The vmmenu.ini file

VMMenu creates the game list by reading the vmmenu.ini file. This file contains a list of all the vector games supported by your version of Mame and contains information such as the manufacturer, the name of the game, the "Mame" name for the game and the name of the parent game if it is a clone of another game. The file is just a text file in the following format:

Manufacturer name|Display name|name of parent game|name of game

There are 4 fields, delimited by the | character:

The Manufacturer name is used to group the games together on separate pages of the menu
The Display name is what is shown on screen
The name of parent game is used to group clones of the same game together
The name of the game is what gets passed back to DOS and on to mame when running a game

For example:

Atari|Asteroids (rev 2)|asteroid|asteroid
Atari|Asteroids (rev 1)|asteroid|asteroi1
Other|Asterock|asteroid|asterock
Other|Meteorites|asteroid|meteorts

As the file is plain text, you are free to customise it to your taste. For example, in the example above there are 2 clones of Asteroids by "Other" manufacturers, and these will appear on a separate page to the Atari versions of Asteroids. Should you wish to bundle all the Asteroids variants together under Atari, simply edit the manufacturer field for these 2 games, changing "Other" to "Atari":

Atari|Asteroids (rev 2)|asteroid|asteroid
Atari|Asteroids (rev 1)|asteroid|asteroi1
Atari|Asterock|asteroid|asterock
Atari|Meteorites|asteroid|meteorts

When you next start the menu, it will group all of these titles together under Atari -> Asteroids.

If you wish to remove a game from the menu, perhaps if the controls are not suitable or it does not work correctly, then you can either delete the line in question, or comment it out by placing a # character in the first column.

This example would remove "Asteroids (rev 1)" from the menu, but retain the other 3 games:

Atari|Asteroids (rev 2)|asteroid|asteroid
#Atari|Asteroids (rev 1)|asteroid|asteroi1
Atari|Asterock|asteroid|asterock
Atari|Meteorites|asteroid|meteorts

You can also edit the display name if you wish, but do not alter the clone name or parent game name or the game may not run.

From VMMenu v1.3, you can now show or hide games from within the menu itself, simply access the show/hide games option from the settings page.

From VMMenu v1.3.2, [Added by DanP] An autostart game can now be configured, this will run prior to the menu starting so gives a more authentic startup for arcade cabinets. The autostart game can be selected/deselected from the Show/Hide games settings page. Pressing 1P Start will toggle autostart for the selected game. The currently selected game is indicated by a spinning coin.