Fusion 360 & 4k Monitors- If you use a 4K monitor please provide feedback!

[SGL-Design]

I'm looking at getting a new workstation and have the option to upgrade to a 4K screen (3840x2160).  I have read several posts from 6-12 months from people who had issues running fusion in 4K.  Does anyone here run a 4k monitor and if so what has your experience?  Has the Fusion 360 team addressed 4K screens at all in their development process? 

Its certainly possible that this is a non issue and has already been resolved, especially since I can't find much recent info on it.  

Thanks for your feedback!

[Anonymous]

I would avoid running Windows on high dpi screen. I have a Yoga 2 Pro with a resolution of 3200 x 1800 and have problems with anything made by Autodesk, Adobe, or National Instruments. Most of the problems can be fixed by using a manifest file as described here: 

http://www.danantonielli.com/adobe-app-scaling-on-high-dpi-displays-fix/ 

After 2 years of dealing with it, it seems clear to me that Microsoft and the software makers aren't interested in fixing the situation.

[SGL-Design]

Does the Fusion 360 team have any feedback on this? I have searched but not found anything official that speaks about 4K monitors.  (Either current support or future)

[schneik-adsk]

We have been chasing this problem for some time and have very recently had some progress. We understand what is going wrong and what needs to be done to fix it and have even been able to confirm on high dpi devices that it is working as expected. Unfortunately getting this into an update ( expected Windows behaviors are not working as expected ) has been problematic and we are in the last mile of debugging.  We are close but as of yet I can't confirm when.

[SGL-Design]

Cool, I'm just glad to hear that progress is being made and that it is on the radar.

[Anonymous]

I too just switched to a UHD (3840x2160) setup from an aging dual Dell 2408 setup. Using Windows 10 x64. The workspace rendering, especially of text is terrible. It is not a case of being too small to see as it is a tack sharp LG panel 43" monitor (not a TV). All programs that allow Windows to scale the screen, even though there is no scaling being done, has text that is sharp and readable. All applications, including Fusion 360 that do their own text scaling is fuzzy. Has this been addressed at all?

Everything else appears to be fine.

[SGL-Design]

Sorry to hear you had issues.  I purchased a new windows 10 laptop with a UHD disply and chose to return it rather than deal with the terrible windows 10/fusion 360 scaling issues. Aside from basic office use and web browsing Fusion is the only software I run. Most high end laptops these days have high DPI monitors, it so frustrating that this issue persists with no solid answer or timeline from Autodesk. 

I ended up purchasing a mac, no scaling issues at all on its retina display. 

[Anonymous]

Solved, even though I went into the nvidia control panel and specifically turned off screen scaling, Windows 10 had it's own scaling on by default and set to 150%, Since this is a 43" IPS panel only 30 inches away I didn't need any scaling at all. SO now that it is off in Windows also, everything is peachy.

[Oceanconcepts]

Same here- no issues with the 5120 x 2880 display on a 27" iMac. 

[pbreed]

Fusion is almost unusable on a 4K monitor.

Works fine at other resolutions...

[scottmoyse]

Man oh man, it looks shocking!! Tiny icons, overlapping text. The browser is stacking on top of itself. Lenovo P50 on Windows 10.

[Anonymous]

If you are not using a very large monitor you have to use Windows scaling. In Windows 10 the default scaling factor is 150% if you try to use 4K resolution. Even 150% may not be enough and as far as I can recall Fusion 360 does not use windows scaling very well or at all (kind of like Google Chrome using it's own scaling rather than Windows). On a 40 inch or bigger, if that fits on your desk, Fusion 360 is fine and very workable. Also don't try dual monitors if one is 4K and the other isn't, Windows 10 monitor scaling is broken in that scenario and you will have tons of problems when coming out of sleep mode.

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@pbreed wrote:

Fusion is almost unusable on a 4K monitor.

Works fine at other resolutions...

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I have a single 43" 4K monitor on my desk and Windows is set to 100% scaling rather than the default 150%. Everything in Fusion 360 appears as if it were on a 21-22" 1080 monitor with regard to icon size and text size, what is important for these non-Windows display scaling apps is that your DPI be kept in a reasonable range anything around 100-110 DPI will allow you to run Windows with no scaling and not suffer from tiny icons or tiny text.

To be honest, I do believe this is a Fusion issue and their code needs to allow for Windows to scale the display. All postions of the display including all icons and text. 

[Anonymous]

See my answer above about Windows 10 scaling and use of dual monitors. Also note that Autodesk Fusion 360 works like Google Chrome and does not respect Windows monitor scaling anyway. Likely your laptop display is at 100% but your 4K display needs to be something other to be useful. That is where the problems start.

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@scottmoyse wrote:

Man oh man, it looks shocking!! Tiny icons, overlapping text. The browser is stacking on top of itself. Lenovo P50 on Windows 10.

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Just so everyone know I do believe this behaviour of Windows display scaling still exists in the latest Fast Track build 14295.

[scottmoyse]

My laptop Windows scale is at the recommended 250% scaling. I've tried it at all the increments and it doesn't work.

[Anonymous]

As I mentioned Fusion 360 works in a similar fashion to Google Chrome and does not respect Windows display scaling. Windows scaling is broken in most circumstances, but if an application repects Windows display scaling it will work correctly in single monitor configurations. Icons and menus do not scale at all in Fusion 360 (this is bad) other areas do scale.

This is a Fusion 360 issue if you use anything other than 100% scaling.

[scottmoyse]

Yeah I get that... but it's also stuffed at 100% scaling. Also the fusion360.exe.manifest work around doesn't work.

[Anonymous]

I don't know about the manifest work-around. My best guess is that Fusion
360 only has one set of display resources in their executable. When you use
a monitor with such an extreme dpi, such as a 4k monitor in any size that
is reasonable for a laptop or most desks (my 43" is not reasonable, or so
my wife says) the dpi is just too high for the relatively low resolution
display assets that Fusion 360 uses. It will be up to the Fusion team to
create either scalable assets or to use multiple sets of assets depending
on resolutions available.

For everyone else using 4K, as long as you have a 40-49" monitor minimum
you should not run into these display issues.

[scottmoyse]

I've fixed it, I'll do a video later and show what I did.

[scottmoyse · Accepted solution]

This knowledge base article solved the issue for me.

[andregill]

$12,000 worth of software
$5,000 cup with 4K monitor
Bring able to see the entire screen without overlapping words and small font priceless

How could there not be a fix for this issue?