A List of Handy Hotkeys for the Miyoo Mini Plus (Onion OS)

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Table of Contents

Intro

These hotkeys are for Onion OS. If you are using the stock OS these hotkeys may not work for you.

Just as a note here before we begin, a lot of these hotkeys require you to hold the menu button and press another button at the same time. If you take too long while holding menu, the default action is to save and exit to the main menu if you are in a game. You don’t have to press the second input lightning fast but you can’t dill dally.

Troubleshooting

Select = Refresh Roms Menu

When you add new roms and don’t see the games listed, press select while in the main menu.

You will see a menu option saying “Refresh all roms”. Press ‘A’ to refresh the roms list and now your games should show up. You can also hold the menu button to this but I prefer using select.

Menu + Start = Aspect Ratio

If the aspect ratio seems off to you, you can cycle through the different options by holding menu and pressing start. You’ll cycle through integer scaling options and non integer scaling fill and stretch options. I personally think the preconfigured settings are perfect so I don’t mess with it but if you want to change it, you totally can.

Power (Hold) = Force Shutdown/Power Off

If the device is acting strangely, you can force a shutdown by holding the power button for around 5 seconds. Holding it for around 10 seconds will cut off power completely. This is only for the Miyoo Mini Plus. On the original Miyoo Mini you will need to disconnect the battery.

General Management

L2/R2 = Palette Swap (Only in Game Boy Emulator)

This is only for the Nintendo Game Boy but you can swap palettes by pressing L2 and R2 in game. There are so many palettes to choose from!

Menu + Power = Screenshot

If you want to take a screen shot in game, hold menu and press the power button. They will be in the “Screenshots” directory in the root of your SD card.

Menu + Menu = Start Saved Game

If you want to return to the last game you created a save state for while in the main menu, you can double tap the menu button. I personally don’t like this hotkey combination because I find it awkward to use but someone out there may find it useful.

Menu + Select = RetroArch

If you want to bring up the RetroArch menu while in game, hold menu and press the select button. This gives you access to a lot of options. For most people, you don’t need to change anything because it comes preconfigured for optimal performance with your Miyoo Mini Plus/Miyoo Mini when using Onion OS.

Menu (In Game) = Save + GameSwitcher

If you are playing a game and want to switch to a different one, pressing the menu button while playing a game will create a save state and bring up the GameSwitcher. The save state used is in the auto slot.

Menu (Hold) (In Game) = Save + Exit

If you just want to create a save state and exit, simply hold the menu button for a few seconds.

Power (Hold) = Save + Turn Off

If you wanted to save and turn off the Miyoo Mini Plus, hold the power button for a few seconds. Tapping the power button will only put it into sleep mode. While many people use this feature and it definitely is very convenient, there have been a few cases of save states becoming corrupted. This is highly unlikely to happen but if you are on the paranoid side then I would suggest saving and then exiting to the main menu first. Then you can power off from either the menu itself or by holding the power button.

Save Management

Menu + Left/Right = Select Save Slot

Holding menu and pressing left or right on the D-Pad will let you select the save state slot. Creating a save state will automatically increment the save state slot by one so sometimes I want to overwrite a save state I previously made. Using this hotkey makes it very easy without having to go into RetroArch. You can also change the default setting to not increment if you want to.

This is found in:

RetroArch -> Settings -> Saving -> "Increment Save State Index Automatically"

If you use more than 10 save states, I’d highly recommend changing the default maximum of 10 to the number you want to use. With the default setting, only the 10 most recent save states are kept and the rest are deleted. I personally use on average 50 states for shorter games and anywhere from 100 to 150 for longer games.

To change the setting go to:

RetroArch -> Settings -> Saving -> "Maxmim Auto-Increment Save States to Keep"

and increase it to the number you want.

Menu + R2 = Save State

Holding menu and pressing R2 will save the state. This will auto increment to the next slot and then create a save state if you are on the default RetroArch settings.

Menu + L2 = Load State

Holding menu and pressing L2 will load the currently selected save state slot. Be very careful not to press the wrong button here! If you load instead of saving you will lose all the progress. In case you do make this mistake, do not panic like I did! Don’t save or load anything. Simply go into the RetroArch menu by holding menu and pressing select.

Go into:

Save States -> "Undo Load State"

and you should be good to go if you did not load or save again before doing this.

In general, for good save state practice, it’s a good idea to create at least one state for every hour of play as well as save in the actual game itself if it allows you to. For most people who just focus on playing the game, having 10 rolling save states should be more than enough.

System Settings

Menu + R = Fast Forward

I personally don’t use this feature a lot but if you are looking to save time on grindy games, you can hold menu and press R to toggle fast forward. This will speed the game up and make grinding in games like Pokemon and JRPGs take less time. Simply repeat the key input if you want to turn fast forward off.

Menu + X = FPS Counter

This is handy if you want to make sure the game is running at full speed. Holding menu and pressing the X button will bring up the FPS counter. I personally don’t use this while playing games but I do use it when testing a handheld or emulator for review purposes.

Start + L2/R2 = Boost Volume

If you are using headphones or find the volume to be too low in general, you can hold start and press L2 or R2 to boost the volume. Pressing up or down on the physical volume buttons will reset the boosted volume. Increasing the volume does decrease battery life.

Start + L2 + R2 = Reset Boosted Volume

You can also reset the boosted volume by holding start and pressing L2 and R2 at the same time.

Vol- + Vol+ = Mute

If you need to silence your device quickly, you can toggle mute by pressing vol- and vol+ at the same time. I found the buttons were close enough together to easily press them at the same time with my thumb or pointer finger. Sometimes it might take more than one try to mute it though.

Menu + Vol-/Vol+ = Brightness (MMP) / Select + L2/R2 (MM)

If you want to adjust your screen brightness, you don’t need to go back to the main menu! Simply hold the menu button and press vol- or vol+ to decrease or increase the brightness respectively. This is for the Miyoo Mini Plus. On the original Miyoo Mini the default keybinds are holding select and pressing L2 or R2. Increasing the brightness does decrease battery life.

Special App Hotkeys

Menu + A (Hold 2 Seconds) = Toggle Screen Recorder

You have to enable this setting. Navigate to Apps -> Tweaks -> Tools -> Screen recorder to find the setting.

This will let you record the Miyoo Mini’s screen. The video will have no audio, have a resolution of 640×480, and a 250kbps bit rate. It will not perform well for games since the device’s hardware is limited.

The videos can be found in SD/Media/Videos/Recorded.

Menu + B (Hold 2 Seconds) = Toggle Blue Light Filter

This will toggle the blue light filter added in 4.3.0.

You can find the blue light filter settings in Apps -> Tweaks -> Appearance -> Blue light filter.

If you want to use the schedule option, you need to have WiFi turned on and the Set time automatically via internet option turned on.

You can find this setting in Apps -> Tweaks -> System -> Date and time.

Drastic Hotkeys

The keybinds for Drastic are slightly different from using RetroArch because of the dual screen nature of the Nintendo DS. If you want to use Drastic, you will need to update Onion OS to 4.3.0 which is the release candidate version as of this recording or add Drastic manually.

Menu + Left/Right = Screen Layout

Holding menu and pressing left or right on the D-Pad will change the screen layout. Most people prefer having the top or bottom DS screen fill up the entire Miyoo Mini screen or have the touch screen hovering on the upper right hand corner.

R2 = Swap Screens

If you want to switch between the top and bottom screens of the Nintendo DS in the Drastic layout, pressing R2 will switch between the two.

L2 = Enable Stylus

Pressing L2 will enable stylus input which you can control with the D-Pad. Holding down A will simulate pressing down with the stylus.

Now if some DS games are running a bit choppy, you can try overclocking the Miyoo Mini Plus.

You need to edit the settings file in:

Root/Emu/NDS/resources/settings.json

and change the maxcpu entry to 1800 on the Miyoo Mini Plus. On the original Miyoo Mini I’d leave it at 1600 as this is the maximum recommended value.

Manually updating Onion OS will reset the Drastic configuration file so you will need to make this change again if you update.

Menu + Up/Down = Move Stylus to Different Screen

Holding menu and pressing Up or Down on the D-Pad will move the stylus to the top or bottom screen respectively.

R1 = Slow Stylus Move Speed

Pressing R1 will slow how fast the stylus moves. I still find it pretty unusable other than for the most basic of inputs.

Menu + Start = Advanced Menu

Holding menu and pressing start will bring up the advanced menu. You can scroll down to CPU and increase it to 1800 MHz if so desired. If the game starts crashing, bring the CPU down a bit. The default overclock of Drastic is 1500 MHz.

Menu + Select = Drastic Menu

Pressing menu and select will bring up the Drastic menu. There are a lot of options here but most don’t need be tweaking for general play.

Menu + X = Custom Bind

Holding menu and pressing X used to take a screenshot. After the update to 4.3.0 it is now a custom key bind you can set.

Menu + Y = Change Layout Image

Holding menu and pressing Y will swap between the different layout images. They include a nice variety but I am a fan of the default white one since I owned a white Nintendo DS Lite myself. You can add your own if you want as well.

Menu + A = Swap Between Display Layouts

Holding menu and pressing A will switch between two display layouts.

Menu + B = Blur or Pixel

Holding menu and pressing B will switch between Blur or Pixel for the display.

The rest of the save state and brightness/volume hotkeys are the same.

Conclusion

What an extensive list of convenient hotkeys. This is why Onion OS has so many fans! I’ll link the official Onion OS documentation on the hotkeys if you want a handy reference sheet.

Hope this was useful for you guys! As always, hope you guys are staying safe and sane out there, and catch you guys next time.

Changelog

02-25-2024 – Onion OS got updated to 4.3.0 as the latest stable version. In this version some of the Drastic hotkeys were changed/added to make it more feature rich. The article was updated to reflect those changes. Official documentation here: https://onionui.github.io/docs/emulators/nds

03-05-2024 – Added the Special App Hotkeys section to make note of the screen recorder and blue light filter hotkeys.