Alex Builds His Farm

Alex Builds His Farm

Developers
	Ubisoft Montreal
Publishers
	Playmobil Interactive
Engines
	Ubisoft OpenSpace
Release dates
Windows	July 15, 1999
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Adventure, Building, Educational, Farming, Simulation
Vehicles	Industrial
Art styles	Stylized
Series	Playmobil

Playmobil
Laura's Happy Adventures	1998
Alex Builds His Farm	1999
Hype: The Time Quest	1999
Rescue from Rock Castle	2004
The Big Treasure Hunt	2005
Playmobil Alarm	2007
Playmobil Constructions	2007
Playmobil Knights	2009
Playmobil Pirates	2009
Playmobil: The Movie VR Adventures	Cancelled

Warnings

SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see Availability for affected versions).

Alex Builds His Farm is a singleplayer third-person adventure, building, educational, farming and simulation game in the Playmobil series.

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SafeDisc 2 DRM with unreadable errors.

SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%WINDIR%\UbiSoft\ubi.ini

To run the game without admin privileges, make sure to place ubi.ini in %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore\Windows\UbiSoft\.

To run the game with admin privileges (e.g. in Win XP compatibility mode), make sure that ubi.ini is in %WINDIR%\UbiSoft\}.

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\GameData\SaveGame\

Video

Ubisoft Configuration Tool.

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor		See Widescreen resolution.
Ultra-widescreen		See Widescreen resolution.
4K Ultra HD		See Widescreen resolution.
Field of view (FOV)		See Field of view (FOV).
Windowed		The game can be forced to run in Windowed mode, when using dgVoodoo 2.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
High-fidelity upscaling		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		Always on in Direct3D. In Glide, use nGlide and set in nglide_config.exe, or use dgVoodoo2.
60 FPS		Frame rate is capped at 63 FPS in Glide. Animations are locked at 30 FPS by default, but their framerate can be increased by turning on Use Animation Interpolation inside Advanced Video Settings in <path-to-game>\UbiAssistant.exe.
120+ FPS
High dynamic range display (HDR)

Widescreen resolution

Change resolution

Open ubi.ini. Under the section [Alex Builds His Farm], add the line ScreenSize. Insert the preferred resolution (for example, ScreenSize=1280x720, ScreenSize=800x450 or ScreenSize=640x360). Notes Large resolutions (e.g. 1920x1080) might crash the game due to a memory issue. To increase the available memory, see memory fix. Non-native resolutions (i.e. resolutions not supported by the monitor, like 640x360) are automatically changed back to 4:3 ones. To fix this, see Direct3D wrapper. When changing the internal y-resolution to any value other than 640, HUD elements get misplaced and might end up off-screen at large resolutions. It is currently recommended to leave the x-resolution at 640 and only change the y-resolution to match the aspect ratio (e.g. 640x360 for 16:9). Scaling the game up to the desired resolution can be achieved by using a Direct3D wrapper. HUD is stretched. Lower vertical FOV in wider aspect ratios. Increase FOV to compensate, see Field of view (FOV).

Fix crashes at high resolutions due to memory issues

Increase the game's internal memory limit

Open <path-to-game>\GameData\Gamemem.bin with a hex editor such as HxD. In HxD, if the Data inspector is not visible on the right hand side, press Ctrl+Alt+D (or click View -> Data inspector). The Byte order in the Data inspector needs to be set to Little endian. Press Ctrl+G (or click Search -> Go to...). Make sure that hex and Offset relative to: begin are selected. Type in the offset "3C" and press return. The cursor should jump to the relevant offset. From there, select the following four bytes (they may vary between different versions of the game, but should be 00 12 7A 00 in the English/French/German release). This is the TMPFixMemory. In the Data inspector under Int32, increase the memory amount to the desired value. 25000000 should be enough to run the game at 1920x1080. Repeat steps 3 and 4, but this time with the offset "88" instead of "3C". This is the TMPLevelMemory. Again, 25000000 should be enough to run the game 1920x1080. Click the save icon to save the changes made to Gamemem.bin. Notes If the game crashes whenever entering a certain map, this might be an indication that the TMPLevelMemory was set too low.

Direct3D wrapper

Setup dgVoodoo 2 or DDrawCompat

dgVoodoo 2 From dgVoodoo2's folder, copy dgVoodoo.conf, dgVoodooCpl.exe, \MS\x86\D3DImm.dll and \MS\x86\DDraw.dll to <path-to-game>\. Run dgVoodooCpl.exe, right-click anywhere in the window and select "Show all sections of the configuration". In the "DirectX" tab under "Resolution", set the display resolution (e.g. 1920x1080). (Optional) Still in the "DirectX" tab, uncheck the "dgVoodoo Watermark". (Optional) If a non-native resolution (e.g. 640x360) is set in ubi.ini: In the DirectXExt tab under Enumerated resolutions, enter this resolution into Extras. DDrawCompat Copy DDraw.dll as well as DDrawCompat.ini to <path-to-game>\. Open DDrawCompat.ini in a text editor, and uncomment (remove #) the lines to change. Set ResolutionScale = display(1). (Optional) For better Alt+Tab support, set AltTabFix = noactivateapp(1). (Optional) If a non-native resolution (e.g. 640x360) is set in ubi.ini: Add this resolution to SupportedResolutions, e.g. SupportedResolutions = native, 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 640x360.

Field of view (FOV)

Change Field of View

Download Change_FOV_Alex.7z from here. Unzip the archive. Make sure to have Python 3 installed as well as python-lzo (pip install python-lzo). Copy Change_FOV_Alex.py to <path-to-game>. Run the script, either by double-clicking it (if the .py file extension is associated with python.exe), or by openening a command prompt and running python Change_FOV_Alex.py Follow the instructions on screen. The script will ask for the resolution/aspect ratio and adjust the horizontal FOV such that the vertical FOV is the same as in the unpatched game.

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration		Mouse isn't supported in-game.
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Controller types

Audio

Sound Settings.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Voices, Sound Effects and Music.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Italian				Alex e la sua fattoria
Dutch				Alex op de Boerderij.
French				Alex à la ferme.
German				Alex' Abenteuer auf der Farm.
Portuguese				Alex Constrói a Sua Quinta.
Brazilian Portuguese				Alex, O Fazendeiro.
Spanish				Alex en la granja.

Issues fixed

Install the game on modern systems

The game cannot be installed on 64-bit computers because it's a 16-bit application.

Use winevdm[citation needed]

Stuck in Ubisoft Logo Loading (Direct3D mode)

Use dgVoodoo 2

Game runs too fast (Direct3D mode)

Set refresh rate on 60 Hz

Game crashes on Alt+Tab

Install dgVoodoo 2

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	6
Glide	3.10

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	95
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium 166 MHz
System memory (RAM)	32 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	120 MB
Video card (GPU)	4 MB of VRAM DirectX 6 compatible