Storyline 3 with 4k Screen Resolution

Apr 11, 2017

Can anyone tell me if Storyline 3 is compatible with 4k high definition resolution? I know Storyline 2 was not compatible.  

22 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Ammon,

The system requirements are below for both:

Are you running into any odd behavior with either tool, or looking at upgrading? Our Success team would be happy to help you with any questions about the benefits of upgrading! 

Joseph Fotos

I would also like to know specifically if there is multicore/multithreaded support. I will be building a new PC soon, and whether the program is locked into single-threaded processing or if it takes advantage of multiple threads will greatly influence my processor purchase (AMD Ryzen is better at multithreaded processing now, Intel still better at single thread speeds). 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Joseph,

Thanks for checking in. 

Storyline (versions 2, 3 and 360) is a 32-bit application.  More specifically:

  • It is Large-Address Aware, which means that it can access up to 4 GB RAM rather than the default limit of 2 GB for a 32-bit process.
  • It does not explicitly take advantage of multiple processor cores at this time, although we continue to focus on performance improvements for future updates.

If you've run into an issue with authoring, publishing or viewing the Storyline courses, our team is happy to take a look! Share a copy of your .story file with our Support Engineers here. 

Peter Moore

I've also just bought a 4K monitor and am using storyline 360.  With the screen scaling set to 100%, the storyline UI does render sharp and crisp.  The issue though, is that at 100% on a 4K monitor.. the size of UI elements and fonts are very much smaller and somewhat difficult to view comfortably or accurately edit.  So I want to set the scale to 125% or maybe 150% to make things a little easier to work with, and that's where things start to go 'off' for storyline.  The UI sharpness degrades like a slightly over compressed .jpg might start to look.

Other apps on my system have no problem adjusting to the scaling settings - The firefox browser I'm using, MS Office apps...even tools from much smaller suppliers like the mind mapping tool iThoughts that I know is developed by a single individual, and the video compressor Handbrake.  They scale and render their interfaces sharply no matter the windows scaling setting.

Something else that happens in storyline, is the size the various mouse pointers display at:

1. The standard WIndows arrow pointer - no problem - this adopts the system setting size throughout SL - including when scaling is adjusted.

2. The other mouse pointers all display at an almost unusably small scale. Even when the UI is scaled to100% - these pointers are still disproportionately small.  

- The Hand Pointer. The one that displays when you roll over a thumbnail in the story view window.
- The pointer with the arrow and + sign used to select an object like a text box or shape.
- The left/right resizing bar that appears when you hover over a timeline item to grab and resize it from the left or right edge.

I have tried adjusting the windows settings relating to mouse pointers but SL seems to ignore all except the standard arrow.

Why is it that SL doesn't respond to WIndows UI scaling settings like other apps?  Or is there another setting I should be looking for?

 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Robert and Peter,

I'm sorry this is causing you both such trouble. With earlier versions of Storyline it was not high-DPI aware and was not letting Windows scale it as such. We implemented a fix for this in Storyline 3 and Storyline 360, so that you can work at a different DPI/resolution than 100%, but it does change the crispness of the Storyline interface.  That's something our team is still keeping on their radar. 

We've also reported the issue with the odd mouse cursor sizing. Can you let me know what Windows version you're both using so that I can share with my team?

I've seen a few folks here in ELH share that they've been able to log out/back into the Windows profile (without shutting down the computer) and it resets the mouse pointer to the correct size. Could you give that a try and let us know how it behaves?

Let me know if I can help with anything else! 

Mary Ann Nazzaro

Hi Ashley. I hope the developers at Articulate can solve this problem once and for all. I just set up a 4K monitor and as others are reporting it's frustrating that Storyline 360 renders blurry in anything other than 100% when every other program from Microsoft to web browsers render beautifully. I suspect there will be more and more end users switching to 4K laptops and external monitors. If you need a beta tester as they try to resolve this please let me know.

 

Katie Riggio

Hi, Perry. Sorry you've come across this roadblock!

We're still investigating this oddity, so I appreciate you sharing your settings with us. I'm going to attach them in our report and will keep this discussion posted on any new insight.

In the meantime, sorry to hear that these steps did not help reset the cursor's size. We're happy to take a closer look at your setup to explore other options if you'd like! You can reach out to our Support team here.

Perry B

Thanks for those links with other potential solutions. I tried them all with no luck but finally conceded and switched back to a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080 at 100% scaling, which is pretty standard. 

My 4k laptop screen (dell 9570) was at 3840 x 2160 with 200% scaling and was causing the cursors to be really small. 

The difference between the 2 resolutions is negligible, as I still get the same amount of screen real estate in Storyline 3 with either resolution. It would be nice to eventually take advantage of the 4k screen though.

EDIT: One thing I noticed while tinkering around, is on the options tab of the Storyline properties when right-clicking on the application icon. It has the option of selecting cursors to be small, medium, or large. I couldn't apply this change however, because the path couldn't be found in Windows 10. Just a thought. 

Thanks!

Orgadata AG

Use the following solution:
Open the Shortcut and do a right click. Open the properties, now click on the tab "Compatibility" and choose below the button "change high DPI-properties" (i use a german windows, maybe it looks different on you screen) and below you can change he scale of the DPI to "System".

should work ;-)

Mamie Patterson

After 2 years, I'm giving this some love. This answer resolved my issue recently. Generally I work with a setup with multiple (huge) monitors, but I'm traveling and was trying to work on my laptop. I thought I had a vision problem until I realized Storyline was the only application having an issue with resolution at 1920 x 1080, 125%.  Thanks!