Graphics Setup

Before you can use pystk2 you need to setup the OpenGL rendering engine and graphics settings. There are three default settings GraphicsConfig::ld (lowest), GraphicsConfig::sd (medium), GraphicsConfig::hd (high). Depending on your graphics hardware each setting might perform slightly differently (ld fastest, hd slowest). To setup pystk2 call:

pystk2.init(pystk2.GraphicsConfig.hd())
# Only call init once per process
... # use pystk2
pystk2.clean() # Optional, will be called atexit
# Do not call pystk2 after clean

Headless rendering

If you want GPU rendering (to access render_data) but don’t need the on-screen window to update, set display=False on the graphics config:

config = pystk2.GraphicsConfig.hd()
config.display = False
pystk2.init(config)

This initializes the full OpenGL context and render targets, so race.render_data will contain color, depth, and instance segmentation buffers, but the display window is not refreshed each step. This is useful for RL training where you only need pixel observations without visual output.

To fully disable rendering (no OpenGL context at all), use GraphicsConfig.none().

class pystk2.GraphicsConfig

SuperTuxKart graphics configuration.

static hd() → pystk2.GraphicsConfig: High-definitaiton graphics settings

static ld() → pystk2.GraphicsConfig: Low-definition graphics settings

static none() → pystk2.GraphicsConfig: Disable graphics and rendering

static sd() → pystk2.GraphicsConfig: Standard-definition graphics settings

property animated_characters → bool property: Animate characters

property bloom → bool property: Enable the bloom effect

property degraded_IBL → bool property: Disable specular IBL

property display_adapter → int property: GPU to use (Linux only)

property dof → bool property: Depth of field effect

property dynamic_lights → bool property: Enable dynamic lighting

property glow → bool property: Enable glow around pickup objects

property high_definition_textures → int property: Enable high definition textures 0 / 2

property light_shaft → bool property: Enable light shafts

property mlaa → bool property: Enable anti-aliasing

property motionblur → bool property: Enable motion blur

property particles_effects → int property: Particle effect 0 (none) to 2 (full)

property render → bool property: Is rendering enabled?

property display → bool property: Is on-screen display enabled? When render=True and display=False, GPU rendering runs but the window is not updated.

property screen_height → int property: Height of the rendering surface

property screen_width → int property: Width of the rendering surface

property ssao → bool property: Enable screen space ambient occlusion

property texture_compression → bool property: Use texture compression

pystk2.init(config: pystk2.GraphicsConfig) → None: Initialize Python SuperTuxKart - this will download the game assets if not already done. Only call this function once per process. Calling it twice will cause a crash.

pystk2.clean() → None: Free Python SuperTuxKart, call this once at exit (optional). Will be called atexit otherwise.