) much earlier than the default Ultra profile allows.

File Path

The configuration is stored in your personal user profile. Always back up this file before editing, as a syntax error can cause the game to reset to default settings.

%USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\FarmingSimulator2025\game.xml

Technical Note: To see these specific lines, you must have changed at least one setting in the “Advanced Graphics” menu in-game. If the tags are missing, go in-game, change “Object Draw Distance” to any value, save, and exit.

Optimized “Infinite Fields” Configuration Block

Search for the <scalability> section. The values below are optimized for a 2026 high-end rig (RTX 3080 / 4070 or better). If you experience VRAM stutter, reduce the foliageViewDistanceCoeff first.

Parameter	Recommended Value	Technical Purpose
foliageViewDistanceCoeff	4.000000	The “Circle” Fix. Pushes crop rendering to 400% distance.
foliageLODDistanceCoeff	2.000000	Maintains high-quality crop models further out before switching to 2D sprites.
viewDistanceCoeff	2.000000	Standard Ultra distance for static objects (buildings, fences).
lodDistanceCoeff	3.000000	Prevents “geometry warping” on distant tractors and equipment.
volumeMeshTessellationCoeff	0.500000	Critical. Lower values (0.5 is High) increase ground deformation detail.

<scalability>
    <gpuPerformanceClass>auto</gpuPerformanceClass>
    <performanceClass>Ultra</performanceClass>
    <viewDistanceCoeff>2.000000</viewDistanceCoeff>
    <lodDistanceCoeff>3.000000</lodDistanceCoeff>
    <foliageViewDistanceCoeff>4.000000</foliageViewDistanceCoeff>
    <foliageLODDistanceCoeff>2.000000</foliageLODDistanceCoeff>
    <volumeMeshTessellationCoeff>0.500000</volumeMeshTessellationCoeff>
</scalability>

HowTo: Engineering the Ultimate FS25 Visuals

Follow these GameEngineer.net technical steps to stabilize the new engine features:

1. The “Max Shadow Lights” Bug: In the game.xml, ensure <maxNumShadowLights> is set to 9. Setting this to 10 or higher can bug out the shadows on certain crops, causing them to flicker or disappear entirely in the 2026 build.
2. FSR 3.0 / DLSS Frame Gen: FS25 heavily leverages Frame Generation. In the game.xml, ensure <postProcessAA>FSR3</postProcessAA> is active if you are pushing foliage distances past 300%. This offloads the frame delivery from the CPU, which is often the bottleneck when rendering millions of individual crop stalks.
3. Ground Fog Removal: If the “Volumetric Fog” is obscuring your view of the crops, use the developer console (~) and type setGroundFogMaxHeight 0. This allows you to appreciate the high-distance foliage without the “milk” effect.
4. Tessellation vs. Load Times: Note that setting volumeMeshTessellationCoeff lower than 0.5 (e.g., 0.25) will significantly increase your savegame loading times, as the engine must pre-calculate a much finer displacement map for the fields.
5. Anisotropic Filtering: Always force 16x in-game. Lowering this provides zero performance gain on modern GPUs but makes distant crops look like a blurred mess.

Technical Explanation: Foliage Coefficients and VRAM

Farming Simulator 25 uses a technique called Instanced Rendering for its crops. When you increase the foliageViewDistanceCoeff to 4.0, you are quadrupling the radius of the “active” crop zone. Because the area of a circle is $\pi r^2$, doubling the radius ($2r$) actually quadruples the number of instances ($4\times$), and setting it to 4.0 increases the total rendered foliage by 16 times compared to the base $1.0$ setting.

This puts an immense strain on VRAM because each instance’s position and state (growth stage, withered, etc.) must be stored in the GPU buffer. If you see “Texture Flickering” or “Black Squares” on your crops, you have exceeded your VRAM limit. In this case, keep the distance at 4.0 but lower your Texture Resolution to Medium to compensate.