SoftwareDolphin emulator launches RetroAchievements support for more than 100 classic GameCube games, crashing its servers in the processWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
SoftwareDolphin emulator launches RetroAchievements support for more than 100 classic GameCube games, crashing its servers in the processWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Nintendo)
Nintendo GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin is having a big month. Just two weeks ago the Dolphin team announced that its development is now so rock solid they were doing away with the concept of “stable” builds entirely and moving to a rolling release cycle, taking the emulator out of the “5.0” build era that started back in 2016. Today it’s adding a long-requested feature: integration with RetroAchievements, a community-driven project that adds Xbox- or Steam-style achievements to thousands of older games.
“RetroAchievements sets essentially amount to a list of tasks and goals that may go above and beyond simply beating the game,” writes Dolphin blog author JMC4789. The integration currently supports more than 100 games from the GameCube library, though I’m not sure what’s on the full list—the launch has seemingly overwhelmed RetroAchievements' servers, causing them to crash.
There is, at least, a partial list of popular supported GameCube games on the Dolphin blog:
Keeping in mind that emulators allow players the ability to hack games or use savestates to their advantage, RetroAchievements actually supports two separate modes for earning your trophies: a softcore mode and a hardcore mode. Turn on hardcore mode and it’ll disable some of the emulator’s features for “a more console-authentic experience.”
A number of other emulators have added support for RetroAchievements in recent years, including PlayStation 1 emulator DuckStatation and PSP emulator PPSSPP. It’s most widely used through RetroArch, a popular frontend that bundles together a large number of emulators. There are some surprisingly cool features to RetroAchievements that make it about more than just getting a badge of honor for killing a boss; integrations for some games track speedrunning records, for example, while others support “rich presence,” tracking your progress and actions in a game. If you follow your friends on RetroAchievements.org, you can get a near-real time view of what they’re doing in a game, like what level they’re currently on in Super Mario Bros. and whether they’re small Mario or rocking a fire flower power-up.
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Dolphin’s RetroAchievements support only extends to the GameCube for now—Wii games are planned to come in future updates—and you’ll need thelatest development buildto enable the feature. It’s currently only available on PC, not the Android version of Dolphin. To turn it on, head to Dolphin’s Tools menu and enable RetroAchievements.org integration, then type in your username and password.
You can read about it in more detailon the Dolphin blog here.
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