You can now track RetroAchievements on an actual PS2

Modder hacan359 has released xeRAbora, a homebrew program that allows original PlayStation 2 hardware to track RetroAchievements natively. The software entered public alpha in late August and pairs a custom build of Open PS2 Loader with a desktop client to process memory flags in real time.

I use retroachievements on all my emulation devices. I'm excited to try this on real hardware! The platform has historically been locked to software emulators like PCSX2 and DuckStation, leaving physical consoles disconnected from the ecosystem.

The setup requires a network-connected PS2 running a modified version of Open PS2 Loader (OPL). Instead of relying on an emulator to read the game's memory, the PS2 streams its actual system memory addresses over a local network to a companion app running on Windows, Linux, or macOS. That desktop client uses the official rcheevos library to evaluate the logic and trigger the unlocks on your profile. It even pushes a visual notification back to the television screen.

Softcore mode only for now

The current v0.1.0-alpha release restricts unlocks to Softcore mode. Hardcore mode, which disables save states and cheats in emulators, is trickier to enforce on physical hardware where memory manipulation tools and cheat engines already exist.

OPL has been the backbone of the PS2 homebrew scene for over a decade. It supports loading ISO and ZSO game backups from internal hard drives, SMB network shares, and USB drives. The loader handles virtual memory cards and widescreen patches, making it the default operating system for anyone with a modded console. Adding native achievement tracking directly into the loader bridges a massive gap for players who prefer original hardware but want modern progression tracking.

Relying on the network adapter

Getting a console from 2000 to talk to a modern web API requires some architectural workarounds. The original fat PS2 required a bulky network adapter bolted to the back, which also housed the IDE hard drive. Slim models integrated the ethernet port directly into the motherboard. XeRAbora takes advantage of this existing infrastructure to push data out of the console.

RetroAchievements was founded in 2012 to retroactively add trophy systems to vintage games. Community developers map memory addresses in classic games to trigger achievements when specific conditions are met. This requires constant reading of the system's RAM. Doing this on a PC emulator is trivial because the emulator already controls the entire memory environment. Doing it on physical silicon without crashing the game is a completely different technical challenge.

RetroAchievements added PS2 support in October 2022, but the feature was entirely dependent on PCSX2. By offloading the processing to a companion PC, xeRAbora sidesteps the PS2's memory constraints. The console doesn't have to evaluate complex achievement logic while simultaneously running Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It just hands the memory state to a computer that can.

This method of memory inspection over a local network could serve as a blueprint for other legacy consoles. Any system with a network adapter and a robust homebrew loader could theoretically stream memory states to a secondary device for achievement processing. For now, the PS2 is the test case.