The Anno 1800 is without a doubt the most beautiful of all previous Anno pieces. In turn, it requires a lot of performance at the highest graphics details. That’s why we compare low, high, and ultra-high levels of detail in the video and show how they differ visually and in performance.
The video is available in 4K UHD at Candyland on YouTube.
We played with native 2160p resolution and V-Sync disabled for performance measurement. We only used the default presets »low«, »high« and »ultra-high« for the comparison scenes. There are five predefined presets: “low”, “medium”, “high”, “very high” and “ultra high”. However, the graphic option »phone factor« did not change when the preset was changed. We adjust this manually according to the preset. The »running factor« determines the population density on the streets.
There is another pitfall that is not trivial, especially when playing at 4K resolution: as the preset increases, the anti-aliasing increases from “low” to “off” to “ultra-high” to “8x”. We’re assuming it’s MSAA, so warning: performance shown includes 8x MSAA for “ultra high” at 4K resolution completely unnecessary is is. That’s why in the video we also show the difference of turning off anti-aliasing with otherwise ultra-high graphics: the performance savings are large, while the edge flicker is kept within limits. That’s why we recommend a maximum of 4x MSAA for 4K resolution.
Anno 1800: benchmarks, graphics comparison and recommended settings
Conclusion: The Anno 1800 looks really cool. If there is less performance, you can safely set the graphics to the “high” preset. The differences between “ultra-high” are small and only noticeable in direct comparison. Power saver is on.
Candyland Test System:
ONE Gaming PC Ultimate Ultra Customized
AMD Ryzen 2700X 8×3.70 GHz
32GB DDR4 3200 RAM
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 GamingPro OC
ASUS TUF X470-PLUS Gaming Board
1TB Samsung 970 Evo M.2 PCI SSD
YouTube, Facebook and Candyland excitement.