Video Tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjUgXkdiVq4
Though I’m not much of a video production guy (and more much of a software engineer/hacker), I decided to put together a video tutorial to help all of the people out there asking me and others for help with openMenu.
So, what is openMenu, you ask? It’s a completely free and open source piece of menu software for the GDEMU optical drive emulator for the Dreamcast. It was originally written by Hayden Kowalchuk but is now maintained by megavolt85 (of Atomiswave conversion fame).
Many might be familiar with the legacy GDmenu software, which allows users to browse through a list of their games and launch them, rather than relying on the original GDEMU method of cycling through disc images with the on-board button.
My video tutorial not only covers converting one’s old GDmenu card to openMenu, but also dives into the process of customizing artwork and metadata. This offers a very polished user experience, and in my view is worth the extra time and effort.
Those familiar, and possibly currently using GDmenu might wonder if the switch is worth it for them. To help those folks make a decision, I’ve compiled below a list of high-level features and differences between legacy GDmenu and the modern openMenu alternative.
- Menu theming
- Custom theming is possible with both GDmenu and openMenu using RazorX’s theme manager utility.
- Automatic region and VGA patching
- Achievable with both GDmenu and openMenu.
- Custom artwork
- With GDmenu, disc images must be rebuilt to include the artwork, whereas custom artwork can be added to openMenu with an easy-to-use third-party tool.
- Built-in cheats
- Only openMenu has a custom version of CodeBreaker built in, which is also pre-populated with nearly every known cheat code.
- Game ID support for automatic virtual VMU switching with the VM2
- Only available with openMenu.
- Custom BIOS for unlocking copy-protected saves
- Only available with openMenu (when using a VM2).