I just invested in the brand new Macbook with the M2 MAX chip and will transition fully to the Apple eco system and sell my PC:s. How will this work with Articulate? Some older discussions raised concerns that it is problematic to get Storyline to function, but what is the 2023 status on this issue? Surely such an amazing and modern app suite like Articulate should work flawlessly on Mac...?
Thanks for asking about this! To use Storyline 360 on a Mac you will have to install a Windows virtual environment. As you've read, there are posts telling of issues getting Storyline to function in that environment. I've been using Storyline 360 with Parallels Desktop and my experience couldn't be better. I've had no issues.
Im curious to know how it goes for you. I know people are virtualizing and running it on an M1 mac, wondering if there is a performance increase with M2.
This program is the only reason I dont use a mac for work... yet...
John: Thanks, but I only see the M1 chip mentioned in that article, nothing about M2... I guess those are the hoops I eventually will have to jump through to get Storyline working, but I am disappointed that Articulate is not even considering making it easier for creators who use Mac (of which there are MANY)...
David: I have only just unboxed and installed a few apps on the M2 and I haven't experimented with Storyline yet... I just heard about the hassels and I am very frustrated by it... Having to install (and pay for) a Windows-license just to get one app functioning, is extremely annoying...
Davinci Resolve, the Adobe suite and Blender run smooth as butter on the M2 MAX, the performance actually gives me goosebumps... So it IS possible to update and optimize apps for Apple silicon...
The ability to run storyline fully depends on the ability for the Mac to emulate windows through parallels. Due to the M1 being an ARM based processor, it struggled a bit to emulate windows well enough to run storyline. People complained that storyline would get a little laggy and slow sometimes.
However, with the added power of the M2, I was wondering if there was a difference.
You can download and run windows in a virtual environment for free without a key, there are just some customization restrictions that are mostly cosmetic.
Someone explained it to me in another thread. Storyline is based on the .NET framework, and though there are newer versions of the .NET framework available for the Mac, the specific version that storyline is based on is not compatible and thus cant be upgraded to the new framework. They would have to completely remake the program.
If the version of the framework ever becomes legacy, they may have to upgrade to a version compatible with Mac, but I dont think that will happen soon.
David: As an update, I have spoken to our IT-guy and he says that there will be no problem to get Storyline working with Parallells, but I have turned grumpy over this since there is a yearly $200 fee for Parallells, and it just irritates the hell out of me... I gladly pay the yearly fee to Articulate, but this is beginning to be very irritating... I don't want to pay yearly for Parallells as well, just to get ONE app working... Have you tried Bootcamp, is that an alternative to Parallells...?
Bootcamp is not an option as the M2 is an ARM based machine and windows needs x86 to run natively. Does windows have an ARM based version? Yes, but it does not have any of the drivers needed to be compatible with apple silicon. Parallels is currently the only option, but is now a supported method by windows, which is a win?
There are open source virtualization programs currently working on developing the drivers needed for apple silicon. They are coming, it will just take time. I believe VM Ware is also working on supporting windows on apple silicon.
Any update on this - have you tried it yet? When I tried ona studio with the m1 max it “worked no problem” like the it guy says but the trigger panel was too annoyingly laggy to keep. Interested to see how you made out. macOS is so superior to windows, I don’t mind the parallels fee.
Steve: Since Bootcamp is not an option, I will bite the bullet and get Parallells next week. Been overloaded with work, but I will write an update here when I have tested it out...
Thanks. Please keep us updated. For what it's worth, I absolutely love using Parallels on the Mac. In 15 years, I've found only two things that won't work on Parallels - Cody Baby (an old avatar program) and games. Other than that, I love it and when I tried to go back to a Windows only machine I couldn't.
I have now used Parallells for two weeks and it works well. It is nice to have both Windows and MacOS available at the click of a button and not having to reboot like Boot Camp.
Concerning Storyline, I am pleased with the functionality, everything works the way it should. There is a weird trailing/shadowing effect when moving property windows around the interface, might be because of the 120 FPS Macbook screen, maybe?
Storyline feels sluggish, though, but the gigantic project I am working on was sluggish on my previous monster PC as well. It improved when I upped the dedicated RAM for Parallells from the default 8 to 32.
So Parallells is good and it is nice to be able to confirm the gut feeling that Mac is much snappier than Windows. I can now compare things by opt+tabbing between Mac and Windows and the difference is noticable.
Thanks for the update. Is there a lag when you open the trigger window? When I tested on a Studio M1 Max Pro, I could literally do a five-count before the window opened.
I wonder if the issue stems more from storyline being a 32 bit program on top of a 64 bit os in a virtual container. 32 bit architecture translation probably isn’t supported that well yet within parallels.
As a follow up to this discussion, Storyline had an update on June 20 that stated "Enhanced: The trigger wizard performs faster on M-series Macs." Likely they were able to optimize the code for the trigger wizard in a way that allowed the virtualization through parallels to run more efficiently.
Wondering if anyone could confirm their experience? Is it just a fast now as it was on a native windows PC? Or is it still slower, but better than it was?
It looks like there is a beta version of storyline that is now 64 bit (finally, after a decade of requests). I wonder if the 64 bit version is more compatible/has better stability with virtualization on the M-series macs.
19 Replies
Hi Kompetenslaget,
Thanks for asking about this! To use Storyline 360 on a Mac you will have to install a Windows virtual environment. As you've read, there are posts telling of issues getting Storyline to function in that environment. I've been using Storyline 360 with Parallels Desktop and my experience couldn't be better. I've had no issues.
Here's an article with more on using Articulate 360 on a Mac.
Im curious to know how it goes for you. I know people are virtualizing and running it on an M1 mac, wondering if there is a performance increase with M2.
This program is the only reason I dont use a mac for work... yet...
John: Thanks, but I only see the M1 chip mentioned in that article, nothing about M2... I guess those are the hoops I eventually will have to jump through to get Storyline working, but I am disappointed that Articulate is not even considering making it easier for creators who use Mac (of which there are MANY)...
David: I have only just unboxed and installed a few apps on the M2 and I haven't experimented with Storyline yet... I just heard about the hassels and I am very frustrated by it... Having to install (and pay for) a Windows-license just to get one app functioning, is extremely annoying...
Davinci Resolve, the Adobe suite and Blender run smooth as butter on the M2 MAX, the performance actually gives me goosebumps... So it IS possible to update and optimize apps for Apple silicon...
Feels like this thread could be a long one...
The ability to run storyline fully depends on the ability for the Mac to emulate windows through parallels. Due to the M1 being an ARM based processor, it struggled a bit to emulate windows well enough to run storyline. People complained that storyline would get a little laggy and slow sometimes.
However, with the added power of the M2, I was wondering if there was a difference.
You can download and run windows in a virtual environment for free without a key, there are just some customization restrictions that are mostly cosmetic.
Someone explained it to me in another thread. Storyline is based on the .NET framework, and though there are newer versions of the .NET framework available for the Mac, the specific version that storyline is based on is not compatible and thus cant be upgraded to the new framework. They would have to completely remake the program.
If the version of the framework ever becomes legacy, they may have to upgrade to a version compatible with Mac, but I dont think that will happen soon.
David: As an update, I have spoken to our IT-guy and he says that there will be no problem to get Storyline working with Parallells, but I have turned grumpy over this since there is a yearly $200 fee for Parallells, and it just irritates the hell out of me... I gladly pay the yearly fee to Articulate, but this is beginning to be very irritating... I don't want to pay yearly for Parallells as well, just to get ONE app working... Have you tried Bootcamp, is that an alternative to Parallells...?
Bootcamp is not an option as the M2 is an ARM based machine and windows needs x86 to run natively. Does windows have an ARM based version? Yes, but it does not have any of the drivers needed to be compatible with apple silicon. Parallels is currently the only option, but is now a supported method by windows, which is a win?
There are open source virtualization programs currently working on developing the drivers needed for apple silicon. They are coming, it will just take time. I believe VM Ware is also working on supporting windows on apple silicon.
Thanks for sharing the information with us.
Any update on this - have you tried it yet? When I tried ona studio with the m1 max it “worked no problem” like the it guy says but the trigger panel was too annoyingly laggy to keep. Interested to see how you made out. macOS is so superior to windows, I don’t mind the parallels fee.
David: Thanks for the info...
Steve: Since Bootcamp is not an option, I will bite the bullet and get Parallells next week. Been overloaded with work, but I will write an update here when I have tested it out...
Thanks. Please keep us updated. For what it's worth, I absolutely love using Parallels on the Mac. In 15 years, I've found only two things that won't work on Parallels - Cody Baby (an old avatar program) and games. Other than that, I love it and when I tried to go back to a Windows only machine I couldn't.
I have now used Parallells for two weeks and it works well. It is nice to have both Windows and MacOS available at the click of a button and not having to reboot like Boot Camp.
Concerning Storyline, I am pleased with the functionality, everything works the way it should. There is a weird trailing/shadowing effect when moving property windows around the interface, might be because of the 120 FPS Macbook screen, maybe?
Storyline feels sluggish, though, but the gigantic project I am working on was sluggish on my previous monster PC as well. It improved when I upped the dedicated RAM for Parallells from the default 8 to 32.
So Parallells is good and it is nice to be able to confirm the gut feeling that Mac is much snappier than Windows. I can now compare things by opt+tabbing between Mac and Windows and the difference is noticable.
Thanks for the update. Is there a lag when you open the trigger window? When I tested on a Studio M1 Max Pro, I could literally do a five-count before the window opened.
That is kind of laggy, when you mention it... I didn't notice since I always duplicate triggers anyway, and that works instantly...
Thumbs up.
Here's an article about using parallels with the M2 chip - getting ready to upgrade my mac desktop - just waiting for stability
I wonder if the issue stems more from storyline being a 32 bit program on top of a 64 bit os in a virtual container. 32 bit architecture translation probably isn’t supported that well yet within parallels.
As a follow up to this discussion, Storyline had an update on June 20 that stated "Enhanced: The trigger wizard performs faster on M-series Macs." Likely they were able to optimize the code for the trigger wizard in a way that allowed the virtualization through parallels to run more efficiently.
Wondering if anyone could confirm their experience? Is it just a fast now as it was on a native windows PC? Or is it still slower, but better than it was?
It looks like there is a beta version of storyline that is now 64 bit (finally, after a decade of requests). I wonder if the 64 bit version is more compatible/has better stability with virtualization on the M-series macs.