Controls

On-screen pad and controllers

Without a controller the app shows an on-screen pad. Connect any Android controller to play with real buttons instead.

• Portrait: the pad sits in a band below the screen, in the menus and in games. On Nintendo DS, the band goes away while a controller is connected, so both screens get the full height (see Nintendo DS).
• Landscape: the buttons sit in two clusters over the game. See Landscape.
• STICK switches the on-screen d-pad to an analog stick and back. While the stick is on, the button reads D-PAD.

Landscape

In landscape the pad splits into two clusters over the game:

• The system buttons sit in the top corners: MENU and STICK on the left, SELECT and START on the right.
• The shoulders, the d-pad and the face buttons sit at the bottom.
• Both clusters keep clear of the camera cutout, on whichever side it is.

Pad Opacity (landscape) sets how opaque the clusters are: 100%, 60%, 40% or 25% (40% by default). It is in the in-game menu under Options → Frontend, not in Settings. It is saved per game or console with Save Changes.

Each console's buttons

The pad draws each console's own buttons, and leaves out the ones the console doesn't have:

Console	What the pad shows
Sega Genesis, Sega CD, 32X	The Sega pad: A B C on a 3-button pad, plus X Y Z and Mode on a 6-button pad (Y and Z are on the shoulder buttons, and Mode is in place of SELECT)
Master System, Game Gear, SG-1000	1 and 2
TurboGrafx-16	I to VI, Run and Mode
PlayStation, PSP	○ × △ □
Nintendo 64	A, B, a yellow C-button diamond, and Z on L2
Dreamcast	A B X Y in the Dreamcast's colours

The Sega pad follows the game's Controller Type.

Pad themes

Pad theme in Tools → Settings → Appearance colours the portrait pad:

Theme	Look
Charcoal (default)	The dark pad
Retro	A light grey body with magenta face buttons

The landscape clusters always stay Charcoal.

Controller buttons

A controller's face buttons work by position, like the console's own pad: the bottom button does the same thing on every controller, whatever letter it shows. So the bottom button is the Super Nintendo's B, the PlayStation's × and the Dreamcast's A.

To do that the app reads the controller's layout:

• A Nintendo-layout pad (B at the bottom) is used as it is. Nintendo's own controllers and pads in Switch mode are recognised.
• Any other pad is read as Xbox layout (A at the bottom), and its A/B and X/Y are swapped.

If a controller is read wrongly, set Controller Layout in the in-game menu's Options → Console Settings:

Value	Use it for
Auto-detect (default)	Let the app decide
Xbox (A at the bottom)	A pad with A at the bottom
Nintendo (B at the bottom)	A pad with B at the bottom

Every console has it except Nintendo 64. Save it for the console or the game with Save Changes.

The other buttons:

Controller	NX Redux
L1, R1, L2, R2	L1, R1, L2, R2
START, SELECT	START, SELECT
Mode button (Android's BUTTON_MODE)	MENU
D-pad	UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT
Left and right sticks	The core's analog sticks (on Nintendo DS the left stick works as the d-pad, or moves the pen in stylus mode)

On a controller without a mode button, hold SELECT and START together to open the in-game menu.

Nintendo 64

The Nintendo 64 goes by name instead: the button printed A is the N64's A on every controller.

Controller	Nintendo 64
A, B	A, B
X	C-Left
Y	C-Down
L1, R1	L, R
L2	Z
Right stick	The C buttons

Controller Type (Sega)

Sega Genesis, Sega CD and 32X games have Controller Type in Options → Console Settings:

Value	What the game sees
Auto (default)	A 6-button pad only for games made for one, else a 3-button pad
3 buttons	A 3-button pad
6 buttons	A 6-button pad

Some older games misbehave with a 6-button pad. The on-screen pad changes to match.

In the menus

Button	What it does
A	Open or start the highlighted item
B	Back. Android's Back gesture does the same.
X	In a game list, resume the highlighted game when it can be resumed
SELECT	Open the Game Switcher. The main menu's hint reads Recent.
MENU, or a long press	Open the context menu
L1 / R1	Switch main menu tabs

Which button confirms:

• On a controller, A confirms and B goes back, by the letters printed on it.
• On the on-screen pad, the button drawn as A confirms and the one drawn as B goes back. On PlayStation and PSP, × confirms and ○ goes back.

Menus show key hints you can tap when a controller or the on-screen pad is present, and real buttons in landscape without one.

Game-list context menu

Press MENU, or long-press a game, for its context menu: Pin Item, Hide Game, Rename Rom, Add to Collection, Game Settings, Fetch art and Emulator. See Context menus for what each does and where it shows.

In-game menu

Press MENU, hold SELECT + START, or use Android's Back gesture during a game. The menu has save states and Options: Console Settings, Frontend, Shaders, Core Options, Cheats, Achievements and Save Changes. See In-game Menu.