The purpose of this document is to explain the configuration options of Simutrans. There are currently two styles of options: 1) entries in the simuconf.tab file 2) command line options Simuconf.tab entries -------------------- Max number of stations: stations = 8192 Max number of convoys (i.e. train or truck with trailer or single truck): convoys = 8192 Max number of rail blocks: railblocks = 8192 Should grounds be animated? Ssetting to 0 will turn ground animations off and save a little bit of CPU time. Set to 1 to turn animation on: animated_grounds = 0 Do you want to have random pedestrians in town? Look nice but needs some CPU time to process them. (1=on, 0=off): random_pedestrians = 1 Show info windows for private cars and pedestrians? (1=on, 0=off): pedes_and_car_info = 0 Starting money of the player. Given in Credit cents (1/100 Cr): starting_money = 15000000 Simutrans command line options ------------------------------ 1.) Choose a resolution: 1a.) Choose a 'standard' resolution simutrans -res n where n is one of 1,2,3,4,5 The switch -res chooses the resolution at program start: 1 = 640x480 2 = 800x600 3 = 1024x768 4 = 1280x1024 Resolution no. 5 runs Simutrans in a window instead of fullscreen mode (Windows version only) Use this switch at your own risk! Using a wrong resolution may damage your monitor! Up to date monitors should support all resolutions, but older monitors may have problems with the higher resolution settings. Don't expect all resolutions to be available with your graphics card. The program will abort the starting process if the graphics card doesn't support the chosen resolution. The default resolution was 640x480. Simutrans version 0.78.4 and newer have a default resolution of 800x600. Please note that bigger resolutions slow down the game. If Simutrans runs too slowly on your system, use a smaller screen resolution. Windowed mode (-res 5 on Windows) is always slower than full screen resolutions. 1b.) Choose a non-standard resolution simutrans -screensize 900x400 More general the syntax is -screensize widthxheight where width and height are integral values separated by a small x This format is strict. Simutrans will not tolerate spaces or other format elements. If the number matches a resolution your graphic card can display in fullscreen mode Simutrans will run in fullscreen mode. If not, Simutrans will run in a windowed mode. Use with care! I'm sure you can screw up things if you use values which are not supported by your system. Use on your own risk ... i.e. using -screensize 1600x1400 might damage your monitor if the graphics card switches to that resolution, but your monitor cannot! I give absolutely no warranty for any results of using that option!!! Please note that if width is set below 640, parts of the toolbar will not be visible and can't be used. In general setting width to less than 640 and height to less than 400 will most likely cause trouble ... the program does not check the values! As said above, use with care, no warranties are given! 2.) Copy output messages into a logfile: simutrans -log This writes all messages which are output after the game switches to graphics mode to a file named "simu.log". This file might be helpful when reporting problems, you might consider to log a replay of the problem and send the log file together with a problem report to hansjoerg.malthaner@gmx.de. Please zip (compress) large log files before sending them. Don't forget your explantion of the problem is much more important than the log file when reporting problems. 3.) Run Simutrans in free playing mode (bankrupt check turned off): simutrans -freeplay 4.) Screen refresh setting: On slow machines even updating 640x480 pixels each frame may be too much load for the CPU. To run Simutrans on slow machines, frame skipping can be activated. Vehicles may move less smoothly this way, but at least it is possible to run Simutrans at all. Maybe this is helpful for running the big resolutions on standard machines, too. simutrans -refresh n displays every nth frame only. n=2 should result in a speedup of 25%, n=3 in a speedup of 33% You can chose n in a range from 1 to 16, where n=1 has the same effect as omitting this setting at all. n >= 4 may result in 'jumpy' vehicle movement. Try this at your own to find a usable setting for your hardware. Usually n=2 or n=3 work best on slow machines. n=16 may be a kind of slideshow mode. 5.) Shared memory usage: The Linux/X-Windows version uses shred memory by default. In network environments this may not work. Use -net to turn shared memory usage off. simutrans -net (Simutrans versions 0.78.0 and newer autodetect shared memory. They do not use this switch, but just ignore it). 6.) Async screen updates: The Linux/X-Windows can be forced to update the screen asynchroneously. This may or may not improve the frame rate on your machine. On my setup it turned out to be useless, but on other setups, this option has proven helpful simutrans -async turns async screen updates on. (Simutrans versions 0.78.0 and newer no longer support this switch.) 7.) Getting help (well it just says read this readme file) simutrans -h simutrans -? simutrans -help simutrans --help All print a quick help message, which basically says "Read the readme file" 8.) Use alternative PAK files If you have an alternative PAK file set for Simutrans, such as the winter scenario, you can use the following command line argument: simutrans -objects winter_pak/ "winter_pak" is the directory where the PAK files are stored. Use the name of your setup instead! The trailing slash is mandatory. 8a.) Read altnerative scenario simutrans -scenario This switch makes Simutrans read all config files, color maps and the daten.pak file from the given directory (Obsolete as of Simutrans 0.81.1exp). 9) Turn sound and music off (as of Simutrans 0.81.23exp) 9a) Turn sound off simutrans -nosound 9b) Turn music off simutrans -nomidi All the above mentioned options can be combined, i.e. simutrans -res 2 -log -objects winter_pak/ runs Simutrans in test mode, writes output to "simu.log", switches to a resolution of 800x600 pixels and uses the winter pak files. Not all options are available on all platforms, i.e. -async and -net are only supported on Linux/X-Windows. If you run into problems, or if you have questions, you can contact me by email: hansjoerg.malthaner@gmx.de Suggestions on how to improve Simutrans are also always welcome. If you're unsure how to report problems or change request, there are two example forms packaged with simutrans. Use "problem_report.txt" for problem reports and "change_request.txt" for change requests. There are some Simutrans related web pages, you may want to visit them: The official Simutrans home page: http://www.simutrans.de A mirror of the official site (sometimes not up to date): http://simutrans.drive.to http://simutrans.cjb.net This readme file was written by Hansjörg Malthaner, November 2000, Last update 22-Feb-2003 EMail: hansjoerg.malthaner@gmx.de