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Release 2407 and 2409
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RetroAchievements Guide
As of Dolphin 2407-68, RetroAchievements are supported in an assortment of titles. RetroAchievements are a third party service that adds a plethora of features to classic games, including achievements, stat tracking, leaderboards, and more. For more information on RetroAchievements, feel free to check out their website at retroachievements.org for more information.
Setting up
By default, achievements are disabled in Dolphin. In order to enable RetroAchievements, you must have an account on their website. If you already have an account on their website, simply log into that account in Dolphin from the Achievement option located under the Tools dropdown. If you don't have an account, you must register on their website before you can use RetroAchievements in Dolphin.
Once you have an account and have logged in, you're good to go. Simply ensure that RetroAchievements are enabled in that window and load up a compatible game. Dolphin will let you know if achievements are active through on-screen display messages in game (if enabled) or the RetroAchievements window. That's it!
Configuring RetroAchievements within Dolphin
There are several options within Dolphin that can drastically affect your experience with RetroAchievements. Here's a quick rundown of those settings.
- Enable RetroAchievements.org Integration - This is the master setting to completely enable or disable all RetroAchievements features. This must be enabled for RetroAchievements to function.
- Enable Hardcore Mode - Disables many emulator convenience features (Loadstate, cheats, etc.) in order to provide a more authentic experience. Any achievements gained in Hardcore mode will be noted as being gained in Hardcore mode. Additionally, leaderboard times/scores are only available in Hardcore mode.
- Enable Unofficial Achievements - Enables unfinished/unofficial achievement sets. Sometimes prior to a game getting an official achievement set, there will be an unfinished set available. This option allows using these unfinished sets for testing and other purposes. Any achievements gained from an unofficial achievement set will not be permanently recorded, and will revert to unobtained after the play session.
- Enable Encore Achievements - Allows you to reobtain achievements you've already achieved. Mostly used to verify challenge runs and other situations where an achievement can keep track of your progress.
- Enable Spectator Mode - While this setting is enabled, any achievements gained during play will be lost after the play session. This is used for if someone else is playing on your account, or if you don't want to collect achievements while still getting the notifications.
- Enable Discord Presence - Allows displaying current RetroAchievements status (game location, current lives, etc.) in Discord. Information displayed will vary based on the game you are playing.
- Enable Progress Notifications - When enabled, this allows for notifications when you make progress on certain achievements. For instance, in Super Mario Sunshine, you will get a progress notification on Blue Coins every time you get a blue coin, letting you know how close you are to completing the achievement.
Features
RetroAchievements comes with many interesting features. Most importantly are the achievements themselves, but there are several others that may be just as appealing, if not more so, for some users.
Achievements
The most notable thing that RetroAchievements does is that it adds achievement sets to games. These fanmade sets include many easy achievements, progression achievements, and some difficult achievements. Some achievement sets may require starting from a fresh savefile in order to obtain achievements, whereas other games may not care as much. In general, it is best practice to start from a "new game" when possible when attempting a new achievement set. Occasionally, Challenge achievements may popup, challenging the player to do something within the current level, or within a certain amount of time.
Leaderboards
RetroAchievements will track your best times and/or scores in supported games. What scores and times are tracked depends on the set, and these metrics are subject to change over time. Some examples of this include, but are not limited to:
- Time Trials in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!
- Classic Mode in Super Smash Bros. Melee
- Course scores in Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour
- Stage times in Turok: Evolution
Realtime Tracking
RetroAchievements has advanced stat tracking that varies in game to game. In some games, it'll keep track of your current in-game location along with other useful information, such as health, current story progress, and more. Additionally, this status can be used in Discord if Discord Presence is enabled.
Game Progression Tracking
RetroAchievements will automatically keep track of your progression in all supported games. In that sense, it can act as an active record keeper. A game can be several statuses on your account.
- Unfinished - If you've started the game and collected at least one achievement, then the game will be marked as unfinished.
- Beaten Softcore - If you complete the game in Softcore mode, then the game will be marked as Beaten Softcore.
- Beaten - If you beat the game in Hardcore mode, the game will simply be marked as beaten.
- Completed Softcore - A game is marked as Completed once you've obtained all of the achievements in the set without Hardcore mode enabled.
- Mastered - A game is marked as Mastered once you've obtained all of the achievements in the set with Hardcore mode enabled.
It should be noted that Mastered supersedes all previous statuses and is considered the final mark of completion.
Achievement Addendum
There are many terms used in the RetroAchievements user interface and website. This is a quick rundown of what some of the most important terms mean.
Progression Achievements
Progression Achievements tend to be core achievements that follow the main story and/or gameplay loop of the game. Collecting all Progression Achievements is necessary in order to have the game marked as "beaten."
Win Conditions
Sometimes, a game may have multiple endings and/or paths. In many cases, each ending will be noted as a "Win Condition", which marks the game as beaten when achieved with the proper progression prerequisites.
Softcore/Hardcore
RetroAchievements comes in two flavors - Softcore and Hardcore. Softcore mode is closer to a "freeplay" mode. You can collect achievements however you like using things like savestates, slowdown, and other emulation features that might make a game easier. Hardcore mode will disable these features in order to provide a more authentic experience. One special thing to note is that you can create savestates, but you cannot load them during hardcore mode. This can be useful in case an achievement fails to work in order to provide proof and or assist with debugging.
Challenges
Challenges will sometimes show up while you are playing a game, denoted by a small popup on the lower right corner of the screen. Challenges are often failable achievements that are available for the current mission, level, or only available for a short period of time. If you fail a challenge, you can often retrigger the challenge by loading a previous save, or recreating the conditions necessary to start the challenge. For example, in Turok: Evolution, there are challenge times for each level. In order to trigger the Challenge, you simply need to load into the level of your choice. If you fail the challenge, reloading into that level will restart the challenge. Some Challenges are missable, and may require a new savefile to get. But that's true of all achievements.
Missables
Missable Achievements are achievements that can be missed on a single playthrough. Missing these achievements may force you to start a new game in order to achieve them. Missable achievements are denoted on the RetroAchievements website, so feel free to review the achievement list on their website if you are concerned about missable achievements.
Frequently Asked Questions
For general RetroAchievements information, you can checkout the FAQ on their website. For your convenience, we've listed a few common questions and their solutions surrounding RetroAchievements in Dolphin.
"Why isn't "x" game supported?"
Creating an achievement set isn't an easy task, and some games are harder to work with than others. As such, some popular games may take longer to get achievement sets. If you have a request for a specific game, there are protocols to follow on their site regarding that. We have no control ourselves over which games are supported.
"Why can't I load savestates or use cheats?"
In order to make it clear which features are allowed and which features aren't allowed during Hardcore mode, Dolphin will outright disable those features when Hardcore mode is enabled. If you want to use those features alongside RetroAchievements, disable Hardcore mode in the RetroAchievements window.
"Help! It didn't give me an Achievement I earned."
If you've completed an achievement and didn't get credit for it, there are methods to request a manual unlock on their FAQ.
"Why does it say the game I'm using doesn't have achievements when it says it's supported on the website?"
The most likely scenario is that there's a mismatch on the disc image. For a game like Super Smash Bros. Melee, it has multiple revisions and regional releases, but only NTSC-U 1.02 is supported (at this moment at least.) For other games, like Luigi's Mansion, the PAL release is the supported release because it has additional content. If you want to make sure you have the correct version of the game, you can check the supported game files link on the game page at retroachievements.org. If you have the correct region and revision of the game, then it may be that your game is improperly dumped and/or patched.
"Can I use netplay for Multiplayer sets?"
Absolutely. Additionally, for multiplayer sets (Such as The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures or Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles) all players will unlock achievements as long as they are logged into RetroAchievements. Note that multi-sets may require patching the ISO to match the multi-set hash. For more information, checkout retroachievements.org and their information on multi-sets.
"Where do I go to report issues?"
First thing to do is to make sure you're on the very latest development builds of Dolphin before reporting any RetroAchievement issues. For issues with RetroAchievements, please checkout the support avenues at retroachievements.org. For issues with Dolphin, you can check out our forums or Discord server. As always, for confirmed issues with Dolphin, you can report issues on our issue tracker.