There are many options and menus in Etterna, and a lot of options aren't very specific about what they do. This page aims to answer any question you may have regarding all of the options.

This is your main menu, and in it you have multiple options to choose from. You navigate everything with the arrow keys corresponding to the direction you wish to navigate, the Enter key being for entering a menu, and the Escape key being for leaving a menu/going back a menu.

This will bring you straight to the game, where you can start playing right away.

This is your options menu.

Dance - The default game mode, which allows you to play 4k (four key, the default game mode), 6k (also known as “Solo”), and 8k (also known as “Doubles”).

Pump - A game mode also known as “Pump It Up” or usually abbreviated to “PiU”. This is a 5 panel/key game mode.

Kb7 - 7k.

Beat - A game mode known as “Beatmania” or “BMS”. This is a 5, 7, and 14 key game mode.

Display Mode - Choose between Full Screen or Windowed.

Display Resolution - Choose whichever resolution suits your fancy.

Aspect Ratio - Whichever ratio you prefer.

Display Color - Changes the color depth of the window.

High-Res Textures - Auto chooses the high resolution textures if display height is > 480. Force Off forces high-res textures off. Force on forces high-res textures on.

Texture Resolution - Changes the maximum texture resolution. If you want better framerates, make it lower at the cost of the textures being a bit more blurry.

Texture Color - Changes the depth of textures, only excessively affects performance if you do not have good hardware.

Movie Color - Same as Texture Color.

Smoothlines - Enables anti-aliasing for drawing certain boxes with rounded edges (such as the NPS graph lines).

Cel-Shaded Models - Changes character render methods. Deprecated option.

Keep Textures In Memory - Optimize loading the same images in the game repeatedly.

Refresh Rate - Controls how many times per second the screen will refresh. Only has an effect in Full Screen mode.

Wait for Vsync - Caps your frame rate, only has an effect in fullscreen. Recommended to keep this one off for better performance.

Fast Note Rendering - Disables the z-buffer for 3D noteskins, which causes them to overlap, but substantially improves gameplay performance.

Show Stats - Displays performance statistics, such as FPS and lag spikes.

Sound Volume - Use this to set your volume in game.

Mine Sounds - When you hit a mine while playing a file, it makes a loud sound effect. If you don't like that, you can turn it off if you do not want to hear it.

Visual Delay - Calibrate your display lag.

This is where you change your key binds. To change a keybinding, you navigate to the key you wish to change, hit Enter, then hit the key you want that mapping to be set to.

Show Background - The default is on, which lets you see song backgrounds while selecting a file or on the eval (Evaluation/Results screen). If you turn it off, you just get a black screen in the background in place of it on the song select or eval screen.

Ratesort - ?

Help Menu - If enabled, the Help Menu shows up if you do nothing after a period of time passes.

NPS Window - Changes the amount of time between adapting changes in the NPS (Notes Per Second) Display. A lower number means faster adaptation, a lower number means a more stable adaptation. The values are in seconds.

Measure Lines - When playing a file, it will show measure lines, which are lines that show each measure of a song.

Music Visualizer - Show the audio visualizer on the top of Music Select. Disabling this can give an FPS boost of up to 100.

Test Input

You can use this menu to see what you have your keys mapped to. To exit this menu, hold down Enter.

Advanced Input Options

Automap Joysticks - Automatically maps joysticks like pads or controllers.

Menu Buttons - ?

Back Delayed - Default set to instant, which means if youre playing a file, you can just hit the Escape key to exit it, but if turned to hold, you have to hold the Escape key for half a second to exit the file.

Allow Hold for Options - Default is Hold, but if set to Double Tap, holding start while selecting a song will not go to the options screen.

Options Navigation - StepMania Style is the default, where if you hit the start button, it moves you to the end of the menu. If you set it to Arcade Style, the start button moves you to the next line rather than to the end of the menu.

Menu Navigation - Five Key is the default, where you can use Left, Right, Down, Up, and Start keys to navigate menus. Three Key only allows you to use Left, Right, and Start to navigate menus.

Wheel Speed - Adjusts how fast the music wheel moves while selecting songs.

Input Debounce - This setting is mainly used to adjust for frequent ghost steps (the arrow activating when you don't press it). A higher ms means larger amount of time between being able to actuate an arrow again.

Axis Fix - A workaround for pads, which maps the arrows to an axis.

Calibrate Audio Sync

This will bring you to a gameplay screen where you tap the arrows to the beat to calibrate your audio. After you feel the audio is well calibrated, hit Escape and save your changes.

Set BG Fit Mode

You can change the BG (background) fit mode here.

Appearance Options

Language - Set your language.

Announcer - Choose an Announcer Pack if you have any installed. The game does not come with any, and no packs updated for the game currently exist. Look forward to some in the future!

Theme - You can change your theme here.

Default Noteskin - Use the left/right arrows to set which noteskin you would like to be your default.

Tap Explosion Animation - Some noteskins have animations which play when you press notes successfully. These are referred to as Tap Explosions or Hitbombs typically. With this off, the explosion animation will instantly end upon releasing the button. With it on, the full animation will always play.

Tap Glow - Toggle the white glow on taps in gameplay when using the regular Sudden or Hidden modifiers.

Mode - We recommend leaving this to Off.

Brightness - Changes the brightness of the background in game.

BG Fit Mode - Same as the previous Set BG Fit Mode listed.

Dancing Characters - Deprecated option to enable literal dancing characters in the background during gameplay. They are not functional in Etterna.

Random Backgrounds - You have three folders inside of your main Etterna folder, named “BackgroundEffects”, “BackgroundTransitions”, and “BGAnimations”. These folders support images, lua scripts, and background videos. Think of it like the backgrounds you see in DDR Arcade cabinets.

UI Options

Center 1 Player - Centers the notefield. If off, puts the notefield on the left side of the screen.

Wheel Sections - Default is set to Always. When set to Never, there is no sections. When set to Title Only, it shows the sections in ABC order.

Show Banners - Toggles the display of banners, the picture in the top left of the screen on the song select wheel.

Lyrics - Some songs have lyrics which display when you're playing a file, so if they distract you, you can turn them off here.

Translations - Native Language shows the file's title, subtitle, and artist in its native language. Transliterate romanizes the file's title, subtitle, and artist.

Overscan Correction

You can use this menu to adjust your overscan.

Use this menu to adjust your profile settings. You can create a new one or rename an existing profile by hitting Enter on the profile you wish to adjust.

- Connection - When you hit Enter on Connect, you have the option to input the name of a server. This option will save the server you input, and currently the only server that accepts modern Etterna connections is the Etterna Online server. The IP for it is usually the default, so you just have to press enter.

- Scoreboard - When you are playing online, there is a scoreboard displayed showing names of players in the lobby, their Combo, and their grade. If this distracts you or gets in the way of your playfield, you can just turn it off.

Judge Difficulty - This is where you can change how you want your notes to be judged, on a scale of 1-9. The higher the scale, the more strict the judge is. Most players have their judge set to 4, anything under is not recommended.

Life Difficulty - Life Difficulty affects how much life drains when you drop a hold, hit a mine, and/or combo break. The lower, the more forgiving. The higher, less forgiving. Most players have their life difficulty set to 4, anything under is not recommended.

Default Fail Type - Immediate is the default, which means if your life goes to 0%, you fail out of a file. If set to ImmediateContinue, you fail the file, but it allows you to continue playing. If set to EndOfSong, it evaluates if you have any life left at the end of a file, and if you have life, you pass. FailOff disables fail all together.

Speed Increment - Speed increment adjustments in the Player Options menu are stored here.

Speed Increment Large - Same as Speed Increment.

Hidenote Judgment - Sets it so only judgments past a certain judgment goes through the note receptors.

Fantastic Timing - Always is default, always shows fantastic/marvelous timing. Never never shows fantastic. Courses Only only shows the timing on courses.

Easter Eggs - If enabled, toasties show in game. A Toasty is when you have a 250 combo of only marvelous/perfect at any point in a file. When you get a toasty, a sound clip plays and a picture comes up on screen.

Fast Load - If a file is already cached, it skips checking if there are any differences in the file.

Osu Lifts - Toggle the usage of autogenerated Lifts at the end of holds in all .osu loaded files.

Pitch on Rates - Toggle the audio pitch when using rates on songs.

This brings you to the Pack Downloader screen if for any reason you don't want to reach this screen from the tabs on the Music Select Screen. From here, you can search for any pack listed on Etterna Online and download it.

When you hit Enter on this, it will bring you to the main homepage for ArrowVortex/AV. This is the primary Song Editor for making your own Charts for the game. You can download the editor directly from here, and read their own guide for it here.

This menu is where you can change all of the theme's colors to your liking. You navigate this menu by using the arrow keys and the Enter key. To change a color, find the element you wish to change the color of using the arrow keys, hit Enter on it, and use the keys you have mapped to the receptors in game to change the hex. The theme's colors are in hex color codes, so you may want to have a guide handy if you want specific colors.

Hitting Enter on this will close your game.

The Player Options screen appears when you hit Enter on a song twice, or hold down Enter on a song. These options change how your gameplay settings work.

Speed - This is the speed that notes scroll on your screen while playing a song. The default is Cmod, which stands for Constant Mod. This means that the notes will retain a fixed speed while scrolling. Xmod is a speed mod which multiplies the BPM of a file, and BPM changes affect your scroll speed. Mmod is exactly the same as Xmod. You give it a value, and it works out an Xmod for you.

Rate - You can change the speed of the song through this to make it easier or more difficult. 1.1x would be 110% faster as an example. Using rates is completely legitimate, lower or higher.

Noteskins - This is how the arrows will appear on screen. You can download many noteskins from this repository. If you want to add a new noteskin, drag the noteskin folder into Etterna\NoteSkins\dance.

Appearance - These options changes the appearance of the notes on screen. You can use multiple at a time.

• Hidden - Makes the notes disappear before hitting the receptors.
• Hiddenoffset- Additional modifier which changes where the fade begins when Hidden is enabled.
• Sudden - Makes the notes appear later on the notefield.
• Suddenoffset - Additional modifier which changes where the fade begins when Sudden is enabled.
• Stealth - Makes the notes completely invisible.
• Blink - Makes the notes blink in and out of visibility.

^{Note that Hiddenoffset and Suddenoffset are not adjustable in game, you must edit your metrics.ini in \Themes\Til Death to have it affect the option.}

Customize Gameplay - When set to on, you can customize nearly everything that appears on the screen. To move things around, you have to press Shift+F8 to turn on AutoPlayCPU (the reason you don't use regular AutoPlay is because it doesn't show your combo). Then you hold down the corresponding key for the object you wish to resize or move, and use the arrow keys to do what you want.

Receptor Size - This controls the size of your receptors and notes, or otherwise known as your mini percent. The smaller you make your receptor size, the smaller the receptors and notes will appear in game and vice versa.

Perspective - This changes the angle of the receptors and notes in game.

^{Note that if you use Reverse scrolling, these will have the opposite effect as upscroll.}

• Incoming - A more highly skewed Hallway.
• Overhead - Makes the receptors and notes straight.
• Space - A more highly skewed Distant.
• Hallway - Angles the receptors and notes forwards.
• Distant - Angles the receptors and notes backwards.

Turn - These settings change how notes in a file are positioned.

• Mirror - Mirrors the notes, so if a pattern looks like “1 2 3 4” it will mirror it into “4 3 2 1” along with the rest of the notes in the file.
• Backwards - Changes every arrow to its opposite. It works exactly like mirror when in dance (4k) mode.
• Left - Turns arrows counter-clockwise.
• Right - Turns arrows clockwise.
• Shuffle - The chart is randomized but tries to prevent jacks.
• Cement Mixer - The chart is randomized completely.
• Soft Shuffle - First and fourth lanes are flipped.

Scroll - These settings change the position of the receptors and the directions that the notes scroll in relation to the positions of the receptors.

^{Note that you can use multiple scroll settings at once, which can lead to “interesting” results.}

• Reverse - Positions the receptors at the bottom of the screen and causes the notes to scroll downwards
• Split - Positions the left and down receptors and the top of the notefield, and in those columns, the notes scroll upwards. It also positions the up and right receptors at the bottom of the notefield, and in those columns, the notes scroll downwards.
• Alternate - Positions the left and up receptors at the top of the notefield, and in those columns, the notes scroll upwards. It also positions down and right receptors at the bottom of the notefield, and in those columns, the notes scroll downwards.
• Cross - Positions the left and right receptors at the top of the notefield, and in those columns, the notes scroll upwards. It also positions the down and up receptors at the bottom of the notefield, and in those columns, the notes scroll downwards.
• Centered - Positions the receptors in the direct center of the notefield, and the notes scroll upwards.

Mines - Mines are notes which will take away HP and reduce your score if you hit them.

• Off - Disables mines.
• On - Enables mines.
• Additive - ?
• AttackMines - ?

Hide - Affects in game elements.

• Dark - Makes the receptors transparent.
• Blind - Makes the judgment text and combo number and text transparent.
• Cover - Dims the background.

Judgment Text - The text that appears when you hit a note that shows what judgment you hit.

• Hide - Makes the judgment text invisible.
• Show - Makes the judgment text visible.

Current Percent - Current Percent displays the percent you have while playing the file.

• Off - Disables your current percent.
• On - Makes your current percent visible.

Goal Tracker - The goal tracker displays the differential between your current score and the percent you have your Tracker Goal set to.

• Off - Disables your Goal Tracker.
• On - Makes your goal tracker visible.

Tracker Goal - The Tracker Goal is the percent you set your goal tracker to differentiate your current percent to. 93% is the default, which is the percent for AA grade.

Tracker Mode - The Tracker Mode settings modify the way the Tracker Goal works.

• Set Percent - This makes the tracker goal use the percent you have set on the Tracker Goal.
• Personal Best - This makes the tracker goal set to your personal best on the file. If you have never played the file before, it uses the percent you have set on your Tracker Goal.

Judge Counter - The Judge Counter displays your currently obtained judgement counts.

• Off - Disables your Judge Counter.
• On - Makes your Judge Counter visible.

Error Bar - The Error Bar is a visual representation of your judgements' deviation from the intended mark.

• Off - Disables the Error Bar.
• On - Makes the Error Bar visible.

Player Info - Displays the player info in the bottom left of the screen during gameplay.

• Off - Disables the Player Info.
• On - Makes the Player Info visible.

Progress Bar Location - Where the Full Progress Bar is displayed on the gameplay screen.

• Bottom - Displays the full progress bar at the bottom of the screen.
• Top - Displays the full progress bar at the top of the screen.

Full Progress Bar - The Progress Bar displays how far into a file you are along with the title and length of the file.

• Off - Disables the full progress bar.
• On - Makes the full progress bar visible.

Mini Progress Bar - Displays a smaller, less intrusive version of the progress bar placed above the combo text by default.

• Off - Disables the mini progress bar.
• On - Makes the mini progress bar visible.

Screen Filter - The Screen Filter is an adjustable box that goes behind the notefield for enhanced visibility while playing. You can adjust it from Off, which disables it, to 1.0 which puts an opaque box behind the notefield. Its transparency can be adjusted from the settings between Off and 1.0. This is helpful if the background is too bright or distracting and you have trouble reading the notes.

Lane Cover - The Lane Cover is an opaque box that lays over the notefield. This is helpful if you want a screen cut to assist you. You can adjust the lane cover by going into the game, turning on AutoPlay, holding select (default / ) and holding either EffectUp or EffectDown (default - or +).

^{Note that having reverse scroll selected will do the opposite of the descriptions.}

• Off - Disables the lane cover.
• Sudden - Places the lane cover at the bottom of the notefield.
• Hidden - Places the lane cover at the top of the notefield.

NPS Display - NPS means Notes Per Second. You can toggle one, both, or neither of these options.

• NPS Display - Displays your current NPS along with your Peak NPS underneath your Judge Counter.
• NPS Graph - Displays a graph of your NPS.

Steps - If the file has multiple difficulties, you can select the difficulty of the file here. If there is only a single difficulty, then it has no effect.

Background Type - Changes how the background on the gameplay screen acts.

• Default - Changes nothing.
• Static Background - Disables background movies.
• Random Background - Check the Random Backgrounds in the Main Menu Options section for explanation.

Life Difficulty - Life Difficulty affects how much life drains when you drop a hold, hit a mine, and/or combo break. The lower, the more forgiving. The higher, less forgiving. Anything under 4 is not recommended.

Judge Difficulty - This is where you can change how you want your notes to be judged, on a scale of 1-9. The higher the scale, the more strict the judge is. Anything under 4 is not recommended.

Custom Evaluation Windows - When active, allows you to translate scores at Evaluation Screen to custom timing windows/weights. You can add or change custom evaluation windows in: \Themes\Til Death\Scripts\01 timing_windows_config.lua

Brightness - Changes the brightness of the background on the gameplay screen, from 0% to 100%.

Fail - The way failing a file (getting to 0% life) acts.

• Immidiate - Immidiate is the default, which means if your life goes to 0%, you fail out of a file.
• Delayed - If you fail the file, it allows you to continue playing.
• Fail at End - Evaluates if you have any life left at the end of a file, and if you have life, you pass.
• Off - Disables failing. Even if you get to 0% life, you will still pass.

Center 1 Player - Turning this option on will center the notefield to the middle of the screen. Having it off will make it default to the left side of the screen.

• Off - Disables centered notefield.
• On - Enables centered notefield.

Save Scores - Decides whether scores will save to your profile or not after you complete a file.

• Off - Disables scores saving.
• On - Enables scores saving.