GUIDES / CONTROLS & SETTINGS

Controls & settings

Every button in the menus and in games, more players, the pause and Home menus, and what each setting does.

In the menus

Button	Does
Up / Down (stick or D-pad)	Move. Hold to scroll, faster the longer you hold.
Trackball (Arcade Control Panel)	Roll up or down to scroll any list; it stops at the top and bottom.
`A` or `START`	Open, or play the highlighted game.
`B`	Back. On the consoles list, asks before closing Retro Launcher.
Flippers `LB` `RB`	In a games list: previous / next letter. Elsewhere: a page up / down.
Second flippers `LB2` `RB2`	In a games list: previous / next system.
`REWIND` or `Y`	Add the game to Favorites, or take it off. On other controllers, Rewind is the View (Back) button.
`HOME`	On a game: the game's options (below). On the consoles list: Search.
`X`	Search.
Left / Right	Only where something is sideways: a setting's value, the search keyboard.

Search

Type with the on-screen keyboard (A types, LB deletes, RB jumps to the results). It searches every system at once.

Play, and Add to / Remove from Favorites.
Screen: Default, Backglass or Playfield, for this game.
Emulator (arcade): which emulator plays it.
Start with (ColecoVision): the keypad number auto-start presses.
Controls: the button layout for this game or its whole system.
Search, and Remove game, which moves it to the trash (Settings > Empty trash deletes it for good).

In a game

Button	Does
Hold `START` 1 second, or `HOME`	The pause menu.
`REWIND`	Select (Coin in arcade games).
Everything else	The console's buttons; see each system in Systems.

The pause menu

Resume.
Save state / Load state: one save slot per game.
Reset.
Core options: the emulator's own settings, such as resolution. Remembered, for every game that emulator plays.
Rotate picture: turns the picture a quarter at a time (off, turned right, upside down, turned left), for games that come up sideways, such as PSP, Game Boy Advance and Dreamcast games with a vertical (TATE) mode. Remembered for that game.
- Turn controls with it (shown when the picture is turned sideways): the joystick turns with the picture, so up is up on the screen. Switch it off for a game that turns its own controls.
Swap players 1 and 2 (shown when a second controller is connected): see More players.
Change disc: multi-disc games only.
Quit to menu.

Quitting also saves a resume point. Next time you start the game, it asks: Continue where you left off or Start from the beginning.

More players

The cabinet's own controls are player 1. Each USB or Bluetooth controller you connect becomes the next player, up to four, in the order they connect. With no cabinet controls, the first controller is player 1.

Every player gets the same button layout as player 1, so arcade games take player 2's coin and Start from player 2's controller.
When a second controller is connected, the pause menu shows who is who.
Swap players 1 and 2 in the pause menu makes a controller player 1, for playing on it alone. It's remembered for every game.
Menus and the pause menu answer every controller.

Xbox and other controllers

Controller	Cabinet button
`A` `B` `X` `Y`, `LB` `RB`, `LT` `RT`	The buttons of the same name (LT / RT are the second flippers).
`View` (Back)	REWIND: Coin in arcade games, Select on consoles.
`Menu` (Start)	START.
Xbox / Guide button	HOME.
Stick clicks	Nothing, so a hard push can't insert a coin.

Games that read how far a trigger is pulled, such as gas and brake in Dreamcast and NAOMI racing games, get the real amount from a controller's triggers.

Changing the buttons

Home on a game > Controls. Choose whether the layout is for this game or the whole system, then either:

pick a preset: Default, Swap A and B, or Flippers as A and B; or
select a console button, press A, then press the cabinet button you want for it. A button that's already used swaps jobs.

Menus and the pause menu always use the default layout, so a remap can't lock you out. While you play, the playfield card shows the layout in use.

Settings

The Settings row is under Favorites on the consoles list. Change a setting with Left / Right.

Setting	Choices	What it does
Theme	Neon, Attract	The look of every screen. Attract is an arcade attract-mode style: pixel type, square boxes and CRT scanlines. Changing it restarts the menu and brings you back to Settings.
Picture sides	Bezel, Glow, Black	What fills the sides of the screen around a game: the system's bezel, a soft glow of the picture's colors, or black.
Scaling	Smooth, Sharp, Pixel-perfect	How the picture is enlarged. Pixel-perfect keeps every pixel the same size, with borders.
CRT scanlines	Off, Light, Strong	Old-TV lines over the picture.
Screen artwork	On, Off	Whether the other screens show box art, logos, the console and the controls. Takes effect the next time Retro Launcher starts.
Default game screen	Backglass, Playfield	Where games play unless a game is set otherwise. Vertical arcade games always go to the playfield.
Playfield game rotation	90°, 270°	Which way games on the playfield are turned.
Arcade: hide clones & broken sets	Off, On	Hides arcade games that can't run, and clones whose parent you have.
Hide consoles with no games	Off, On	Off lists every system (empty ones dimmed); On shows only those you have games for.
Trackball speed	Normal, Slow, Fast	How far the Arcade Control Panel's trackball moves the cursor or paddle in arcade games, and how fast it scrolls the lists.

Picture settings apply to the next game you start. Below the settings are these actions:

Download artwork: box art, logos and bezels for your games (more).
Network transfer: send games from a browser (more).
BIOS check: which BIOS files your systems can use, required or good to have, found or missing, and where each goes.
Updates: install a newer version (more).
Empty trash: delete the games removed with Home > Remove game, for good.

Settings files

For tinkerers: settings live in data/settings.cfg (key = value), and emulator options changed in the pause menu in data/core-options.cfg, in RetroArch's format, so options from a RetroArch setup can be copied in. The README lists every key.