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:

1.11.1.7 Stable (2025-04-14)

Current News & Updates:

The OpenBVE Project

Bugfix Release:

The SharpCompress library (internally used to handle package installation) was updated in 1.8.2.2

This unintentionally broke package installation on some machines.

No other interesting changes.

The OpenBVE Project

Significant Changes:

  • New: Implement some more properties into the CarXML format.
  • New: Allow BVE5 motor sounds to be loaded via CarXML.
  • Fix: Handle systems using KP_DECIMAL when using the SDL2 backend.
  • Fix: Improve the camera handling on route reset in Route Viewer.
  • Fix: EmissiveColorAll not working under certain circumstances.
  • Fix: Lighting change event could cause a visibility glitch.
  • Change: Implement various FreeBSD patches into the master tree.
The OpenBVE Project

Significant Changes:

  • New: Support Animated GIFs as textures.
  • Change: Improved behaviour of the AI driver on a steeply falling gradient.
  • Change: Reduced CPU mode removed from Route Viewer.
  • Change: Tune alignment of some in-game menus after introduction of the new GL3 main menu.
  • Fix: Transparency in the GL3 renderer was incorrectly taking into account lighting conditions.
  • Fix: Speed / acceleration incorrectly clamed to integer values in Object Viewer.
The OpenBVE Project

This release implements a new OpenGL menu for systems which cannot run the original Windows Form, such as 64-bit Apple. It also contains significant improvements to screen scaling on Retina displays, and has other internal changes to make the new renderer work correctly using GL3.1 forwards compatible contexts.

Significant Changes:

  • New: OpenGL based main menu for systems unable to run the original Windows Form- Restores compatability with Apple systems running Mojave and above.
  • New: Support Densha DeGo! Zuki controller, improve support for some others (MarcRiera)
  • New: Add Lighting Change events to allow the light model to be altered over the course of a route.
  • New: Add hour, minute and second variables to animated files.
  • Change: GL3 now uses a forward compatible context, and works correctly on Apple.
  • Change: Switch font used on Apple, should give a much better set of Unicode glyphs.
  • Fix: Positional bug in CarXMLConvertor (some converted sounds were being placed incorrectly versus their original hard-coded position).
  • Fix: Improved scaling on Retina displays and others with a non-standard DPI.
  • Fix: Handle the case where a driver reports it supports GL3 features, but crashes when they are requested.
  • Fix: Limit the possible CoefficientOfStaticFriction value when hacks are enabled- Fixes certain BVE2 trains.
  • Fix: Stop certain Win32 plugins crashing when the game is paused for 20+ mins.
  • Fix: Issue with PlayerTrain variable when placed as a FreeObj
The OpenBVE Project

Many, many years ago michelle, one of the initial developers of OpenBVE expressed a desire for this simulation to move beyond it’s roots, and to load content from other simulations. Adding support for some new object and texture types was the first tiny step along this road, but this wasn’t enough…..

Now, we’ve finally made that dream a reality, with support for routes from the legacy DOS based simulator Mechanik added.

New Features:

  • Routes from the legacy DOS simulator Mechanik are now supported! Please see https://openbve-project.net/play-mechanik/ for further details.
  • Significantly improved DenshaDeGo! controller support, with several new types.
  • If playing on Windows, with a supported screen reader, in-game messages are announced. Please also see https://openbve-project.net/play-accessibility/

Significant Changes:

  • New: Add EmissiveAll and ColorAll commands for use in B3D / CSV objects.
  • New: Add basic AI for several legacy Win32 plugins.
  • New: Add borderless windowed fullscreen.
  • Change: Significant updates to the compatability hacks database.
  • Change: Various internal changes to make the UI work slightly better under some Linux distributions.
  • Hacks: Reject handle change delays of over a minute.
  • Hacks: Handle where an empty transparent color is set.
  • Hacks: Add workaround for repeated Face2 with differing vertex order.
  • Fix: Rotation matrix math issue under certain uncommon circumstances.
  • Fix: Several related issues with TFOs.
  • Fix: Support X format objects using absolute paths.
  • Fix: It is no longer possible to issue a RailEnd command for Rail0.
  • Fix: Correct sub-matrix transformation in MSTS s parser.
  • Fix: Possible recursive deletion issue when uninstalling a package.
  • Fix: Possible infinite loop if browsing to the Windows temp folder when searching for train / route.