Ableton Forum

There have been some posts with users not being happy about how well their high resolution displays — which arguably begins at 1440 pixels and higher depending on size — look and work when using Live. I thought it'd be a good idea if users could share links to screen dumps and indicate in the poll where they have issues with high res and Live.

Why? Well, it's hard to fully understand a problem someone else is seeing and a screen dump that you open full screen in your fav image viewer would give you some indication how the problem looks for the person sharing the image.

1.
Please make a full screen dump of your high res screen in your most usable resolution and zoom and post it at a place like imgur (No signup necessary) and share a link to the image.

Please post only a link with the URL tool (above in the reply window) or just paste the link and don't insert the image inline here with the IMG tool as high res pictures will be far too big to view here in the forum for users without a high res display such as yours. Which will make it hard to evaluate your screen dump. Please avoid that.

Screen dumps can instead be shown as a picture in the browser or in an image viewer application and can give an indication of the relative sizes of GUI elements (absolute size are harder to go after).

2.Please also share your OS and version, display size and resolution, Zoom level in Live and what font settings you use in your OS, like active anti-aliasing, cleartype and so on.

3.
Share also how happy you are using Live with this resolution and feel free to share any resolution related insights you might have arrived at.

Keep posts concise, please! No emotional outbursts either. Info!

4. Answer the poll if you use a vertical resolution of above 1.440 pixels.

Thanks for sharing your high res experience!

Great post.

No pics (house caught fire a few days ago...ugh, emotional outburst).

OSX 10.12.4
Dual monitor, 4K Resolution
Zoom 100%, clear type and smoothing on

Very happy with Live, scales perfectly, as do plugins. All non-Ableton programs scale perfectly.

Res insight: on MacOS, display res is set to "default for display" and not "scaled."

This test will not work
resolution is relative. This is why SOME people say "it looks fine on my 4k (40 inch monitor)". 4k on a 40 inch is very different than 4k on a 13 inch.

People viewing the output images on larger 4k monitors will not see the same problems as those on a 13inch 4k monitor because the 4k pixels cover a wider area.
imagine an elastic grid covering a 13inch screen, it has 3200 dots horizontally, now stretch that elastic to cover a 40 inch screen, it still has 3200 dots horizontally but they are now >300% further apart making the same image appear 300% larger.

To see what I am seeing you must scale the screen grab images down so that it measures 13" across.
If you have a 4k monitor > than 13 inches you will not see what I am seeing. The image will appear perfectly fine
this test is meaningless.

nevertheless. Here are two grabs. mainly to prove my point.
1st, "scaling off" 100% ableton zoom
http://i.imgur.com/5LzhxZN.png

2nd, scaling on 100% ableton zoom
http://i.imgur.com/oNZG6ue.png

Win10, 3200 x 1800


I repeat: IT IS ESSENTIAL WHEN VIEWING THESE IMAGES THAT YOU SCALE THEM SO THAT THE DIAGONAL IS 13.3 INCHES

Angstrom wrote:This test will not work
resolution is relative.

1. It's not a test.
2. We know. It's about relative sizes. As there are no 28" 4k display emulators, that's the best we can do to get a feel for the problem.

Even if you don't get the same view size as someone else, you get the relative size differences which you can use to compare to your own display size. There's no way to get an absolute size experience, but hopefully enough to to get a feel fr the problem.

I feel this issue is important to address. It's hard to really understand the scope of it without the exact same experience and no 4k Windows machine, but I'd like to try.

Angstrom wrote:
2nd, scaling on 100% ableton zoom
http://i.imgur.com/oNZG6ue.png

Win10, 3200 x 1800

I repeat: IT IS ESSENTIAL WHEN VIEWING THESE IMAGES THAT YOU SCALE THEM SO THAT THE DIAGONAL IS 13.3 INCHES

Thanks for sharing Angstrom.

How does the scaled image work out for you on your 13.3" display? Is there anything except the fonts not being updated and therefore being blurry. Are there no OS settings that affect how these fonts look also in Live?

Have you seen other scaled apps that look much better with fonts when compared to Live?

Shift Gorden wrote:Great post.

No pics (house caught fire a few days ago...ugh, emotional outburst).

OSX 10.12.4
Dual monitor, 4K Resolution
Zoom 100%, clear type and smoothing on

Very happy with Live, scales perfectly, as do plugins. All non-Ableton programs scale perfectly.

Res insight: on MacOS, display res is set to "default for display" and not "scaled."

Damn, what a misfortune. I hope you bounce back soon.

What do you mean "cleartype" specifically?

Stromkraft wrote:

Shift Gorden wrote:Great post.

No pics (house caught fire a few days ago...ugh, emotional outburst).

OSX 10.12.4
Dual monitor, 4K Resolution
Zoom 100%, clear type and smoothing on

Very happy with Live, scales perfectly, as do plugins. All non-Ableton programs scale perfectly.

Res insight: on MacOS, display res is set to "default for display" and not "scaled."

Damn, what a misfortune. I hope you bounce back soon.

What do you mean "cleartype" specifically?

Thanks mate.

I think I mis-spoke. I think I meant font smoothing - I changed something in terminal to make fonts appear smoother on my regular work monitor - I don't think this applies to the 4K output since the output is retina-display-esque.

Stromkraft wrote:1.
Please make a full screen dump of your high res screen in your most usable resolution

Here's finally my screen dump from the only high res machine I use from time to time:
https://i.imgur.com/9PV6EAf.png

Stromkraft wrote:2.Please also share your OS and version, display size and resolution, Zoom level in Live and what font settings you use in your OS, like active anti-aliasing, cleartype and so on.

macOS 10.12, Live 9.7.1, 15" display with 2880 x 1800 pixels (144 dpi). Zoom level is 100%. LCD font aliasing is on.

Stromkraft wrote:3.
Share also how happy you are using Live with this resolution and feel free to share any resolution related insights you might have arrived at.

I feel this works perfectly, but I increase zoom level if further away from the display as is often common in the studio. The high resolution makes it easier for me to use the lower zoom levels than on my non-retina resolution display equipped machines.

Okay so some time ago I made a full blog post about 4K in Ableton, how to set it up and how it feels.

Warmonger wrote:Okay so some time ago I made a full blog post about 4K in Ableton, how to set it up and how it feels.

I welcome your blog post, that certainly deserves its own discussion here in the forums and not only in this discussion. Especially as this one is about sharing full screen dumps, so that also people without high res displays, or with other resolution high res displays, can get some understanding about how Live looks for other people under other circumstances.

antic604 wrote:I'm a fresh owner of Surface Pro 4 (2736 x 1824 at 267 PPI).
I have Win10 scaling set at suggested 200%.
I have WIn10 scaling disabled for Live.
I have Live zoomed in at 160%, all is nicely readable and sharp.

I have two issues:
1) At 170% zoom and higher, parts of Live go out of screen especially if I use full-screen mode; but 160% is fine, so not an issue
2) The Options menu (Ctrl+,) somehow doesn't scale like the rest of Live, i.e. remains very tiny - good thing I know what's where...(

I'm on Mac myself.
Please share some screen dump links as well. Imgur is one place to post quickly without an account.

https://i.imgur.com/1GLrlMr.png

Windows 8.1 Pro
27" 1440p (2560x1440)
100% zoom level
Default font settings for my OS

Live works perfectly. The only insight I had was that 1440p is amazing, 4k is overkill, and 1080p feels constraining.

I used to use another 1440p, as well as a 4k monitor. The 4k was overkill, and just made it harder to see things.