Fusion crashing and returns with "software renderer is being used..."

[mikesmsproductions]

This just started today. For whatever reason, maybe the internet connection I'm on is somehow messing with Fusion (I'm on my college's connection), when I try to work on IPT files that I imported in to Fusion, the program would sort of crash. The display would flicker and when it comes back the workspace is blank but the model is still in progress. When I hover over the bodies in the browser, nothing is highlighted but a dialog box appears with the name of the body in it's place. When I restart Fusion I get this message:

"The software renderer is being used; it could be due to that the graphics card is not powerful enough or its driver is not installed"

When Fusion starts after getting that message, it is very sluggish and lags quite a bit. Like Inventor used to behave on my old machine with 4GB RAM, Intel Pentium and an older Intel Graphics card.

Now I don't know whether or not the driver is powerful enough but here are the specs for my current computer:
HP Spectre x360 15 (yes, it's a 2-in-1...)

Intel Core i7-7500U Dual Core (hyperthreaded) w/ integrated Intel HD Graphics 620

Nvidia Geforce 940MX 2GB

16GB RAM

512GB SSD

I also keep my drivers updated with the Intel Driver Update Utility tool and Nvidia's own updater. I just checked HP's website but most of their updates are from Dec. 2016 so I don't know if I should install or I already have newer updates installed.

I've been using Fusion on this computer for a few weeks and I've never run into this problem. Worst I had was some slowing down when working on a model with over 100 propagations of the same body which were then combined. Occasional "Not Responding" when opening some larger models. But none of what I've been experiencing today. Can anyone provide any insight?

I've restarted the system once before which seemed to fix it but then ran into the problem again when I tried editing the same models again.

And now when I try to go into the Nvidia dashboard it says that "You're not currently using a display attached to an NVIDIA GPU."

[Phil.E]

Hi,

This is a problem that can happen when your computer insists on using the Intel HD graphics.

Searching in Help, I found a few articles that can explain it.

This advice, from one of our developers Chengyun might be exactly what you need.

"1. Go to your nVidia control panel; open the "manage 3D settings" page;

2. In the "global settings" tab, switch the option for "preferred graphics processor" from "Auto select" to "High performance nVidia processor"; this will force your computer to always use the nVidia processor.

3. If you only want Fusion to force use nVidia processor, then keep "Auto select" option for "preferred graphics processor" in the "global settings" tab; instead go to the "Program settings" tab. 

4. In the "Program settings" tab, click the Add button in the "Select a program to customize" section. Then in the popped up dialog, click the Browse button to locate the Fusion360.exe in your Fusion installation folder.(you can find Fusion installation folder by right clicking the Fusion short cut icon in the desktop and then click "properties" menu)

5. Then in the "Select the preferred graphics processor for this program" section, choose "high performance nVidia processor".

6. Click Apply button

Then you should be able to run Fusion on nVidia GPU. Probably you need to reboot the computer if it doesn't work immediately. 

Unfortunately since we change the Fusion installation folder each time when we release a new Fusion update, this means you may need to do this again each time your Fusion build is updated. But you can try to select the whole Local/Appdata/Autodesk/webdeploy in the step 4 to see if nVidia to allow us to customize the whole folder instead of a single app. It might work on some machines."

That quote is here.

There are a few more similar cases here and here. 

[mikesmsproductions]

Thank you. I had tried that earlier before I posted this question but it didn't really work. I had restarted the computer (once intentionally, second time the computer just ran a fatal error and restarted itself) but that only initially corrected the problem. Then Fusion would crash or somehow would glitch and the problem was started again. I uninstalled and (after some panic and hassle) reinstalled my graphics driver which, again, corrected the problem for a short time but I still ran into it after a while. The last time, I was trying to mirror multiple lines in the same sketch when Fusion somehow glitched, the screen flickered then returned with the workspace void of any object but the overlays (top bar, the browser and tool boxes) still present. I could apparently enter sketches because I went through the motions and got the Sketch Options box. I just couldn't do anything. I tried closing that model and opening a new one but it wouldn't correct itself. Now that I am home, I updated my graphics drivers and tried the same operation from the same sketch on the same model and it works. I have to check the three other IPT models that I had imported to work on but so far I have no problems. The problem seems to have originated from when I accidentally ended the Fusion task while trying to end unnecessary tasks like Windows Mail. After that occurred I began running into this problem.

[innovatenate]

This sounds like this may be a machine specific issue. When you mention testing at home, is it safe to assume that this is all on the same computer?

It sounds like everything is back to normal now, is that correct?

If you had to guess at steps to reproduce the issue, do you have any advice?

Thanks,

[mikesmsproductions]

Yes, this was all on the same computer. It's a light laptop so I'm able to take back and forth between school and home. And yes, for now everything is working normally. I suspect that the problem originated from when I ended the Fusion process prematurely. I'm not sure if I'm able to replicate it but if I had to try I'd probably end the process, restart Fusion, load in 3 IPT files, open them all and then a blank workspace, insert all three into the blank workspace to create an assembly and then start doing the work. If that doesn't work, try a sketch where you need to mirror about 30 lines. These are two instances that did it for me.

[mikesmsproductions]

Well I got it again. Twice again today. Here are my theories:
A) The GPU memory is overloading and crashing and not returning quite correctly which requires a restart in order to be corrected, or:
B) In order for any device to be able to access the college's WiFi network, a Bradford Dissolvable Agent needs to be run on the system​. Maybe this has caused some conflict between Fusion and the school's network.

These are just my uneducated theories. Like I said, this only occurs when I'm on the college's network and not at home. Fusion will encounter "unexpected errors" at home but I've never experienced this before.