Well thanks for these infos as I’m getting more familiar with RA.

I’ve ripped all my games just for memories (I have maybe 10 between my dreamcast and ps2) and also downloaded RA compatible versions of the ones I see myself playing often.

It feels pointless to try and rip original games for use in RA. Set developers are very arbitrary in what ROM they end up developing for, and back when I used RA, I felt like I had to manually look up each potential game I wanted to play to see what version they wanted. There are vague guidelines, but zero site enforcement, for what ROMs are supposed to be used for set development.

Sometimes they develop for a PAL region because PAL releases often have multi language support. Other times NSTC/J releases were preferred for having less glitches, or glitches that they consider fun and fundamental to the proper experience of the game. Same reason is used for developing/only using specific revisions of a game. And then sometimes they just end up making RA specific patched versions. Maybe the base game has a completion tracker that isn't actually completable, so instead of treating the original bugged value as the true 100% in the vanilla game, they force you to use a modded copy. Or perhaps the the game has a exploitable glitch that makes achievement creation pointless, since you could always "cheat" them. So they mod/patch the glitch out instead of adding a glitch check into the achievement completion logic.

Well I got the two Shenmue games from a redump collection on archive.org so that’s a good start.

So maybe I should just install a Dreamcast emulator in Retrodeck and then try to find a way to see if the game works with retroachievements.

It’s just that I got burned playing a few hours of Sega Superstar Tennis on PS2 only to discover later that my european version isn’t the right one for retroachievements.

Edit: In the end I just downloaded the games from https://archive.org/download/RedumpSegaDreamcast20160613 and https://romsfun.com/roms/dreamcast/shenmue.html and, when launching them, I got an information that I had something like 0 out 115 achievements, so I know these games work with retroachievements. Thanks!

There are different file formats and ways to organize and save the files. In example those Dreamcast Roms on RetroAchievement expect the format from Redump.org group. That is a multi file structure with .cue and .bin files. Then I guess you have to compare the checksum to the first .bin file, but I'm not entirely sure, because the linked page does not clear this up. You maybe have gotten the files in .chd format? (BTW this is the format I prefer too.) This basically converts all .cue and .bin files of a disk into a single file format. But you would need the other previously discussed format.

• http://redump.org/discs/quicksearch/shenmue/

I just tested this by comparing the checksum for "Shenmue (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es) (Disc 1) (Track 1).bin" listed on Redump / Shenmue (Disc 1) as 9c6830264544845880e14fe64eb94193 and it matches the first Track bin file. Normally this is how you would compare I think. HOWEVER it does not match any of the hashes listed on https://retroachievements.org/game/3398/hashes . According to their documentation the Dreamcast hashes aren't MD5, but a custom hash that is no longer compatible with MD5: https://docs.retroachievements.org/developer-docs/game-identification.html#sega

So with the methods we have here its not sufficient just to check with MD5. This needs some extra tooling that specifically made to check Dreamcast files in Redump format. No wonder you were lost.

I would assume that they're using the hash from redump. They're pretty much the leading group maintaining a database of hashes for accurate disc backups. Generally most hashes for old games you'll find online will match up with either the No-Intro database for cartridge based games, or ReDump for disc based.

Anyway, for retro games the easiest way to get a reliable copy of the game is from great big romsets people upload to Archive.org

Just Google, DDG, or search using whatever is your preference for "ReDump Dreamcast Archive.org" and you should find browsable collections.

Unfortunately, that doesn't directly help you with figuring out the MD5 mismatch, and I'm not familiar with how exactly RetroAchievements calculates it (since it sounds like they do something weird like concatenating the game executable with something else on the disc, then get the MD5 of that). But it's usually a safe bet that romhacks and stuff like RA are looking for one of the known good dumps from ReDump or NoIntro unless they specify otherwise.

And he’s not much of a gamer himself so I figure something is better than nothing

this might make it worthwhile.

i was speaking from experience earlier when i told you that they might not appreciate the expense on effort and other resources. i did something similar for my nephews many years ago -- dropping lots of time and hardware on it -- and they didn't bother to with it because it wasn't the latest and greatest shiney new console from sony or nintendo.

i built my friend a retropie out of an old desktop pc laying around. plays to about gamecube with little issue.

think i had to just install regular ubuntu, then run some retropie scripts. this was maybe two years ago. mostly works fine but do some maintenence about once a year.

also great to recycle old hardware

Definitely valid. Luckily I think she's still young enough that pretty much anything with some buttons she can push to make something happen on the screen is going to keep her entertained

And he's not much of a gamer himself so I figure something is better than nothing

i suspect that a pc is going to give you more mileage, but at the same time, kids like the newest shiny thing so it's possible that they might not appreciate your efforts or dedicating needful hardware to it.

There are various open source android apps for using your phone or tablet as a second monitor, but I don't think that would solve the window focus issue.

Alternatively, most emulators have an option to allow input while the window isn't focused, which might be an alternative for you.

Well Portal 2 is starting to be quite a decent thing to run, to be honest. I wasn't expecting this level of performance.

They show it playing some games here around the 7 minute mark

https://youtu.be/S_NkVBgOcoQ

Nothing high end obviously, but this video is 3 months old

Wow, they went for games, of all things, on RISC-V? i thought performance in these was still abysmal.

If you're wondering what Felix is

Run x86 and x86-64 games on RISC-V