Fusion only using 1 core?

[MTregz]

Hi there,

There seems to have been substantial performance hit over the last update or 2.

When re-calculating a model, joining a component to another or anything really that require calculations the CPU seems to only be using 1 core at 100% while the other cores don't do anything.

Using Windows 10, as of this post fusion is completely upto date. I have reinstalled the program a couple of times but am still encountering this issue.

System is quite new:

CPU: Ryzen 2700

GPU: Quadro P620

Anything that could help would be greatly appreciated.

As far as we can tell this is a Windows 10 specific issue. Mac seems to be utilizing all 4 cores, same with our windows 7 machine.

[lichtzeichenanlage]

Depending of what you're doing Fusion 360 only uses one core. Some design operations do scale across cores. Rendering for example uses all cores. 

This is not an operating system thing (even if some OSs do better than others) but breaking up and distribute work is not an easy task. 

[Beyondforce]

Hi @MTregz ,

Please create a screencast with the issue and attach the file so we can test it on our computer.

Cheers / Ben
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[algor_neil]

If you know of any CAD system that uses multicore for basic modelling operations please let me know, I've yet to come across one. Rendering and FEA solves yes, but basic modelling no.

[Beyondforce]

Hi @MTregz ,

There are a few more things you can check:

1. Check your Power Plan = Power Saver, Balanced or High Performance.
   Try to change to Balanced or High Performance and see if it helps.
2. You need to check if you have any Core Parking. Download Quick CPU and look at this:

Let us know if it helps!

Cheers / Ben.

[MTregz]

Due to company policy I can't upload any files but this is a recording of an example.

This is showing opening file and 'get latest parts' updates seem to mostly be utilizing 1 core with blips of multi core usage.

I've set up 2 videos captured from my phone since screen capture software uses multicore cpu workload so I wouldn't have been able to produce what I'm seeing. Exact same file opened and same 'get lastest' update too. While yes there is a speed difference due to difference in pc's being used it's more to show that windows 7 isn't having the issue that our windows 10 machine seems to be having.

It's easier to see if you go to the end of each video and line up the core utilization. Should be able to see the windows 7/Intel system utilizing it's cores quite a bit better than the Windows 10/Ryzen System.

I can't seem to attach the recording to the post but this is a link a zip with both;

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1i0BJzcIFZloNkIcETXXDBOW7inTAB7xh

[MTregz]

Thanks for the suggestion!

Our system is already on High Performance power plan and parking cores doesn't seem to be the issue.

[Beyondforce]

@MTregz,
Will it be possible to share the file with me? I would like to test it on my machine.
Do you know how many components this assembly has?

[TrippyLighting]

Creation and manipulation of geometry in any CAD system are handled by the geometric modeling kernel.

The development of most of those that are in current uses in mainstream CAD software such as ACIS, ASM , Parasolid goes back to times when multicore CPUs and hyperthreading were not invented yet. That is one reason that the modeling aspects in CAD systems are not using such abilities.

The predominant reason is, however, that the math behind 3D BRep and NURBS geometry does not lend itself easily to parallelization.

On the other hand, rendering in Fusion 360 utilizes all cores.

[RogerMollon]

Portions of several ASM operations are multi-threaded; e.g. Boolean, Shell, Thicken, Mass Properties, Hidden Line Removal, Interference Detection, Faceting, and Healing.  So you should see short bursts of multi-core activity; the more complex the model (e.g. as in number of faces), the longer the bursts will be, but remember that Fusion 360 modeling operations also involve a lot of computation outside to the modeling kernel to define and manage feature and history information, references, data management, etc.  Saving and restoring files requires little to no modeling, so the kernel can't help there.  

[TrippyLighting]

@RogerMollon  Thanks for the info. I have indeed observed that!

This topic comes up fairly regularly, particularly with Fusion 360 as it attracts so many people without experience in CAD.

A blog post sharing some more detail and history that one can reference to address these users concerns would indeed be very nice.

@brianrepp is that something you guys would consider ? 

[Beyondforce]

@brianrepp,
@TrippyLighting, this is a great idea!
I would also like to add, this blog post should be in a simple language as possible so most people will be able to understand it and also to avoid misinterpretations.

Cheers / Ben.

[MTregz]

@RogerMollon Thanks for the explanation

@TrippyLighting Thanks for your explanation too. The only other experience I've had in the CAD world is BricsCAD so I can't say I fully understand the behind the scenes work. I simply saw that Win7 and Mac was handling the Multi-core aspect a lot better so thought there might've been a bug or issue with the Win10 Variant.

@Beyondforce I'll have a talk to the higher ups about it. It's a general rule that we can't share our files outside work.

The component count is definitely in the 100's

On a side note, could anybody point towards what spec system would handle fusion the best? or perhaps a method to help the program run better with large assemblies?

As components/assemblies are added to our already large assemblies it's taking longer and longer to process.

[Beyondforce]

@MTregz,
This is understandable! Luckily, I have a better idea:

1. Go to https://tesreg.com, and create an account.
2. Do the Fusion 360 test (on both computers) and register the results. - The testing doesn't take that long!
   The test file is an assembly file with 500 components, so it's closed to your file.
3. As soon as you are done, please contact me and I'll check your results to see if your computer performance is normal to your hardware configuration or not. I'll also show how I'm doing that as well.
4. Depends on the results, we will talk about what is/could be the reason/s for the pure performance and what you could do to improve the performance.

If you have any question, don't hesitate to contact me.

Cheers / Ben
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[brianrepp]

@TrippyLighting - not ignoring you :-). I did reach out to Roger and a few others internally to see about doing some kind of a blog post or knowledge article on the topic.

[TrippyLighting]

No worries! And Thanks!

[Beyondforce]

Hey @brianrepp,

Have you heard anything from your backend about creating a Fusion 360 vs Hardware post?

[brianrepp]

Hey @Beyondforce  - while I know an article like this will be useful, unfortunately it's a bit lower priority at the moment, as the individuals who would have enough expertise to author such a document are spread thin on other projects.

[MTregz]

@brianreppI can understand being spread thin but perhaps it's something that should be looked at with greater consideration? users without the expertise in knowing what to buy or how to get the most out of your software aren't going to have a great experience using the software if they are having performance issues without knowing why or how to really fix it. The number of people such a document could help is only limited by the number of users using Fusion 360.

[Beyondforce]

Hi @brianrepp,
Of course, I understand creating a full article can take a bit of time. It doesn't have to be a full-page detailed article. Few statements would go a long way e.g.

[Modeling (Sketch, Solid features) and Render]:
"Fusion 360 current version not optimized for hyperthreaded CPU"
"Some commands only use one core CPU, such as...."
"The render engine is among the few elements that use all CPU cores"
"CPU speed (GHz) in general has more effect on performance than the number of cores"

[Simulation and Manufacture]:
Few statements as above...

The above statements together with the Hardware Benchmark table I created would help a lot of people 🙂

Thanks Brian.