RetroAchievements

RetroAchievements adds achievements to retro games. The community has authored achievement sets for thousands of classic titles, from NES through PSX and later. Once a user links their RetroAchievements account, RomM shows their progression on each game (achievements unlocked, percentage complete, hardcore flag).

Achievements can't be earned in the EmulatorJS player

The bundled in-browser player doesn't unlock achievements. RomM displays your existing progression synced from RetroAchievements, but new unlocks have to come from a RetroAchievements-capable standalone emulator.

Linking your account

Enter your RetroAchievements username into your profile and hit Apply → Sync. Subsequent syncs run automatically through the nightly RetroAchievements Sync scheduled task (see Scheduled Tasks), but on-demand syncs are also available.

Hardcore mode

RetroAchievements distinguishes two play modes:

Softcore: save states allowed
Hardcore: more points per achievement but no saves allowed

Hardcore isn't enforced server-side. You toggle it per game in RetroAchievements-capable cores. Loading a save state during a hardcore run silently drops hardcore crediting on the RA server side, so you'll still see the achievement but marked as softcore.

If you care about hardcore, use the in-game save feature instead of save states (see Saves & States → RetroAchievements and states).

Hash-based matching

Whether a ROM has RA support depends on the hash matching RA's database. Hash calculation runs as part of scans, so if you've disabled hashing (filesystem.skip_hash_calculation: true), you lose RA matching.

Troubleshooting

Games don't show achievements: the ROM hash doesn't match RA's canonical hash. Try a No-Intro dump.
Achievements show 0/N but you've unlocked some: initial sync hasn't run yet. Trigger an on-demand sync, or wait for the nightly.
Hardcore run didn't credit: you probably loaded a save state mid-run. Start over and avoid states.