No… it seems to work just fine. How are you saving your options? You need to go to the top of the “Core Options” dialog “Manage Core Options>>>Save Game Options”.
Yeah… that’s how I’m doing it.
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How does your “RetroArch\config\MAME\MAME.opt” look, compared to the one I posted above?
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Here is my MAME.opt… but I did take your suggestion and start making my own .opt files for the vector games since there aren’t too many, and that does work.
Sorry couldn’t figure out how to post a opt file.
Copy the contents to the clipboard and paste it in a post. Be careful to select it after and click “Preformatted text” icon in the post editor.
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Ok… sorry about that.
mame_alternate_renderer = "disabled"
mame_altres = "640x480"
mame_auto_save = "disabled"
mame_boot_from_cli = "disabled"
mame_boot_to_bios = "disabled"
mame_boot_to_osd = "disabled"
mame_buttons_profiles = "enabled"
mame_cheats_enable = "disabled"
mame_cpu_overclock = "default"
mame_lightgun_mode = "none"
mame_lightgun_offscreen_mode = "free"
mame_mame_4way_enable = "disabled"
mame_mame_paths_enable = "disabled"
mame_media_type = "rom"
mame_mouse_enable = "disabled"
mame_read_config = "enabled"
mame_saves = "game"
mame_softlists_auto_media = "enabled"
mame_softlists_enable = "enabled"
mame_throttle = "disabled"
mame_write_config = "enabled"
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This…
…and this…
…may be your issue. This means the MAME core is reading from and writing to a *.ini in the “system/mame/ini” folder and may disable game opt files. It’s worth a shot to try setting them to “disabled”.
My default mame.opt is the same as your with these exceptions. If I need something different for a specific system I create a custom *.opt and manually set the changes.
To be clear, there are time when both reading and writing to an ini is advantageous, but rarely permanently (I sometimes create an ini then disable writing after.) and almost never for arcade roms.
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Thanks… I’ll check into this tomorrow.
Sorry it took me so long to look into this. What I realized is that I originally needed MAME to write .ini files because it was opening game with bezels, marquees, etc enabled in the MAME video options. So, it’s looking like I can’t have the video options the way I want them and the options such as “alternate rendering” per game, both. It would be nice if MAME would write and read and save all the options per game. Unless maybe I am misunderstanding how this works?
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I’m confused as why this is an issue. I have MAME artwork and it has never conflicted with RA.
I had another question thread about it recently. The MAME “soft” bezels, etc were opening by default in all games.
This is weird and shouldn’t happen automatically. One thing would be to have your roms separate from any standalone install. You would not have any art to open. Still, I have never had an issue keeping them.
Are you using the layout feature in RetroArch? (Do you have a layout path defined?)
I have used the layout feature in the past but I’m pretty sure I have them turned off for all cores at the time.
Did you have any shots in the other thread? Can you post a link to it?
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Here’s the other thread… there are no screenshots of anything. For the time being I took your earlier advice and made opt files for the vector games, so I have that workaround in place… it would be nice if it was all automated, but I don’t want to take up too much of your time with it.
Default MAME Video Settings Not Saving - Libretro / Cores - Libretro Forums
Yeah OK. Those are not “soft” art settings. They are hard coded into MAME during compile.
Let me see what I can figure out to solve both issues.
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OK. The “View” settings in the MAME OSD are not stored it the ini files, they are stored in the cfg files in “RetroArch\saves\mame\cfg”
Here is an example for cdimono1 (Philips CDi)
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- This file is autogenerated; comments and unknown tags will be stripped -->
<mameconfig version="10">
<system name="cdimono1">
<image_directories>
<device instance="cdrom" directory="" />
</image_directories>
<video>
<target index="0" view="Main Screen Standard (4:3)" />
</video>
</system>
</mameconfig>
The pertinent lines are…
<video>
<target index="0" view="Main Screen Standard (4:3)" />
</video>
So you don’t need write config or read config enabled for that. And you definitely don’t need the mame paths option you mentioned.
I tested with both read config and write config enabled though and was still able to save a game opt.
You must be missing something somewhere. Which version of the core are you running, Current?
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Yes, current MAME core.
Well I am stumped. 
I am having none of the issues you mention in either thread, and I have thoroughly put the MAME core through it’s paces over the last year.
If I can’t screw something up with all the tinkering I have been doing, I have no idea how yours got so broken.
I would suggest doing a temporary install of RA in a new folder and start from scratch… see if you have the same issues without making any changes to the MAME defaults.
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Thanks… I may try that, but may stick with the workaround for now.
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