Playing the Game on Modern CPUs With the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (2022)

A guide on stopping the game from crashing when you try to play it on a PC with a modern CPU.

Intro

This is the second of two guides on how to (hopefully) get Symphony to properly run on your PC if your CPU has more than 8 cores. Here, we will be employing the use of the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit, or ACT to fix the game's incompatibility problems. According to Microsoft's page:

"The Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK) and Windows PE add-on has the tools you need to customize Windows images for large-scale deployment, and to test the quality and performance of your system, its added components, and the applications running on it."

"The Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) is a lifecycle management tool that assists in identifying and managing your overall application portfolio, reducing the cost and time involved in resolving application compatibility issues, and helping you quickly deploy Windows and Windows updates."

Remember that PCs aren't all the same like consoles. What worked for me may not work for you. Still I will now explain what I did, in the hope that this will help somebody else who is being frustrated by this abandonware's refusal to start.

My System:

Windows 10 64bit
Intel Core i9 10900K (10 cores, 20 threads)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER
LG 27 inch 1440p 144hz monitor 27GN850-B
2 TB SSD Hard Drive

The Process

Step 1:

Download the Windows ADK from here:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/get-started/adk-install

You specifically want the ADK for Windows 10, version 2004 because it looks like support for 32-bit programs has been dropped after this update. If you're using Windows 11, you may want to look at my guide on fixing this game with Special K instead.



Once the download completes, launch the adksetup.exe to start the installation process. First you will be asked to specify the file path for the installation. If in doubt, leave the path as it is and click Next. After that, you will be asked to choose your privacy settings. If in doubt, select No and click Next.

Now, the important part. You will be asked to specify what features you want to install, and you only need to have the Application Compatibility Tools selected. Uncheck every other option and then click Install.



Step 2:

Now that we've installed the ACT, we need to locate our Compatibility Administrators. If you've used the default install path, the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the program should be respectively located at:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Application Compatibility Toolkit\Compatibility Administrator (32-bit)\Compatadmin.exe

C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Application Compatibility Toolkit\Compatibility Administrator (64-bit)\Compatadmin.exe

If you plan on keeping the ACT installed after you're done, I'd suggest that you right click the Compatadmin.exe files, create shorcuts and rename them after the folders you found them in for convenience. Regardless, you'll only need the 32-bit.exe to fix Symphony.

Step 3:

Launch the 32-bit version of the Compatibility Administrator. Click Yes to pass the User Account Control window. Once the Compatibility Administrator (32-bit) window opens, your first order of business is to click on the Fix button towards the top of the interface.



You will be shown the Program Information window where you will have to give the program's name, vendor and file location. Don't worry, the name and the vendor don't have to be exact. The program file location does, however. If you didn't change the default location for Steam game installations, the game should be located at:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Symphony\Symphony.exe



After clicking Next, you will be asked to select Compatibility Modes for the program. Nothing here is relevant to fixing Symphony, so leave it unchanged and click Next.



The Compatibility Fixes window is what we've been working towards. It contains multiple potential fixes for games that have CPU problems, including SingleProcAffinity, EmulateSlowCPU and ProcessorCountLie. For Symphony, we're going to search through the list of fixes until we find the ProcessorCountLie shim and activate it. Optionally, you can click on Test Run to see if the game works now.



Finally, you will be shown the Matching Infromation window. You have no reason to change anything here, so just click Finish.



Step 4:

Click the save button at the top of the Compatibility Administrator's interface. You can name the .sdb file whatever you like and you can save it wherever you like. I suggest C:\Windows\AppPatch or C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Symphony as two good spots.

Once you've decided on that, the last step is to simply go to the top of the Compatibility Administrator window, click File and then select Install. You'll receive a message that the database was successfully installed. The only thing left to do now is to launch the game and play it. If you can now play Symphony without the game crashing on you, congratulations. Your long nightmare is over.

Afterword

Cleaning Up:

1. You are free to get rid of any lingering files on your desktop, you don't need them anymore. If you made a mistake and need to uninstall the .sdb that you've just made, that's simple. Just find the Installed Databases dropdown menu on the left side of the Compatibility Administrator interface, expand it, find the name of your fix and right click it. Select Uninstall and that will solve that problem.

2. This fix will remain on your PC as long as you don't use the Compatibility Administrator to uninstall it. Deleting the game through Steam will not have an effect on them.

What you can do is copy the .sdb file to a backup drive, so you can have it on hand when the time comes to move to a new PC. You'd still have to install it to the new PC with the ACT, though. Know that there's no guarantee that it will still work on a new OS, Processor, GPU, etc. That's just the nature of PC gaming.

Closing Thoughts

This is the original method I used to play through the game, so I'm quite confident in vouching for it. However, using Special K is the much easier method as it doesn't involve as many clicks or menus to get through. I'm mostly only writing about this solution because I know that not every game that has a CPU related problem is going to be fixable by Special K, so it'll be useful to have an alternative on hand for future reference.

Well anyway, I hope this helps someone out there.

[Master]

Thank you!