This is the home of OpenBVE, a license-free, open source, free of charge train driving simulator.

Screenshots

This program includes detailed per-car simulation of the brake systems, friction, air resistance, toppling and more. In 3D cabs, the driving experience is augmented with forces that shake your simulated body upon acceleration and braking, as well as in curves. Besides that, OpenBVE features a 3D positional sound system best enjoyed with surround speakers, train exteriors and timetables for the current run. Finally, via the main menu, routes and trains be easily selected to start a new session, the controls can be configured to keyboard or joystick devices, and a variety of options can be selected.

Compared to other simulators of the genre, especially compared to commercial games, OpenBVE has its main focus on realism, not necessarily on user-friendliness. You should be willing to study operational manuals for the routes and trains you want to drive, and will in many cases not get along by just memorizing a few keystrokes. If you can identify with this focus, OpenBVE might be the right simulator for you.

Latest Stable Release:

1.11.0.8 Stable (2024-11-11)

Current News & Updates:

The OpenBVE Project

Signficant Changes:

  • New: Add number of concurrent sounds to GL options menu.
  • New: Add UI scale factor to GL options menu.
  • New: Include forwards / backwards tolerances in data supplied to runtime plugins. (Marc Riera)
  • Change: Update routefile hacks database.
  • Change: TXT files are now validated before being shown in the GL main menu if appropriate.
  • Change: Minor speedups in BVE5 route parser.
  • Change: Use the Windows specific list of invalid path characters for all systems.
  • Change: Assorted improvements to how displays with non-standard DPI are handled.
  • Change: The invariant culture is always used when converting vectors to string format.
  • Fix: Incorrect decoding of some RLE-8 encoded BMP files.
  • Fix: Incorrect decoding of 1-bit palleted PNG with odd width.
  • Fix: An incorrect index in a $Sub() command will now return an empty string.
The OpenBVE Project

Signficant Changes:

  • Change: Only pause the currently active run / flange sound, stop others. (OpenAL appears to become unreliable with large numbers of paused sources)
  • Change: Some improvements to the GL main menu when changing resolution.
  • Fix: Some BVE5 routes were not working.
The OpenBVE Project

Signficant Changes:

  • New: Implement sounds for BVE5 AI trains.
  • New: Implement default time for BVE5 station jumps.
  • Change: Add a tools menu to the GL main menu, and move package management into this menu.
  • Change: Update the openbve.desktop file installed by the Debian package.
  • Change: Also accept BACKSPACE to clear objects in Object Viewer.
  • Fix: Point based sounds were failing to trigger on non BVE5 routes.
  • Fix: An invalid position in a quad tree lead to a memory leak.
The OpenBVE Project

This release is a relatively small patch, primarily relevant for users on Apple OS-X, and other systems which do not support WinForms.

Significant Changes:

  • Fix: BVE5 TXT files were not visible in the GL main menu.
  • New: Add route map display to the GL main menu.
  • New: Add GL based menus to Route Viewer and Object Viewer for users on systems not supporting WinForms.
  • Change: Update zh-HK translation. (KennyHui)
  • Fix: Incorrect decoding of some interlaced PNG files.
  • Hacks: Use a better initial cab position for Indonesian KIC400.
The OpenBVE Project

Ths release contains a major new feature: Initial support for BVE5 format routefiles. It would not have been possible without the hard work of S520 and the parser library created by aoisupersix

My thanks also go to ginga81 and zbx1425 for support, and most importantly Mackoy and Rock_On for the creation and ongoing development of BVE itself.

This initial release contains acceptable to good support for a large proportion of routefiles, albeit with some glitches, which are being worked upon. AI trains are supported, but currently have no sound. Some animation effects are also not currently supported.

Please also see the following page:

https://openbve-project.net/bve5/compatability/

Significant Changes:

  • New: BVE5 routefile support.
  • Change: A considerable number of improvements and fixes to the X parsers.
  • Change: Better caching on reload for RouteViewer.
  • Change: Update the DenshaDeGo! controller drivers. (MarcRiera)
  • Change: Add workaround for BMP textures with an index outside of the color pallete.
  • Change: Cleanup / improve the translation files. (Kenny-Hui)
  • Fix: Unpredidicatable freezes on some Linux systems, by setting mesa_glthreads=false (JakubVanek)
  • Fix: Changing from wireframe to back could unexpectedly reset GL.ClearColor.
  • Fix: Lag when initially changing from cabview to external.
  • Fix: Incorrect length check in brake calculations. (Triggered by uncoupling some trains)
  • Fix: Incorrect length check in brake calculations. (Triggered by uncoupling some trains)