How to make game shortcut for Windows 11 CPU affinity bug

[Stix_09]

This has been posted about a lot in Discussions...

The Problem:
A Windows 11's recent update that causes R2 (and some other games) to crash due to CPU affinity issue cause by the recent patch. I believe it only impacts some older 32bit games like R2.

The workaround fix:
Is to make a windows shortcut to load game and set CPU affinity each time, so u don't have to do this by taskbar every time you load the game.

NOTE:
Steam still need to be running in background on PC. This does not circumvent DRM of game, steam is still required for licensed content.

Do this for the launcher.exe in R2's folder

make shortcut to launcher.exe (anywhere (pin to start menu if u want))
rename the shortcut Rome2 (you can even give it rome's icon)

open Shortcut properties (Shotrcut Tab)

set "Target" to

cmd.exe /C start /affinity XXX  .\launcher.exe

set "Start in" to the folder location of launcher.exe
For me for example this is

D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Total War Rome II\launcher

Affinity XXX above can be any of these values for dif cores

For example to use cpus 0-7:

cmd.exe /C start /affinity FF .\launcher.exe

This will start any child processes (ie Rome2.exe) with same affinity

CPU - HEX
0 ---- 1
1 ---- 3
2 ---- 7
3 ---- F
4 ---- 1F
5 ---- 3F
6 ---- 7F
7 ---- FF
8 ---- 1FF
9 ---- 3FF
10 --- 7FF
11 --- FFF
12 --- 1FFF
13 --- 3FFF
14 --- 7FFF
15 --- FFFF

Last step Make a steam_appid.txt

What you need to do next is make a steam_appid.txt text file file in the folder with the launcher.exe with Rome2's game steam ID 214950
eg

"steamapps\common\Total War Rome II\launcher\steam_appid.txt"

Rome 2's Steam game ID is 214950
(every game has different ID)

See following REF link for reason this steam_appid.txt file is required.
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/api/steam_api

The Steam client couldn't determine the App ID of game. If you're running your application from the executable or debugger directly then you must have a steam_appid.txt in your game directory next to the executable, with your app ID in it and nothing else. Steam will look for this file in the current working directory. If you are running your executable from a different directory you may need to relocate the steam_appid.txt file.

[Mr.Sinister]

This should be stickied.

[Ascend]

Kan confirm that this works. I Can finally play againt