Normally you install and run Simutrans from one of the available downloads, but if you wish to modify the source code yourself, and perhaps create patches and contribute to the development of the executable, you will need to be able to compile Simutrans yourself. This is a short guide on how to do just that.

If you are on Windows, download either Microsoft Visual Studio or MSYS2. MSVC is easy for debugging, MSYS2 is easy to set up (but it has to
be done on the command line).

These instruction are based on the readme.txt distributed with the source code. Please consult that document for any updates that might have been added since this page was last updated. You can also check the Development Support sub-forum

Getting the Source Code

You can download the latest version with a SVN client. The primary repository for the Simutrans source code is

$ svn checkout svn://servers.simutrans.org/simutrans/trunk

If you prefer to use git, there is a mirror of the svn repository available thanks to aburch at github which you can make a local clone of:

$ git clone http://github.com/aburch/simutrans.git

Note that the svn repository is the main repository, and the git repository is just a mirror. If you use git instead of svn, you will need to set the game version manually for network play.

Getting the libraries

Simutrans required libraries

This is a list of libraries used by Simutrans. Not all of them are necessary, some are optional, so pick them according to your needs.

Libraries for MSYS2 / Linux / Mac

• You'll additionally need pkgconf installed (it usually comes pre-installed).
• For Linux/Unix you can use pkgs.org to search for packages if they are unlisted (or outdated) below.
• For Mac you will need to install libraries via Homebrew .
• MSYS2 libraries marked with "*" need manual compiling/intervention.
  • Check How to compile Simutrans with Msys2 (mingw64) and the script by prissi to get the libraries automatically.
  • You may need to install "gcc" manually if compilation of miniupnpc fails.

Libraries for Microsoft Visual Studio

Note: Simutrans Extended (without CMake) does not support using vcpkg. If you wish to compile without CMake, check this forum thread that explain in more detail how to set libraries for Simutrans Extended in MSVC.

1. Download a git tool and clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg to an arbitrary directory that we will call vcpkg-root.
2. Run bootstrap-vcpkg.bat
3. Copy tools/install-building-libs-x64.bat to this folder and execute it, or install the libraries you want manually:

./vcpkg/vcpkg --triplet x64-windows-static install zlib bzip2 libpng zstd sdl2 freetype miniupnpc

Change the triplet according to your system (for example, "x86-windows-static" for 32-bit builds).

Compiling

Go to the source code directory of simutrans (simutrans/trunk if you downloaded from svn). You have three build systems to choose from: make, MSVC, and CMake. We recommend make or MSVC for debug builds.

Compiling will give you only the executable, you still need a Simutrans installation to run the program. You can start simutrans with `-use_workdir` to point it to an existing installation.

Compiling with CMake

CMake makes easy to generate build files for various build systems, and the steps for doing so are pretty standard.

1. Generate build files

Options will be set automatically depending on the libraries found. You may want to set options manually when generating build files, for example the graphics backend (gdi, sdl2 or none) can be set with option -DSIMUTRANS_BACKEND=sdl2. For a list of options execute:

cmake -LH .

Linux & MacOS

Change "Release" to "Debug" if you want a debug build.

cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -B build

MSYS MinGW

Change "Release" to "Debug" if you want a debug build.

cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -G "MSYS Makefiles" -B build

MSVC

For generating build files using the command line run the following. If you want a 32 bit executable change "x64" to "Win32"

cmake.exe -B build -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -A x64 -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=[vcpkg-root]/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake

If you are using the GUI, Visual Studio will try to generate the cache automatically if you open the simutrans source directory, but it will probably fail if you have not set the path to vcpkg toolcchain. So first go to Project -> Configuration and set the "CMake toolchain file" to "vcpkg-root/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake" and the re-generate the cache with Project -> Generate Cache.

2. Build Simutrans

The executable will be built in build/simutrans.

Linux /MinGW/MacOS

cmake --build build -j cores

Replace "cores" with the number of cores in your procesor. You can find that number running the following command:

• Linux: nproc
• Mac: sysctl -n hw.logicalcpu

MSVC

With MSVC you need to set the build type at this step in the command line:

cmake --build build --target install --config Release

If you are using the GUI, just select Compile.

Compiling with make

The executable will be built in build/default.

MacOS

Compiling with make on MacOS is currently not supported. Use CMake instead.

1. Open a terminal and run autoreconf -ivf
2. Now run ./configure
3. Type make AV_FOUNDATION=1 -j $(sysctl -n hw.logicalcpu) to compile Simutrans*
4. Also type make OSX/getversion

• AVFoundation must be specified on MacOS 10.12 or later, but the midi playback is currently broken. If you care about music try Fluidsynth (USE_FLUIDSYNTH_MIDI=1) instead.

GCC Systems

1. Open a terminal and run autoconf
2. Now run ./configure
3. Finally type make -j $(nproc) to compile Simutrans

Manual configuration with make

1. Go to the source code directory of simutrans
2. Copy the file config.template to config.default and edit the file. You need to specify:
   • BACKEND = sdl2
   • OSTYPE = (you should know it)
3. Additionally, you may want to set the following flags too:

Finally, type make. If you want a smaller program and do not care about error messages, you can comment out #DEBUG=1 and run strip sim (Unix) or strip sim.exe (Windows) after compiling and linking.

Compiling with Microsoft Visual Studio

Simutrans solution is a single solution file with 4 projects:

• Simutrans-Main: The project that holds the shared, non back-end specific, files. All the followings use Main to build the specific back-end executables.
• Simutrans SDL2: Preferred back-end for Simutrans.
• Simutrans GDI: Windows-only back-end.
• Simutrans Server: Server back-end with no graphical interface.

• Debug is meant for developing
• Stable is meant for compiling stable versions
• Release builds optimized code but using revision data just like debug. This is meant for creating optimized nightly builds for servers.

Cross-Compiling

If you want to cross-compile Simutrans from Linux for Windows, see en_Cross-Compiling_Simutrans page.

Distribution

When you compile Simutrans you will only get the executable file. If you want a full distribution ready to play, follow the next steps.

(Windows only) Setting up NSIS

NSIS must be properly installed and configured to build the pakset installer with the following plugins:

• https://nsis.sourceforge.io/Nsisunz_plug-in
• https://nsis.sourceforge.io/Inetc_plug-in
• https://nsis.sourceforge.io/ShellLink_plug-in
• https://nsis.sourceforge.io/CabX_plug-in
• https://nsis.sourceforge.io/UnTGZ_plug-in

MinGW

1. Install the package mingw-w64-x86_64-nsis
2. Unpack the unicode version of the plugins in "/msys64/mingw64/share/nsis/unicode"

MSVC

1. Download NSIS https://nsis.sourceforge.io/Download
2. Install NSIS in the default location (Program Files (x86))
3. Install the plugins either unpacking manually the unicode version in /Program Files (x86)/NSIS/Plugins/x86-unicode or by running in Powershell the prepare-nsis.ps1 script you can find in the .github directory of simutrans source code.

Prepare the distribution

This step will generate automatically a ready to play installation of Simutrans by doing the following:

• Copy the contents of the simutrans directory into the executable location.
• Update the language files with the latest translations.
• In MacOS it will also generate an app bundle.
• In Windows it will also build the pakset installer if NSIS is found.

Mingw/Linux/Mac

You can run ./distribute.sh which will give you a zip file that contains everything needed to run simutrans.

CMake

Run the build step with the "--target install" option to generate a ready to play installation in build/simutrans.

Contribute

If you want to contribute, read the coding guidelines in simutrans/documentation/coding_styles.txt
You definitely should check out the international forum as well.

Problems

• Building from source on AMD64 Linux: http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=945.0