FAQ

General Questions

What is SuperTuxKart?

SuperTuxKart is a free 3D kart racing game; we want to make the game fun more than we want to make it realistic. You can play with up to 4 friends on one PC, racing against each other or just try to beat the computer (a network multiplayer feature is under development).

See the great lighthouse or drive through the sand and visit the pyramids. Race under water or in space, watching the stars passing by. Have some rest under the palms on the beach (watching the other karts overtaking you :) ). But don't eat the bananas!

You can do a single race against other karts, compete in one of several Grand Prix, or try to beat the high score in Time Trials on your own.

Find more here!

Who is behind SuperTuxKart?

See our Team page for information about the people behind SuperTuxKart!

What are the hardware requirements?

Recommended

• GPU (Recommended): NVIDIA GeForce 660 GTX or AMD Radeon HD 7870 series card or higher; At least 1 GB VRAM (video memory).
• GPU (Minimal, With this setup the game might be choppy): NVIDIA GeForce 470 GTX, AMD Radeon 6870 HD series card or Intel HD Graphics 3000; At least 512 MB VRAM (video memory).
• CPU: Intel Core i3 (or better) or AMD processor, 2.8 GHz or faster.
• At least 1 GB of free RAM
• Disk space: 700MB

Optional

• (If you prefer playing with a joystick) A joystick with at least 6 buttons.

My computer is too old to run SuperTuxKart. What should I do?

You can try your luck and run the game. If it works, great! If it doesn't, we're sorry for you, but we can't support everything. We have a limited amount of manpower and time to support old GPUs. If we did try to support old GPUs, it would basically mean no new and advanced features. Please do not open bug reports because your computer is too old to run SuperTuxKart!

What is the history of SuperTuxKart?

First there was TuxKart. Work on this happened (roughly) between April 2000 and March 2004. In June 2004, the 'Game of the Month' project of the Linux Game Tome decided to improve TuxKart. This was done between June and December 2004. (Most links to the old forum thread pages are broken. However, these work: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6].) Unfortunately, this projected ended in a big disagreement, and it was finally decided to save the current state as "SuperTuxKart". While some graphical improvements were done, the code base itself was very unstable and practically unplayable. Nobody worked on (Super)TuxKart for several years.

In 2006, Joerg Henrichs (a.k.a. "Hiker") picked up SuperTuxKart, fixed the outstanding bugs and performance issues without any involvement of the original game designer or the Game of the Month project. With the help of "Coz" a first release of STK was done in September 2006.

In May 2007, version 0.3 was released. It added high-score lists, a new track (Island), the time bomb, MacOSX support, and OpenAL support.

In February 2008 version 0.4 was released. This version used Bullet Physics to improve the collision handling. "Auria" joined and started improving tracks (Shifting Sands, Lighthouse).

Version 0.5 was released in May 2008. It included many improved tracks, unlockable challenges, Follow-the-leader game mode, and more translations (OS language detector and matching to closest translation).

Version 0.6 was released on January 22, 2009. It had significantly improved gameplay; better physics with Nitro and skidding. The sound system was also improved, more interesting music was added and many new tracks and karts were added. It also saw the first special multi-player arena for 3-Strikes battle and new items/powerups to use.

Version 0.7 was released on December 20, 2010. It contained several significant improvements including: a new 3D rendering engine, Irrlicht, a new GUI (Graphical User Interface), new kart and track animations, new tracks, karts and items/powerups, and support for shortcuts/alternative paths. Versions 0.7.1, 0.7.2, 0.7.3 were released shortly after with more improvements.

Version 0.8 was released in December 2012, adding a story mode and new challenges, improved AI and skidding, reverse mode, new tracks and music. The menus were also improved. This was followed by 0.8.1, which added and updated tracks, added the Soccer and Egg Hunt modes, and other graphical and gameplay enhancements.

In 2015, we released version 0.9, a groundbreaking release powered by a brand new game engine called Antarctica, adding advanced graphical features which would have been impossible in previous versions. These features include dynamic lighting, instanced rendering (allowing for a large increase in vegetation), and more. More information is available on the Antarctica: Overview page. 0.9 has been followed by two point releases so far, which have added additional features and new tracks.

I want to help! What can I do?

First, have a look at the Get involved page. It should contain all the information you need to start with coding, modeling, designing or whatever you'd like to do. Before you start you should contact the current developers and artist through the IRC (#supertuxkart on irc.freenode.net) or the forum and tell them what you want to achieve. This will greatly improve the chance that you contribution will be accepted.

Gameplay Questions

The AI (computer kart) shot backwards—how can I do this?

Most items (bowling ball, cake, plunger) can be used backwards. Just fire them while looking backwards.

Can I play STK on the internet?

The network support feature is under development. The basic support has been added in the Google Summer of Code 2013, but it's still not finished. See Talk:Networked Multiplayer (and pages linked from there) for more information.

Why don't some keyboard keys work when pressed simultaneously?

When playing with a keyboard, you may experience issues when pressing multiple keys simultaneously, for instance trying to use nitro while accelerating and turning. In such situations, some keypress may not register. This is however not a bug of SuperTuxKart, but a phyiscal limitation of your keyboard, most keyboards can only handle so many keys pressed at the same time ( for more detailed information, please check http://www.sjbaker.org/wiki/index.php?title=Keyboards_Are_Evil ). The solution is to use a gaming input device (gamepad, or gaming keyboard), or tweak the keys configuration to find keys that your keyboard will be able to register simultaneously.

I suddenly got a big red circle on my screen, what's that?

If there's a penguin in the middle of the circle, someone's shot a plunger at your face. You can do that to others by shooting the plunger backwards (see the FAQ entry about throwing items backwards).

Can I use my Wii remote with STK?

Yes! See the Wiimote page for details.

Technical Questions

I found a bug, how should I contact you?

First, look at the STK bug tracker and open a new issue if your problem hasn't been reported yet.

Where is the configuration stored?

Note that STK 0.8.2 and STK 0.9 both store their config in the "0.8.2" folder because the config is compatible.

• On Windows: It is in %APPDATA%/supertuxkart/0.8.2 (you can enter that in the Explorer and it will take you there)
• On Linux: It is either in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/supertuxkart/0.8.2 (first choice), ~/.config/supertuxkart/0.8.2 (second choice) or in ~/.supertuxkart/0.8.2 (third choice).
• On Mac OS X: It is in ~/Library/Application Support/supertuxkart/0.8.2. Note that this directory may be hidden.

You can also watch the output in the terminal to see if there is a note on where the config files are stored or search for a file called "config.xml".

The Git version won't compile. What should I do?

This happens sometimes; The developers should be aware of that and it should be fixed soon. If Travis CI says that the current git version compiles, but it doesn't do so for you, then propably something is wrong with your compiler setup. (Check if you have all dependencies, re-run cmake, ...)

How do I unlock all tracks?

The intended in-game way is to play story mode and beat all challenges. If however you want to unlock everything without playing story mode, you can also cheat by editing a config file. Open the folder mentioned above in question "Where does STK store the user config file". From there, open the folder "0.8.2" then open the file "players.xml". Replace all occurrences of "none" with "hard" (or "easy" or "medium", indicating the highest level at which you have solved a challenge).