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Anno 1503

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Anno 1503
Anno 1503 cover
Developers
Max Design
Publishers
Retail Sunflowers Interactive Entertainment Software
Retail Electronic Arts
Re-releases, digital Ubisoft
Release dates
Windows October 23, 2002
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase, Expansion pack
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Bird's-eye view, Isometric
Controls Multiple select, Point and select
Genres Building, Strategy
Themes Historical, Renaissance, Fantasy
Series Anno
Anno 1503 on HowLongToBeat
Anno 1503 on IGDB
Anno 1503 on MobyGames
Anno 1503 on Wikipedia
Anno 1602 1998
Anno 1503 2002
Anno 1701 2006
Anno 1404 2009
Anno 2070 2011
Anno Online 2013
Anno 2205 2015
Anno 1800 2019
Anno 1404: History Edition 2020
Anno 1503: History Edition 2020
Anno 1602: History Edition 2020
Anno 1701: History Edition 2020

Anno 1503 is a singleplayer and multiplayer bird's-eye view and isometric building and strategy game in the Anno series.

General information

Also called 1503 A.D in North America.
GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page
Anno 1503 Wiki (German only)

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
Copies with the name Anno 1503 use SecuROM 4 DRM, and copies with the name 1503 AD or Anno 1503: The New World[1] use SafeDisc v2 DRM[Note 1].
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
includes the "Treasures, Monsters & Pirates" expansion.
Omits a registry key needed to access multiplayer; see Missing multiplayer menu.
Windows
SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).
A free English demo can be downloaded here.

Monetization

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
Treasures, Monsters & Pirates
Windows

Essential improvements

Patches

Patches 1.04.02 and 1.05 are available from Patches-Scrolls.

Skip intro videos

Move, delete or rename files[4]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\Videos.
  2. Move, delete or rename 1000.bik and 1001.bik.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Max-Design\Anno1503

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\SaveGame[Note 2]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy

Video

General settings.
General settings.

Graphics feature State Notes
Widescreen resolution
The game has the maximum resolution of 1280x1024 by default. Can be worked around using a widescreen patch.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
See Windowed.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS

Windowed

D3DWindower[citation needed]
  1. See D3DWindower for further instructions.
  2. Find <path-to-game>\1503Startup.exe.
  3. Run it with D3DWindower by pushing the fifth button.

Notes

Activating the emulation is not needed. Running the game directly through the launcher will work.
Run any borderless applications before running D3Dwindower or else the game will crash.

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Controller types

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Hungarian
Fan translation.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Notes
LAN play
Online play
The official multiplayer service was shut down.

Connection types

Issues fixed

No music in cutscenes (Wine/Linux)

Install the directmusic component through winetricks.

Cannot select a desired resolution (greyed out menu box)

Force resolution via registry
  1. Open the Registry Editor and browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Max-Design\Anno1503.
  2. Change value of SCREENMODE to the desired menu entry, setting it to DWORD value 0 to 4 (0 being the top entry, and 4 being the bottom entry).

Missing multiplayer menu

Add missing registry key[5]
  1. Open the Registry Editor and browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Max-Design\Anno1503.
  2. Create a new DWORD key and name it MULTIPLAYER. Set its value to 1.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
DirectDraw 7
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Cutscenes Bink Video

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 98
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium II 500 MHz
System memory (RAM) 128 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 930 MB
Video card (GPU) 16 MB of VRAM
DirectX 8.1 compatible


Notes

  1. SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10[2] or Windows 11 and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.[3]
  2. When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

References

  1. Verified by User:Aemony on 2019-09-27
    Verified that Swedish retail copy titled Anno 1503: The New World is detected as SafeDisc v2.80.010 by ProtectionID.
  2. Not Loading in Windows 10; this will break thousands of - Microsoft Community - last accessed on 2017-01-16
  3. Microsoft - MS15-097: Description of the security update for the graphics component in Windows: September 8, 2015 - last accessed on 2018-02-16
  4. Verified by User:Plok on 2023-01-08
  5. ANNO 1503 Multiplayer missing, page 1 - Forum - GOG.com - last accessed on 2023-01-08