Anno 1503 works well for me on win 10 using catalyst 15.7.1 my set up is amd fx4300 processor using ati amd radeon r7 200 series with win 10 64 bit pro.

Finally got it running fairly well!

I just set compatibilty mode to Windows XP SP2, 16bit color depth, disable high dpi scaling and run as admin. Now it works in fullscreen like a charm :)

Good to hear :)

Support for 16-bit applications was dropped in the change to 64-bit versions of Windows, way before Windows 8.

Wait... do you mean 16-bit colour depth?

good to hear! so it was not an AMD issue after all. I'm not surprised. it rarely is.

You are right now that I think about it. Looks like I had it wrong in my memory. :/ Read about the exact issue with Windows 8 and very old games, but that was when Win 8 was release. So that's a while ago. Windows 7 runs fine, but Win 8 and 10 have that issue with older games. Sry for spreading misinformation. :S

/EDIT: I seached a bit and found it. I don't really think that's the reason Anno 1503 runs slow, but definitly for other games. Win 8 emulates Directdraw with pure CPU power instead of hardware. This means that old Directx games like Directx8.1 and earlier will run extremly slow unless ran in Software Mode (which often looks not as good). This includes games like Divine Divinity, M&M9 and Arx Fatalis etc.

I tried this but my game still lag as hell! Am i doin something wrong?

It should fix it.
What are your system specifications?

Intel core I7-4820K CPU 3,70 GHZ 3,70 GHZ
64 bits
8go RAM
NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 760
WINDOWS 10
Holy SHIT it works now! i entered the wrong directory srry

Glad to hear that :)

I have a Possible reasonable fix to run Anno 1503 on windows 10. Go to Regedit (look online if you need help), then double click on these folders as you find them
HKEY_CURRENT_USER, SOFTWARE, MICROSOFT, Windows NT, CurrentVersion, AppCompatFlags, then layers. Now look for Anno 1503 entry (hope you have one there cuz I don't know how to help there), now in the Data section for Anno 1503 put this case sensitive info DWM8And16BitMitigation HIGHDPIAWARE WIN98 RUNASADMIN, now run game in lowest display resolution 800x600?, the game will run at about 15-20FPS

I played Anno 1503 before the Win 10 update but only now went back to it only to experience the frame rate issue others have had. Found this thread and applied the registry fix previously posted and changed the properties posted by Lurtz: "...compatibilty mode to Windows XP SP2, 16bit color depth, disable high dpi scaling and run as admin..." After applying these changes everything worked perfectly. Tested it by playing through a tutorial -- I had no problems at all.

Not so fast...

For whatever idiot reason I pushed the Verify/Repair option in Galaxy, then restarted Windows. Windows decides to do a major update (took about an hour and half). I try the game again and everything is reverted, including the registry changes. Back to square one. Except for some reason, now I can't change the compatibility mode to Windows XP -- the option is greyed out and set at Windows 7. Also, the registry change and the properties I change such as Reduced Color Mode keep reverting.

EDIT: Well I figured out how to change compatibility mode now -- I have to go through "Change Setting for All Users" button, whereas I didn't have to before. Something must have changed with the Windows Update. Sadly, though, after I set everything to how it was when I got it working, it doesn't work anymore. So I give up for now unless another solution comes along.

I'm also having issues on Windows 10 using an AMD graphics card. The game launches and I get into the game menu, but trying to start a mission results in a crash. It might be related to the latest Windows 10 update, but I also switched from a Nvidia to an AMD card, so maybe it's related to driver issues. Changing compatibility settings or reinstalling doesn't resolve the problem, so for me it is at the moment unplayable.

Okay, so here is a small update:

Installing DGVoodoo2 as described here resolves the crash issue:
play-old-pc-games.com/compatibility-tools/dgvoodoo-tutorial/

However, in case you want to use GPU scaling (AMD user here) by leaving the scaling mode option as suggested at 'unspecified', it will not work. And once you specify it, the mouse is offset.

Interestingly enough though, once you tick the 'disable-and-passthru-to-real-DirectX'-option, the game is properly scaled and doesn't crash. But now it severely lags. So maybe anyone of GOG support can find a fix for that?

After updating the AMD graphics driver, the game runs stable again (even when using GPU scaling), although a bit laggy. So DGVoodoo2 is not necessarily needed anymore.