Background:

Ultra-high resolution displays, resolutions above Full HD (1080p) such as 4K, have risen in availability and affordability. New laptops are being manufactured with these displays as well. Due to the increased resolution certain elements of the User Interface appear smaller to offset this a feature within Windows is used. This is known as Display Scaling.

The goal of this feature is to keep the sharpness and quality of the high resolution display but enlarge elements of the interface. The drawback of this is that an application must be built with this in consideration leading to issues with scaling older Windows Applications.

Common issues are Text is to large, icons remaining small.

Windows 10

Windows 10 offers improved handling and more flexibility regarding text scaling and multiple monitor resolutions, particularly from the Creators Update onwards. Various combinations can be chosen from the Windows 10 Display Settings dialog:

In General:

Disable display scaling for older versions of MicroStation by:

1. Right click on the MicroStation shortcut

   

2. Go to the Compatibility tab and enable the “disable display scaling on high DPI settings” option

   
   
   In Windows 10 this dialog has changed slightly, if you would prefer to make MicroStation ignore Windows display scaling tick the Override box and select 'Application'.:
   
   
   
   Picking the option: Disable Fullscreen Optimizations are also known to have helped some users that had issues with the crosshair not properly displaying.

Set MicroStation to use the delivered large icons:

1. For Toolboxes

   

2. For Tasks Dialog

   

Increase the Dialog Font:

1. In preferences dialog

   

Lower the resolution of the Display

1. Through windows adjust the resolution so items become larger. This could lead to lower picture quality and should only be used as a last resort as this affects all programs on the machine.

   

Note that for some changes to take effect you may have to minimize or even restart MicroStation.