cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/64564458
Hi everyone!
I’d want to replay my Shenmue games that I have on their original discs.
Sadly, I don’t have a Dreamcast and I don’t think I’d be able to rip them even with my bluray external drive.
So, I’ll have to download them. What would be a great place and how could I know the game hash since not all of them are compatible with retroachievements?
Thanks for your answer
EDIT: I managed to get european roms from Shenmue 1 ( https://retroachievements.org/game/3398/hashes ) and 2 ( https://retroachievements.org/game/3489/hashes ) on these 2 sites ( https://archive.org/download/RedumpSegaDreamcast20160613 and https://romsfun.com/roms/dreamcast/shenmue.html ).
Then I tried using Collision ( https://collision.geopjr.dev/ ) to check the game files but none of the MD5 hashes were the same as the ones on retroachievements.
So I have to admit that I’m a bit lost and don’t know what to do just to be able to replay these lovely games while getting achievements.
Edit 2: 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!


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 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.