Mame Custom Lists

[rabidpuppy]

I've only just noticed the Custom Lists option in mame settings. So I found I already had ini files (from cat32en, catveren, deluxe32en, genreven, folders, from whatever site they came from). none of them I really like. Since I'm using a 2 player cabinet, all I really "need" is a list of

2 player simultaneous

2 player alternate

and what I'd "want" is perhaps some very general categories - fighting, music, puzzle, racing, etc - no more than 10. Just so there is a small but useful list on one page. I can probably figure out how to do that by making my own ini file with the categories I want based on the existing ini files, but not for the 2 player option. The nplayers.ini file looks different.

Help? Cheers!

edit: I worked it out. I was using the wrong nplayers.ini file. I merged one of the catergory ini files with an edited nplayers (to account for just 2 players, all 3 player & up games moved into either 2 player alt or sim), so now I get what I "need" and what I "want".

scotts.txt

[bkenobi]

You might be able to use romlister for finding the games that you want, but if you want to do custom categories/genres that's another story. I went through this same effort a while back and put together a little Python script that would help with this. Check out the following thread for all the details!

http://www.gameex.info/forums/index.php?showtopic=5889

EDIT: After re-reading your post, I think you were looking for just a stripped down list rather than recategorizing things like I initially thought. RomLister could have helped you do this in a few clicks, but manually works too. The script in the linked thread will help if you want to recategorize all of your roms into different groups (e.g., grouping all casino, gambling, mahjong, etc games into a single "CRAP" category for easy filtering in GameEx).

[Stub]

Why strip it down that much? you can still play gauntlet with two players....

[rabidpuppy]

  Stub said:

Why strip it down that much? you can still play gauntlet with two players....

I didn't so much strip as re-arrange.. 3+ player games went into either 2 player alt or 2 player sim. So Gauntlet still there baby (I assume)! Perhaps I should rename those cats to just "multiplayer alternative" and "multiplayer simultaneous".

I'm interesting to see how other people do this, since this is my first go.

Also - is it possible to put logos next to the categories generated from these files, in the same way "golden.png" etc are assigned to the in-built GameEx categories on the same page?

[bkenobi]

If your list is in MAME32 format, you can change the icon name in the first couple lines. I haven't tried doing that, but it should work.

[rabidpuppy]

  bkenobi said:

If your list is in MAME32 format, you can change the icon name in the first couple lines. I haven't tried doing that, but it should work.

It is, I've tried this but it doesn't appear to work. Either using the .ico files or my own .png logo, in any of the icons, custom list or logos folders.. no combination seems to work.

No biggie, but would be nice after scrolling past the in-built lists (not yet played, golden era etc) that do have specified logos to have the logos continue when hitting the custom lists.

[bkenobi]

That should work since I remember Tom mentioning it a while back (probably some time in 2007 or so). Maybe this needs more attention by either Tom or someone that's successfully used the feature before.