topic Re: A better way to multitask? in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

A better way to multitask?

TimelesslyTiredYouth — Sat, 11 Jan 2025 20:18:03 GMT

Right on a daily/weekyl basis, I end up working on multiple desings/studies on F360, I usually doing this by having two seperate Fusions on two seperate moniters, and OBS recorder on third as I need to record a lot of the things I do. Is there a more efficient way to do this with Fusion, like dragging tabs or something along the lines of that, an extension, plug in? because it's really unefficient for memory having two copies of everything and GPU as well. I need a way to multi-task two Fusion projects at once, seperate screens, while not having two Fusions open because my my laptop barely holds on to OBS and two fusion working at the same time with browser in backround...

Is there any prospect of The DEI team or Fusion engineers adding a function where you can drag tabs and make a new "window" for a second design, without duplicating everything.

Cordialement

Ricky

Re: A better way to multitask?

TrippyLighting — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 19:06:38 GMT

@TimelesslyTiredYouth wrote:

... I usually doing this by having two seperate Fusions on two seperate moniters....

Running two instances of Fusion concurrently is not recommended!

Re: A better way to multitask?

TimelesslyTiredYouth — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 18:58:44 GMT

@TrippyLighting wrote:
@TimelesslyTiredYouth wrote:
... I usually doing this by having two seperate Fusions on two seperate moniters....
Running two instances of Fusion concurrently is not recommended!

Any better ideas, because I'm internally dying, as my life wastes away waiting for an extrude to extrude, 10 second of loading... While that doesn't seem like much short term, long term it really drives you insane...

Sleepy Regard

Ricky

Re: A better way to multitask?

tookemtoni — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 06:00:42 GMT

Buy an additional computer and fusion license and collaborate with yourself. It sounds ridiculous but I've considered it.

Additionally, If you grow your business or need a help you can grant access to this account.

Fusion regularly has discount promotions. See here: https://www.autodesk.com/promotions

Re: A better way to multitask?

TimelesslyTiredYouth — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 07:08:37 GMT

Right, I already have another computer, but I never considered using it for F360, Is a microsoft surface 5 laptop okay? I already have a paid lisence, and an edu lisence, How can I use both of them to work on the same project at the same time, are you suggesting teams, because if you are can you explain further? because I never really understood Fusion Teams and working on one design with 2 people. or two laptops in my case. Also because I'm making money from designing on my edu account if I do this as usually I used my pay account as I just started +£1000 of a small side hustle selling components that I designed and printed for sellers. Since my pay account allows me to sell commercially , ect... if I use edu account with this, will I breach the terms of conditions as the edu account will be "technically making more than the allowed amount, but then i have the pay account also working on that design, I just want to make sure I do this properly so i don't end up stuck in some weird loophole or breech something for me to get in serious trouble.

Sorry for the Inconvenience but I'm younger thank you probably think I am and am not entirely experienced in this sort of field

Re: A better way to multitask?

tookemtoni — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 07:26:02 GMT

Search for your questions in this forum. The answers are there.

Re: A better way to multitask?

TrippyLighting — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 11:23:34 GMT

@TimelesslyTiredYouth wrote:

@TrippyLighting wrote:

@TimelesslyTiredYouth wrote:

... I usually doing this by having two seperate Fusions on two seperate moniters....

Running two instances of Fusion concurrently is not recommended!

Any better ideas, because I'm internally dying, as my life wastes away waiting for an extrude to extrude, 10 second of loading... While that doesn't seem like much short term, long term it really drives you insane...

Sleepy Regard

Ricky

You posted a screencast a while ago and from what I could see, your Fusion installation runs absolutely dead slow.

I very rarely have to wait 10 seconds for anything in Fusion. The only modeling features that can take that long, and only when the underlying geometry is not OK, are shelling and thickening.

My guess is you need a better computer!

For modeling, single-threaded performance is key.

The machine should have at least 16 GB of RAM. A dedicated Graphics card with 4GB memory is a good investment, although some integrated graphics work OK for smaller projects.

Re: A better way to multitask?

bwalker145 — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 13:39:43 GMT

I open/edit a lot of projects on my poor admin desktop (i5-6500T, 16GB RAM, integrated graphics) out of convenience, and it honestly handles Fusion way better that I would have expected. Definitely starts to struggle with the larger assemblies or complex geometry though.

Re: A better way to multitask?

TimelesslyTiredYouth — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 13:59:26 GMT

OBS and Blender was also open at the same time...

But yeh I see your point.

*And I constantly have a lot of stuff open in the backround

Re: A better way to multitask?

TheCADWhisperer — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 13:58:47 GMT

@TimelesslyTiredYouth wrote:

Any better ideas, because I'm internally dying, as my life wastes away waiting for an extrude to extrude,...

@TimelesslyTiredYouth

Can you Attach and example file that exhibits this slow behavior with Extrude?

The reason I ask is because over the years probably 95% of the time when someone posts here about slow extrusion, the problem turns out NOT to be their hardware but rather a classic mistake in modeling technique.

Re: A better way to multitask?

TheCADWhisperer — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 15:40:20 GMT

@TimelesslyTiredYouth

If your existing file that exhibits this behavior is proprietary - then simply make up a dummy file that exhibits the same behavior and Attach it here for diagnosis.

Re: A better way to multitask?

TheCADWhisperer — Sat, 25 Jan 2025 20:52:07 GMT

@TimelesslyTiredYouth

Where did you go?

Re: A better way to multitask?

TimelesslyTiredYouth — Sun, 26 Jan 2025 13:15:03 GMT

No, no I'm still alive. Wandering the web as usual. Can't spend all my life with CAD unfortunately, I will give a screencast, as a PC I ordered on boxing day just arrived, so I'm setting everything up. (Answering on phone if anyone's wondering), however if my extrude decides to work better, now that I will have a better CPU, RAM and everything in general. I will leave it at that as with exception to my reckless use of surface tools, my workflow (in my opinion) is on the right track.

Re: A better way to multitask?

TheCADWhisperer — Sun, 26 Jan 2025 20:07:28 GMT

@TimelesslyTiredYouth wrote:
Can't spend all my life with CAD unfortunately...

Why not? That is what we do here.

Re: A better way to multitask?

TimelesslyTiredYouth — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 07:03:25 GMT

@TheCADWhisperer wrote:
@TimelesslyTiredYouth wrote:
Can't spend all my life with CAD unfortunately...
Why not? That is what we do here.

Because I have a job, I have education, I have to do all the boring stuff you did when you were younger so I can get to a stage where I can just spend my whole life on CAD being able to support myself, your a lucky guy, got a CAD job, and you can spend life doing what you want to do, I still have quite a jouney and a lot of hard work before I can get there sadly...

Re: A better way to multitask?

F_M_1234 — Thu, 07 May 2026 11:04:44 GMT

One of the worst answers on a forum you could possible give. Tookemtoni you should be ashamed, why would you even bother to comment?

Necro-ing this thread as well, because it appears Fusion 360 has still not added this functionality to use the same instance across two screens, or tabs.

Re: A better way to multitask?

TimelesslyTiredYouth — Thu, 07 May 2026 17:29:57 GMT

@F_M_1234 , there’s nothing wrong with what @tookemtoni said. Ignoring the fact that we lost a lot of old threads during “the purge,” many of the answers people are looking for already exist on this forum.

Wow, it’s been a long time since I originally wrote this post.

Since then, I’ve had a lot more experience with Fusion and the whole “dual screen / multiple instance” discussion.

Personally, I don’t see Fusion 360 ever getting proper multi-screen functionality.

A few reasons why:

I think Autodesk would see it as pushing Fusion a little too close to Inventor’s territory if it supported fully integrated multi-window workflows across multiple displays.
Fusion already has a huge amount of functionality packed into it — CAD, electronics, rendering, simulation, etc. Supporting seamless multi-window behavior across every workspace would probably be a massive development effort and could introduce a lot of instability or performance issues.
Realistically, most modern systems can already handle running two separate Fusion instances. Anything from around 2022 onward with an i5 / Core 5 / Ryzen 5 or better should generally be capable of it.

I’ve used Fusion on several systems over the years — currently a Mac Mini M4, a Threadripper + RTX 4070 desktop , and even an older laptop with a 3rd gen i5. All of them can run two Fusion windows at once. The older laptop struggles with larger files, but it still works.

So unless you’re expecting live interaction between the two instances (like dragging components directly between them), opening two sessions already solves most use cases. Exporting/importing components is still an option when needed.

Which brings me to the main point: I’m not really sure why this thread needed reviving... This discussion ended a long while ago, if you want to complaint, go to the idea station or become an insider and give feedback to try and push for multiple window instances.

Ricky