To ensure all Hardcore unlocks are earned within the confines of the rules set up for the mode, emulators are regularly updated to fix loopholes that could be unfairly abused.

Going forward, any new Hardcore unlocks coming from an emulator that is more than two years old while a newer version exists will be converted to Softcore unlocks. Similarly, any emulator that has not been officially approved by us or is no longer being supported will only be allowed to unlock achievements in Softcore mode. Emulator authors seeking to have their emulators be supported for Hardcore mode should send a message to RAdmin.

This change is intended to help enforce the first golden rule of participating in the global leaderboard:

* Using the latest release version of an approved supported emulator

We realize that this change will affect a number of users, so starting in the new year (after the next RAWeb release), whenever you have Hardcore mode enabled on an emulator that is no longer supported by our definitions above, you will receive a temporary warning achievement shortly after booting the game indicating that you need to update.



There will be grace period of approximately the first three months of 2025 that will allow you to continue earning achievements in Hardcore mode from these emulators. Some time in April, all affected emulators will immediately lose access to Hardcore unlocks and they will instead be converted to Softcore. If you play in Hardcore mode, please upgrade your emulator or switch to an officially supported emulator by then.

If you play in Softcore mode, you can continue to use these emulators, and won't be shown the warning message.

For example: RetroArch 1.15.0 was released on 17 March 2023, and will be restricted around the end of March. As such, any version of RetroArch older than 1.16.0 will display this warning achievement when playing in Hardcore mode. And after we throw the switch in April, only Softcore unlocks will be registered, even if playing in Hardcore mode.

The warning achievement will continue to be displayed in all affected emulators indefinitely. Until April, Hardcore unlocks will register normally. Starting in April, they will only register as Softcore. Beyond April, when an emulator becomes deprecated (1.16.0 will be two years old in September), the emulator will start showing the warning achievement and immediately be subject to the Softcore demotions.

First and foremost, we are not disabling any emulators. We're just disabling hardcore unlocks from old and unsupported emulators. You can continue to earn unlocks from any emulator/device you already have. They just won't register as hardcore.
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Here's where things currently stand (as of Jan 4) for the most commonly referenced emulators in the thread:

* MelonDS Android: Even though it doesn't appear on our downloads page yet, this is now officially supported.
* BizHawk: An update will be released next week that will resolve the outdated emulator warning.
* Flycast: Dev team has been contacted, they just need to make a simple change to the emulator.
* Pizza Boy Emulators: Dev team has been contacted. We're going to work with them to hopefully resolve achievement stability issues.
* AetherSX2: Abandoned, unlikely to ever be supported.
* NetherSX2: Their developer says forcing NetherSX2 to softcore makes sense, and that the upcoming EtherealSX2 will strive to be officially supported.

NOTE: several users are mentioning core names. Cores are not emulators. We are not changing anything in regards to supported cores at the time. As long as whatever you're loading the core in (i.e. RetroArch) is up-to-date, you can continue using whatever cores you're already using without being subject to the softcore restriction. Some cores are still unsupported for other reasons (like not exposing memory correctly). Check here for a list of supported cores. Updating your cores is still a good idea, but this change does not have any relationship to cores.
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Additional commonly asked questions:

Will frontends for RetroArch be supported?
We know nothing of which frontends you are using. As long as the version of RetroArch that the frontend launches is up-to-date, you shouldn't have any problems.

Is [core] supported or unsupported? I am not seeing it listed under either Emulator Support or Unsupported Emulators.
No changes are being made at this time in regards to cores. Unfortunately, most cores don't update their version so we can't tell how old they are, or what issues/fixes they include.

So we’re really going to eliminate [emulator] achievement earning ENTIRELY without a replacement method in place?
Any emulator being blocked as unsupported is because the emulator developers never contacted us to ensure their emulators meet our hardcore requirements. There's nothing preventing them from doing so, possibly even before the April deadline.

And there's nothing preventing you from getting non-hardcore achievements with that emulator. We're not preventing it ENTIRELY.

You should've made [some alternative] work first
We don't write the emulators or cores. It's up to their developers to make stuff "work". Most of the emulators that are going to be affected were implemented without any coordination/cooperation with us.

Will this problem affect the RA forks of Snes9x and PJ64 as well? What about RAlibretro?
We already enforce minimum versions for the emulators that we've created. Users cannot login from them if they aren't on the minimum version or newer, and receive an upgrade notice if a newer version is available.

I thought you guys cared for your users
We have many different users we have to care for. This change is of great benefit to the people who create the achievements for you as it encourages users to play on emulators where we either know everything works, or can debug why it doesn't.

It also forces the people who want to climb the global leaderboard to not use versions of emulators where there are known hardcore exploits. This benefits people who are focused on climbing the global leaderboards fairly. The two-year deprecation window is there specifically for the less competitive people so they won't be required to update their software as frequently.

What percent of users are running out-of-date or unsupported emulators?
We gathered data during most of December, and on average there were about 560 sessions per day reported against emulators that would be affected. We average around 85000 sessions per day, so about 0.6% of sessions were affected. We don't know exactly how those sessions break down into unique users.

Of those sessions being reported, more than 90% were from outdated versions of RetroArch. And while many of them were Android versions of RetroArch, there were very few sessions from other unsupported Android emulators (which seems to be primarily what people are complaining about in this thread).

Will I be untracked for using an outdated/unknown emulator?
No. The unlocks coming from the emulator will register as softcore. We only untrack people for earning hardcore achievements in unintended ways.

Will exceptions be made for games that function better on older versions of emulators?
No. The blocking is tied specifically to the emulator, and does not filter on core (where applicable), game, or configuration. Some configurations not being blocked in older emulators is one reason we want players to upgrade.

So that means both AetherSX and NetherSX2 will default to Softcore starting April 2025 and everyone who uses Android will need to move on to PCSX2 or wait for EtherealSX2 to be released and approved as official, right?

I guess the same will be the case for melonDS android standalone

Finally, thanks for this update Jamiras

rip flycast support

I get why this happening, but still makes me sad. I was really enjoying getting ps2 achievements on my odin 2 and there were a lot more I was aiming for, so I guesd Ill hold off on those. Now gamecube and ps2 I can only get achievements on is my pc and the ps2 games I'm in the middle of on my odin I'm just prob gonna drop until I'm motivated to play them again on pc. Handhelds just feel so right with RA. Was really enjoying android as my main handheld os too. At least most the systems I play on won't be affected by this

I don't mind the idea, all that's needed is for said working emulators to STAY UP TO DATE!

So Melon Ds standalone will stop working hardcore too? How sad, for me it's much better than the retro arch.
rip 😭

Excited to see this change, there's far too many tickets from players where we can do nothing to help them, since they're using an unsupported emulator.

I'm on 1.12 lol. Is there an easy way to update the emulator or do I have to download it fresh and redo all my settings each time?

Thanks for this Jamiras! Long overdue, but very needed since the rules say people should be playing in updated and supported emulators.

I just want to clarify... will front-ends for n64 retroarch be allowed?

(Parallel launcher)

that's unfortunate that we will no longer be able to play ps2 games on android, but i understand the need.

Parallel Launcher will keep working since its basically just reteoarch with some settings for specified hacks. it is as up to date than usual RA

Will exceptions be made for games that function better on older versions of emulators? For example, Battlefield 2: Modern Combat (PlayStation 2) Subset Online Multiplayer cannot use hardware rendering in the newest versions of PCSX2, and the latest version the hardware rendering is possible with (v1.7.3858) is turning two years old in about a week.