Game Filter
- Show Only Favorites: Show only favorites games in ROM manager. To set a game as a favorite, highlight the game and hit the A button (you can also delete files this way). The favorites are saved to the file: Favorites.ini. This file is compatible with the standard MAME Favorites.ini file format so you can copy this over from your PC version of MAME.
- Keyword: Enter a keyword to filter the games on (i.e. Mario)
- Hide Clones: Hides the clones and shows only the original set. For example, Shao-Lin's Road is a clone of Kicker. This option would hide Shao-Lin's Road and show only Kicker.
- Hide Not Working: Hides games that MAME reports as not working.
- Year >=: Show only games released on this year or later.
- Year <=: Show only games released on this year or earlier.
- Manufacturer: Show only games released by the given manufacturer.
- Driver Source: Many games share a similar driver. This will show only the given driver. For example, williams would show Robotron, Defender, Bubbles, etc.
- Category: Shows games that match a given category.
- Reset Filters to Default: Resets all filters.
Emulation
- Auto Switch Resolution: Auto switch resolution to original arcade resolution instead emulated resolution. This option improves performance and fits arcade aspect ratios to screen boundaries.
- Emulated Resolution: Force MAME internal drawing resolution, use hi-res resolution to improve artwork rendering at the expense of performance or to minimize 4:3 scaling artifacts.
- Refresh speed (Video sync): Lets you change the default game speed to sync with the selected refresh rate. It's useful to avoid jitter on some games or devices.
- Audio Sync: Enable it to get smoother gameplay and better sound in some cases. You should also disable Throttle, and set manual frame skip to 6 or 8 if needed.
- Emulated Speed: Changes the way MAME throttles gameplay such that the game runs at some multiplier of the original speed. It's useful to make higher demanding games playable using lower nominal speed ( ex, 80%).
- Throttle: Configures the default throttling setting. When throttling is on, MAME attempts to keep the game running at the game's intended speed. When throttling is off, MAME runs the game as fast as it can. Note that the fastest speed is more often than not limited by your graphics card, especially for older games.
- Frame Skip: Specifies the frameskip value. This is the number of frames out of every 12 to drop when running. For example, if you select a frame skip value of 2, then MAME will display 10 out of every 12 frames. By skipping those frames, you may be able to get full speed in a game that requires more horsepower than your device has. The default value is auto frameskip that automatically determines the frameskip level while you're playing the game, adjusting it constantly in a frantic attempt to keep the game running at full speed.
- Sound: Enable or disable sound altogether. Also Sets the audio sample rate. Smaller values (e.g. 11025) cause lower audio quality but faster emulation speed. Higher values (e.g. 48000) cause higher audio quality but slower emulation speed.
- Show FPS: Toggles the display of Frames Per Second - useful for benchmarking..
- Show Info/Warnings: Shows Game Info and any warnings when a game is selected.
- Cheats: Enables use of the cheat database. If the cheat database is present, it will also enable the Cheat menu in the MAME native user interface (press coin+start at the same time when gaming).
- Save battery: Allows MAME to give time back to the system (sleep) when running with throttle turned on. This allows other programs to have some CPU time, assuming that the game isn't taxing 100% of your CPU resources. This option can potentially cause hiccups in performance if other demanding programs are running.
- Aspect
- MAME (original arcade): Use the original aspect ratio.
- Forced Pixel Aspect (and resolution): Enable it to force pixel aspect ratio bypassing MAME video selection.
- Forced Pixel Aspect (smart, fixed resolution): Enable it to force pixel aspect ratio bypassing MAME video selection if is better.
- Forced Refresh Rate (Hz) Lets you force the default game refresh rate to sync with the device display. Beware, some games could not work if you change their default refresh rate.
- Save Hiscores: If enabled, saves hiscores on some games not saving on NVRAM. It could cause problems with some games or save states.
- Custom BIOS: For NeoGeo games. Allows the use of other BIOS files such as Unibios instead of the MVS default one.
- Vector
- Beam 2x: Sets the width of the vectors to 2x.
- Antialias: Enables antialiased line rendering for vector games.
- Flicker: Simulates a vector "flicker" effect, similar to a vector monitor that needs adjustment.
- Default MAME data: Restore MAME data to default values (cfg and nvram files). Use to fix problems with no input mappings or netplay problems (use on both peers)
Input
- Touch Controller
- Mode (Touch Type)
- Digital DPAD: The controller is a digital DPAD. Some games need it or are better suited for this kind of controller.
- Digital Stick: This is the old one faked analog stick.
- Analog-Digital. (Performance): The controller is a full analog stick, MAME map it to a digital stick if needed. It's painted for performance.
- Analog-Digital (Pretty): The controller is a full analog stick.
- Customize Layout: Select to customize landscape touch control layout. You should press 'back' when you finish.
- Default Touch Layout: Restore landscape control layout to default values.
- Buttons Size: Select the buttons size when you are on fullscreen (landscape)
- Stick and DPAD Size: Select the stick DPAD size when you are on fullscreen (landscape)
- Number of buttons (fullscreen): Set the number of buttons on the screen (landscape)
- Hide Stick: Enable to hide stick on full screen mode.
- Animated: Animates ON/OFF DPad/Stick. Disable to for better performance.
- Vibrate: Enable/Disable device vibration when buttons or dpad/stick is touched.
- Digital Dead Zone: Enable/Disable a deadzone on DPAD touch center. It could be better for some games. Disable if you don't like it.
- Analog Dead Zone: Select the deadzone amount on stick touch center.
- Mode (Touch Type)
- External Controller
- Mode
- Keyboard or IME: Select this value to use an external keyboard or devices based on keyboard IMEs like WiiController.
- Controller Autodetection: Plug and play detection of many USB / Bluetooth controllers. Supports multiple controllers.
- Original iCade: Select this value to use iON's iCade controller. Pair via Bluetooth before selecting this option.
- iCP, Gametel or iCade compatible: Select this value to use an iCade compatible layout. Controller should be configured on iCade mode.
- Define Keys: Let you define or map the HW keys to emulator controls. (Xperia Play and any other devices with physical keyboards users should configure their buttons or keys here). If a gamepad is auto detected, you should disable autodetection to redefine buttons. You can remap the controls for all four players here.
- Default Keys: Restore key mappings to default settings.
- Automap options: Let you define the Thumbs or L1,L2 buttons behavior when a GamePad is autodetected. Use this to change Coin and Start button mappings between multiple selections.
- Warn on exit: Enable this to warn when you press the Exit button on the external controller (GamePad) during game play.
- Disable right stick: Disable right stick when it is autodetected.
- Analog Dead Zone: Select the deadzone amount on external GamePad analog nubs.
- Mode
- Tilt Controller
- Tilt sensor: Enable to use tilt sensor. This lets you use the built in gyroscope and accelerometer to simulate joystick control. Great for shooting games to add some challenge instead of using the touch screen.
- Tilt sensor dead zone: Select the deadzone amount on tilt sensor.
- Tilt sensor sensitivity: Set tilt sensor sensitivity on x and z axis.
- Tilt sensor neutral vertical position: Set tilt rest position on z axis.
- Tilt as analog: Enable to use tilt sensor as analog device, disable to use as digital.
- Touch anywhere: Enable to tap anywhere on screen to fire. First finger is main fire. Second finger when first finger is pressed is alternate fire
- Invert X Axe - Inverts the X axis so tilt controls feel more like a control yoke (for Star Wars, etc.)
- Swap Z,Y axes: Enable to swap Z,Y axes. This fix vertical tilt on some devices.
- Touch lightgun: Enable to tap on touchscreen as a lightgun. First finger is main fire. Second finger when first finger is pressed is alternate
- Mode
- Auto: Light gun games will automatically be detected by MAME4droid and the Touch Lightgun will be automatically enabled.
- Disabled: Touch Lightgun is disabled
- Enabled: Turn on Touch Lightgun. Useful if a lightgun game fails to be detected by MAME4droid.
- Bottom as reload: Enable this option to allow shooting the bottom of the screen instead of off the screen (Lethal Enforcers, etc. in landscape, full scaled mode)
- Mode
- Nvidia Shield
- Nvidia Shield mouse: Enable mouse support on Nvidia Shield devices. Also lets you use advanced arcade controllers features like X-Arcade tankstick trackball on Nvidia Shield devices.
- Shield Controller as a mouse: Enable to use right stick on Shield Controller as a mouse instead as a second stick. That's way you can play better games like Arkanoid but you lose second stick support for games like Robotron.
- Button A as Autofire: Set the A button to be autofire. Allows for nine different speed variations.
- Stick Type: Limits the joystick's range of motion: 8-way, 4-way, 2-way. Arcade game control panels were often retrofitted for a different game that had 4-way requirements that wouldn't function properly with an 8-way controller. A classic example of this is Pac-Man. The game was originally designed for a 4-way stick and is programmed to respond only when a new input occurs. If the user is holding the stick in the 'down' position, then suddenly makes a motion to move to the 'right', what often happens is that the stick first moves into the 'down-right' diagonal. The game does not recognize as new input since 'down' is still being held. However, 'right' is also now considered held, and when the user completes the motion to move 'right', it is also not a new input and Pac-Man will still be moving 'down'.
- P4,P3,P2 as P1: Send Player 1 input data to Player 2, 3, 4 so you can use the 2-4 players at the same time. Funny :). It makes some weird problems with some ROMs like Dungeons & Dragons.
- Save-Load Combo: Enable it to press START+R1 to load a game and START+L1 to save a game.
General
- Change ROMs path: Change current ROMs path. This doesn't change the MAME4droid application folder, just where the ROMs can be found. You'll need to move the ROMs accordingly, of course. This is useful for storing your ROMs on an external storage while keeping the game settings, etc. stored internally. If you want to change the entire MAME4droid application folder, look under Advanced. Requires application restart.
- Image Enhancer: This setting allows you to apply HQx bitmap smoothing techniques to give the games a less pixelated look. HQ2x - HQ4x is supported. To learn more about HQx, see this wiki. Beware, HQx is CPU intensive. Use with high end devices.
- True RGB: Performs more accurate rendering of true colors but at the expense of performance. This will also improve the quality of artwork assets. Requires application restart.
- Notification Icon: Enable it to show a notification icon when MAME4droid is suspended.
- Navigation bar mode: Hide or dim navigation bar on Android versions 4.2 and higher. You can select immersive mode on Android versions 4.4 and higher. Disable if you have problems with full screen modes.
- Scale beyond boundaries: Enable it to scale beyond screen boundaries if a fixed scale mode is selected.
- TV overscan: Enable it to apply a 10% "safe area" to correct overscan issues on some TV sets.
- Netplay port: Let you change port used during Netplay.
- Netplay host delay frame: denotes the maximum number of frames MAME4droid will need to emulate at once to maintain synchronization due to actual network latency.
Advanced
- Video Engine
- SW: Software rendering. More accurate. Higher device compatibility.
- GL: Open GL ES 1.1 or above. This should be your choice if it works fine for you. Faster rendering even with image filtering.
- Sound Engine: Set the audio Engine. AudioTrack for safety. OpenSL for performance and low latency on capable devices.
- Threaded Video render: Enable it to use a dedicate thread to do the video rendering (performance gain on dual core devices). Disable if you have stuttering, artifacts or tearing.
- Video thread priority: Set to default value unless you have problems. Requires application restart.
- Double buffer: Avoids flickering at the expenses of performance.
- Main thread priority: Set to default value unless you have problems. Requires application restart.
- Alternate OpenGL Path: Enable it to use the newer OpenGL render path. Select it if you have performance problems with old render path. Could not work in older devices (like overlay rendering)
- Debug Mode: Enable debug mode. Only for developers.
Display Settings
MAME4droid allows separate display settings for portrait and landscape orientations.
- Scaling Mode
- Keep Aspect: keeps the aspect ratio
- Stretch to fit screen: will use all available screen.
- Original
- Integer Scaling: For purists; get the most accurate scaling.
- 1.5X: 1.5 original size.
- 2X: Double original size.
- 2.5X: 2.5 original size.
- (... and so on)
- Overlay Effect: Applies an image filter (scanlines, CRT) at the expense of performance.
- Touch controller visible: Hide/Show the touch controller. Disable if you want to use an external controller like a keyboard, Bluetooth controller or Wiimote.
- Smooth scaling: Turn on bitmap filtering at the expense of performance.
- Fullscreen: Enable full screen (portrait orientation only)