Simulate Intel FPGA for software development
All FPGAs can be simulated - they are just (*) digital logic circuits after all.

For Altera (Intel) FPGAs, you can use ModelSim for simulation. When you download the Quartus EDA tools there is an option to download a free copy of ModelSim Starter Edition which has been customised to include full simulation models for various FPGAs.

The best place to get started when designing systems for FPGAs is to build up systems block by block, simulating as you go. It's much easier to see if something in the logic is misbehaving in a simulator than on an FPGA because you can see every signal in the design.



(*) well not quite, many have lots of exciting transceivers, PLLs and other gubbins, but there are usually simulation models provided.