Settings

Aurora’s settings come in three layers:

1. App settings — apply everywhere (volume, appearance, library, saves)
2. Engine defaults — global defaults for all games on an engine (XP/VX/Ace or MV/MZ)
3. Per-game settings — override the engine defaults for one game

Sensible defaults are chosen for everything — most games run well without touching a thing.

• Master Volume (default 100%) — app-wide volume for all games, applied live while playing.

• Animated Background (on) — the moving gradient behind the app’s screens. Turn off to save battery.
• Dark Mode (on) — switch the app between dark and light appearance.
• Icon-Colored Game Pages (on) — tints each game’s detail page with colors pulled from its icon.
• File Ext. Filter (on) — limits the import file picker to supported archive types. Turn off if a valid archive is grayed out.

• Haptic Feedback (on) — vibration on on-screen button presses.
• Show Overlay Button (on) — the floating quick-menu button over running games. See Controls.
• Button Opacity (60%) — transparency of the floating button, with a live preview.

• Touch to Mouse (on) — taps on the game become mouse clicks. XP / VX / VX Ace games only.
• Controls & Layout — button mapping, layout editor, and control profiles. Covered in Controls.

• Game Icons in List View (off) — shows icons next to games in list view (placeholder art for now).
• Color Tags (on) — colored category dots on library entries. Color Tag Settings picks the default color for new games (green) and the Color Weights that order the groups in the library’s Rainbow sort. See Color Tags.

• iCloud Saves (off) — store game saves in iCloud so they follow you across devices. Requires iCloud Drive. Turning it off with games still on iCloud offers to migrate their saves back to local storage.
• Automatic Save Backups (on) — snapshots a game’s saves every time you launch it.
• iCloud Backups (off) — keep those backups in iCloud too.
• Max Backup Slots (2, range 1–10) — how many automatic backups to keep per game.
• Save Manager / Save Backups / Storage — browse saves across all games, restore backups, and see what’s using space.

Downloads or imports the official Runtime Packages (default graphics/music assets) for RPG Maker XP, VX, and VX Ace. Games that shipped without their default assets need the matching RTP — Aurora prompts you at launch if a game declares one it can’t find.

• Developer Mode (off) — unlocks developer options (extra Link Play debugging, a per-game script console for MV/MZ games, screenshot helpers). Leave off for normal play.
• Frame Profiler (off, under Developer Mode) — logs frame-time breakdowns to the game’s log for performance reports. Applies at next launch.

Settings → Engines → RPGM XP / VX / VX Ace. These are global defaults; individual games can override them (see below).

• Known-Game Fixes (on) — patches known problem scripts in specific games. Harmless for unaffected games, so leave it on.
• Native Tilemap (on) — renders classic Essentials maps with the engine’s own tilemap instead of the game’s scripted one. A large speedup, especially while the map scrolls. Turn it off per game if a map’s tiles render incorrectly. Applies at next launch.
• Error Tolerance Shims (off) — makes the engine tolerate common script errors (nil values, missing fonts). Turn on if a game crashes; off by default because it slightly changes script behavior.

Apply a bundled look preset, or snapshot your current display and post-processing settings as your own preset.

• Upscale Method (xBRZ) — how the game image is enlarged: Nearest, Bilinear, Bicubic, Lanczos3, xBRZ, or FSR. xBRZ suits pixel art; FSR pairs with CAS Sharpening below.
• Downscale Method (Nearest) — used when the image shrinks instead.
• Bicubic Sharpness (100) — shown when Bicubic is selected.
• FXAA (Anti-Aliasing) (off) — smooths jagged edges.
• Ambient Glow (Letterbox) (0%) — fills the black bars with a soft glow from the game image.
• Integer Scaling (on) — scales by whole-pixel multiples for maximum sharpness; Last-Mile Stretch (on) fills the small remainder so the image isn’t undersized.
• Fixed Aspect Ratio (on) — keeps the game’s proportions instead of stretching to fill the screen.

• Sync to Display (off) — paces game logic to your screen’s refresh rate. Off by default because classic games pace themselves.
• Fixed Frame Rate (Default) — force 30/40/60/120/Unlimited; Default lets the game use its own rate. Hidden while Sync to Display is on.
• Frame Skip (off) — drops frames to keep game speed on slow scenes.
• VSync (on) — prevents screen tearing.
• Show FPS (off) — frame rate counter overlay.

All applied live while playing: CAS Sharpening (0%), Bloom (0%, with a Bloom Threshold at 50% when enabled), Saturation (100%), Brightness (100%), Contrast (100%), Gamma (100%). The neutral defaults leave the game image untouched.

• Solid Fonts (off) — renders text without antialiasing for a crisper retro look.
• Font Scale (1.0×) — enlarges or shrinks all in-game text (0.5–2.0×).
• Kerning (on) — natural letter spacing.
• Hinting (Light Default) — how glyphs snap to the pixel grid: None, Light, Normal, or Light Default.
• Height Mode (FreeType (iOS)) — how text line height is measured. Switch to GDI (Windows) if a game’s text is clipped or misaligned — it mimics the measurements games were designed against on Windows.

• Disable Autotile Animation (off) — stops animated tiles (water, flowers) for a speed boost on heavy maps.
• Path Cache (on) — caches the game’s file layout for faster loading. Leave on unless files change under a running game.

• Enable Hi-Res (off) — renders at higher internal resolution, with Framebuffer Scale and Texture Scale (each 1–4×). Costs memory and battery; for experimentation.

Settings → Engines → RPG Maker MV/MZ. Global defaults for games on Aurora’s web engine; also per-game overridable.

• Graphics (Auto) — Auto lets the game pick (usually WebGL); force Canvas for older or glitchy games that render wrong under WebGL. Applies at next launch.
• Resolution Scale (1.0×, range 0.5–2.0) — higher is sharper but uses more memory; large games on older devices may run out of memory above 1.0×.
• Scaling (Fit) — Fit keeps the aspect ratio (letterboxed), Stretch fills the screen, Integer snaps to whole-pixel multiples (sharpest for pixel art).

• Image Cache Cap (0 = engine default) — caps how much image memory the game keeps. Lower it if large games crash on older devices.
• Fast-Forward Speed (3×) — the top speed the overlay fast-forward button cycles up to (2×–4×).

• Pause in Background (on) — pauses the game loop and audio when Aurora is sent to the background.

• Debug / Cheat Mode (off) — runs games in RPG Maker playtest mode: F9 opens the debug menu (edit switches/variables) and holding Ctrl walks through walls. Some games behave differently in playtest.

• Import Font — add .ttf/.otf fonts. Games that reference an imported font by name will find it, or force one as the Default Font (None by default).

• Show FPS (off) — the engine’s FPS counter. Applies at next launch.

Open a game’s detail page, tap the gear menu, and choose Game Settings.

• Use Global Settings (on) — the master switch. While on, the game follows the engine defaults above (rows show the global value, tagged “Global”). Turn it off to customize this game.

For XP / VX / VX Ace games you can override: Known-Game Fixes, Native Tilemap, Error Tolerance Shims, Smooth Scaling (the simplified per-game form of the global Upscale Method: on uses your global method, off renders crisp/Nearest), Fixed Aspect Ratio, VSync, Sync to Display (Auto / On / Off — Auto follows the global setting), Fixed Framerate, Frame Skip, Disable Autotile Animation, Path Cache, Solid Fonts, and Font Scale.

Two per-game items sit outside the global switch:

• Ruby Runtime (Auto) — which script runtime the game runs on: Modern (3.1), Legacy (1.8), or Ace (1.9). Auto picks the right runtime from the game’s engine and scripts; if a game won’t launch or misbehaves, try another runtime. Applies at next launch.
• Cheats — per-game only, applied live to a running game: Debug / Cheat Mode (takes effect at next launch and can change or break some games) and Walk Through Walls; Pokémon Essentials games also get Disable Wild Encounters and 100% Catch Rate.

For MV / MZ games the overridable rows mirror the MV/MZ defaults: Graphics, Resolution Scale, Scaling, Image Cache Cap, Pause in Background, and Debug / Cheat Mode.

The same gear menu also offers: Change Save Folder (link the game to a different save folder — useful when updating to a new version of a game), Plugins (XP/VX/Ace games only), Logs (when the game has produced any), and under Advanced: rename the game or its folder, change its icon, and delete it (save folders are kept, so re-importing can link to them again).

• Changing display and post-processing settings while a game runs applies instantly — the in-game overlay menu exposes the same controls
• Made a mess? The neutral values are listed above next to each setting — or just flip a game back to Use Global Settings