Achievement points / retro games

[Raz316]

As far as I can tell the whole points sytem is something that runs on top of the game and when something is achieved the game tells the system such a thing happens (if I am wrong stop me now).

This got me wondering about older games like street fighter and how they 'submit' when achievements occur. I assumed they were essentially just roms being emulated and so tracking achievements would be difficult, anyone know anything about this?

Of course I could be wrong and the old games could have been recoded to include the points stuff.

[Blademrk]

the old games could have been recoded to include the points stuff.

that's what happens, afaik.

[Raz316]

ahh right cheers!

[Veles]

I think it's basically a ROM, you have a front end (you'll notice that the main menu for most "coin-op classic" games done by Digital Eclipse all have the same menu. XBLA boots up the frontend emulator, which then boots up the ROM of the game, the emulator then tracks the game and looks for the criteria for the achievements, and tells the console when they've been met.

At least, that my theory.

[Raz316]

yeah, thats what I kind of imagined, but thought it would be difficult for an emulator to 'read' specific conditions

[Veles]

I don't think it would be too hard, not much harder than getting any other game to decide when an achievement's conditions have been met. But then I don't really know much about this stuff, for all I know, there could be badgers watching you play and hitting a button when they think you can have an achievement.

[Blademrk]

Interesting reading, but doesn't really answer your question as to whether the Arcade is programmed specifically or emulated:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_Live_Arcade

[directhex]

it's not emulated. mostly not, anyway