Getting MAME to remember maintenance/in-game configs

[Alpha17X]

I don't know if this is possible and I hadn't much looked into it because it rarely seemed like an issue to me;

Is mame supposed to be able to save game configurations.

Here is an example of what I mean.
By default, Killer Instinct 2 does not play it's totally awesome rock music at the intro, you have to go into the settings for the game and turn it on, then it will play from that point on.
Same with most of the Super Street Fighter 2 titles; be default the demo/attract screens have music off, or sound off entirely.

Is mame supposed to be able to save that configuration?  I've done some google searches, I'm probably not searching for the right thing. All of my queries involve dip-switches in some way.

All i've really done with MAME is make sure it works with my control panel and make sure the games clear audit. I just recently entered the adventurous world of HLSL so I'm sure there's a lot I don't know that I really should.

Thanks for reading, stay classy BYOAC.

[Howard_Casto]

It's saved... except for the games in which something is screwy with the nvram/emulation, in which case it isn't. 

[Alpha17X]

Hmm. maybe the street fighter games and Killer instinct don't do it then.  Or I have something configured wrong.

[flaviometal]

That's strange... cause I'm using MAME (0152), and everything works fine with the maintenance mode. For example, my Street Fighter Alpha 1, 2 and 3, and some other Capcom fighting games (like MvsC) has the "2 coin/1credit" configuration by default. So, I've entered the maintenance mode (F2 in my MAME) to change the values for coin or difficult, and after leaving/re-entering the game, the config has been maintained...

[Alpha17X]

Maybe it's just the attract mode sound setting that doesn't save. I'll make sure I have everything pointing to the right files/folders

Alright yes it's just the attract mode for those game. It saved everything else.  Not the end of the world.

[flaviometal]

Good to know! 

[the720k]

Slightly off-topic, but in the same ballpark - I just got around to applying cheat.txt to my .149 installation so that I could overclock Double Dragon finally.  What do you guys think of using auto savestates per-ROM to ensure settings are retained?  I understand most, if not all settings are stored when a savestate is created, and it seems to be the only way I can retain the overclock settings.  I  crafted a good configuration for my Double Dragon ROM, and loading the savestate brings back all the tweaks that didn't apply by themselves.  I bet Alpha17x's attract mode setting would also be stored if a savestate were to be created.  Worth a shot anyway.   Saving/loading the savestate works great for my purposes, but seems a bit cumbersome to have to load the state every time that ROM is loaded.  Maybe there is a way to make certain ROMs automatically load a specified state? 

I think it would be kind of cool, and a nice way to work around the issue of cheats and sliders not being saved upon exit.  I read a mameworld.info thread that addressed this, and while it is one of the most requested MAME features, the devs aren't in a rush to implement it, as it would apparently be a large undertaking.