Anno 1404 in the benchmark test – ComputerBase : Test |CUP | Specs |Config

tl;dr: Anno 1602, Anno 1503, Anno 1701 and Anno 1404 are now available in the “History Collection”. All titles have been technically revised by Ubisoft. ComputerBase took a closer look at Anno 1404, the most popular part, and found that the benchmarks show major performance problems.

Anno 1602, Anno 1503, Anno 1701 and Anno 1404 are now available in the “History Collection”. This is a remaster in which Ubisoft has gently touched the technology and, for example, made all parts fit for Ultra HD. In addition, the multiplayer mode has been optimized, bugs have been removed and performance (e.g. change to 64 bit) and stability have been officially improved. Furthermore, all expansions are included and saved games from the original versions also work in the revised versions.

Ubisoft has only slightly revised all four parts. Rather, it is a bit of fine-tuning, so that the classics can be played better and more comfortably nowadays. The older the part, the bigger the changes. For example, Anno 1602 can now be played with two mouse buttons instead of one – but only for those who want it, because the “quality of life improvements” can also be switched off. A big plus with the History Collection is in any case the user interface, which now scales with the resolution. This means that the games can be operated much better in high resolutions such as 3,840 × 2,160.

Anno 1404 now runs without memory problems

The technical consideration will focus on Anno 1404. This is the newest part and therefore the one with the least changes. But this is also eleven years old. The game is also the most popular part of the series. Anno 1404 should primarily benefit from better performance as the baby of the group. And due to the porting to 64 bit, there are no more memory-related crashes in the endgame with many residents, according to Ubisoft.

In Anno 1404 there is only DirectX 9, DirectX 10 is missing

Anno 1404 uses the same in-house engine in the History Edition as in the original version, but DirectX 9 is used instead of DirectX 10. The original used DirectX 10 for better anti-aliasing. Apparently Ubisoft has implemented this in the new edition under DirectX 9 and then deleted DirectX 10 immediately. Why not adjust the graphics menu directly and delete the option that indicates the lack of DirectX 10? The History Editions of Anno 1602, Anno 1503 and Anno 1701, on the other hand, do not use the “original API”, but instead DirectX 11. Ubisoft has already announced that it will take a closer look at the strange API situation in Anno 1404.

In terms of graphics, at least the History Edition of Anno 1404 has not changed much. With the same resolution, however, the versions do not look the same, although the differences are difficult to put into words. Apparently something has changed with the displacement mapping, so that buildings have slightly different surface details – but in most cases they look a little better in the old version.

In addition, the new anti-aliasing can also capture transparent objects, but this worked a little better with the old implementation under DirectX 10. Because with the new variant, a large part of the surrounding obscuration seems to be lost. On the other hand, the water display on buildings looks better in the History Collection. However, these are all nuances: When playing, both versions are optically absolutely equivalent. If you pay attention to the details, you will find the prettier version in the original of Anno 1404.

Despite its age, Anno 1404 still looks handsome today. Of course, the modern Anno 1800 (test) is much more detailed and prettier, but Anno 1404 is still good to look at. The detail density is still quite high, many details can be seen. And because there are no major weak points, the optics leave a good impression despite eleven years of progress.

Anno 1404 has the same graphics menu in the History Collection as in the original version. This means that there is a large number of individual graphics options available, but nothing more. There are no descriptions, screenshots with examples and also no FPS limiter. There is also no up- or downsampling, no overlay or other convenience functions. In principle, none of this is necessary for Anno 1404, but of course it would have been nice anyway.

Four presets and MSAA as anti-aliasing

The new edition of Anno 1404 offers four different graphic presets with “Low”, “Medium”, “High” and “Very High”. “Very high” is not the maximum level of detail, because the anti-aliasing (off) and the anisotropic texture filtering can be turned up even further.

As in the original, Anno 1404 offers classic multisampling antialiasing in the stages 2-fold, 4-fold and 8-fold – there is no modern post-processing AA. Even without anti-aliasing, the game doesn’t turn into flickering hell due to the rigid camera perspective, but the unsmoothed surfaces still catch the eye. Irrespective of the resolution, 4x MSAA has proven to be an effective method, even in Full HD there are few problems with edge flickering. 8-fold MSAA costs a lot again, but brings next to nothing.

On the next page: GPU benchmarks and a comparison to the original