Terrible performance in Fusion360

[fulcrumusa]

I've been working on my design for a while and it starting to make some pretty good progress. I am loving the interface and how easy it was to learn and get going (despite complaints to the contrary from a recent post :)).

However, as my design is getting more and more complex, Fusion's performance is just getting to the point of making Fusion intolerable. For the most part, it takes multiple seconds for the screen and/or UI to respond to commands. Even moving the Fusion360 window takes multiple seconds to repaint.

Take a look at the screen capture below to see what I am talking about:

What's worse is that Fusion isn't actually using the CPU that much, nor the memory. At most, the CPU usage by Fusion jumped to ~30%, ~40%. Such lag in the UI without CPU utilization spikes seems to be like the core UI design is just bad. What is Fusion360 doing when the UI is frozen for seconds at a time but the CPU is not being used? It's certainly not computing.

I understand that my design may be "special" as it contains dozens of components and dozens of joints. However, if you are really trying to position Fusion as the next best thing in CAD design, issues like this one should be non-existent. I am pretty sure that the Fusion design team didn't sit down and design Fusion as the next best thing... as long as you don't go overboard with components.

I would be more than happy to work with the Fusion devs to troubleshoot/debug this so they can improve the UI. I'll provide my design as a "load test", if needed. For me Fusion is just starting to get frustrating because something as simple as panning or rotating takes seconds.

[fulcrumusa]

@Phil.E, thank you. I would be more than happy to answer questions. Just for the record, I fully expect that there would be problem with the model. This is pretty much my first big, complicated design in Fusion. For one, I know that there are body interference issues. I would be more than happy to try things in an attempt to fix the design.

In my mind, I still don't know how it could be a CPU issue since the CPU usage is so low even when computing but I'll wait for the dev team to get back to us.

[Phil.E]

Turns out your model reveals an old performance enemy. Selection filtering.

Check out the selection filter in the toolbar. Normal operation is to have every box checked. The mouse, as it moves over your model, is telling Fusion to pay attention to every edge, point, face, etc.

We improved it some time ago to force this attention "cone" to be much closer to the mouse which keeps most of the noise out of the pipeline.

Your model has a greater density of faces and edges compared to other models. This is what threw me. I wasn't taking into account this density. Your mouse is always (when over the model) detecting a very high number of faces and edges.

Rather than constantly fiddle with the selection filter, here are some more broad things you can try.

1. Under the Select menu, turn off Select Through. It's the top item on the filter menu. What Select Through does is allow you to window select things that are hidden by model graphics, i.e. "through" the model. This is handy for Sculpt mode modeling with T-Splines, but perhaps doesn't matter much to you if you don't group/window select very much.

2. Make some objects un-selectable. Right click on the browser node and pick Selectable/Unselectable. This will keep them out of the selection filtering.

3. Turn off graphics effects. This just helps keep the graphics pipeline as slim as possible and will help somewhat in this case. 

4. Read through the attached document from my class at AU 2015. Some of the interface may have changed since it was published, but the commands should all be the same.

When you use visibility or Unselectable, if you want to manage the process for groups of components, toggling these conditions on/off, use Selection Sets.

1. Select the components you wish to place into a group that toggles together for Selectable/Unselectable. Pick them from the browser.

2. Right click on one of them and use Create Selection set. A selection set folder will appear in the browser. You can name the set by slow click twice on the set in the folder.

3. When you wish to make this group Selectable/Unselectable, pick the Select button on the right end of the group node you created which will select the items. Right click and toggle Selectable/Unselectable.

Please let us know if this helps.

Thanks,

[fulcrumusa]

@Phil.E,

Well, I wanted to try your suggestions tonight but I got "hit" with the June 22 update and not things are horrible. Fusion crashes pretty much every single time that I try to use it. I've submitted 3 crash reports in the span of 10mins. I all cases, I was manipulating the timeline. I am not sure if that is the real cause but I know that the timeline was updated.

It also seems like the automatic coloring of the components in the timeline and browser has been removed (either that or some option turns it off). Now I have to turn on Cycle component coloring in order for me to be able to tell what is going on.

As far as the suggestions, the "select through" was already turned off for me. I am not sure if this was due to the new update or if it was like that already.

The good news is that while Fusion was running, the design seemed more responsive. There was still lag but it seemed more tolerable.

[Phil.E]

Sorry to hear you had some trouble.

About your crashes:

I see that you crashed three times in the same program area. However, none of your reports have any description to help me reproduce it. So in the future, just fyi, it helps to put in any steps you were taking that caused a crash in the description field. Especially with a repeatable crash like this, we want to find the cause because if we can repeat it we can fix it, for you and every other Fusion customer.

If you can try to reproduce it again and provide some steps, that would be great. If you think it's necessary, you can also use Autodesk Screencast to record your actions.

The good news is that nobody else has crashed the way you did, at least that I can find. I also see you did not crash again after the third one. Does it repeat for you?

Regarding component color cycling. This is an application setting and it may have gotten turned off somehow. You may have pressed the hot key for it "N". If you turn it on, it should stay on. Please let us know if it doesn't.

Please let me know how it goes with the performance suggestions too!

Thanks,

[fulcrumusa]

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@Phil.E wrote:

Sorry to hear you had some trouble.

About your crashes:

I see that you crashed three times in the same program area. However, none of your reports have any description to help me reproduce it. So in the future, just fyi, it helps to put in any steps you were taking that caused a crash in the description field. Especially with a repeatable crash like this, we want to find the cause because if we can repeat it we can fix it, for you and every other Fusion custome

I did not include the description in the bug reports but I did mention that it always happened when I was moving around in the timeline. What I had done is move back in the timeline, add a Rigid group, then remove two "As-built joints", then move forward in the timeline, then crash.

The good news is that nobody else has crashed the way you did, at least that I can find. I also see you did not crash again after the third one. Does it repeat for you?

Well, I stopped using Fusion after the 3rd crash so that would explain why it "stopped" crashing. After 3 crashes in the exact same way, I figured, there is no reason to keep trying, it will just keep crashing.

Regarding component color cycling. This is an application setting and it may have gotten turned off somehow. You may have pressed the hot key for it "N". If you turn it on, it should stay on. Please let us know if it doesn't.

I know about that option and I used it last night. However, with this option on, not only are the timeline and browser colors but also all the components. Previously, the browser and timelines could be colored while the actual model was normal. For a reference of what I am talking about, you can check the original screencast and look at the component browser and timeline.

[Phil.E]

Got it, you had "Component Color Swatch" turned on.

Well if I can manage to repeat your crash that will be great. If you have any more specific instructions please pass them along.

Thanks!

[fulcrumusa]

@Phil.E, thank you. I'll try to reproduce the crash tonight and post a screen cast if it still happens so you can follow the directions exactly.

[fulcrumusa]

@Phil.E,

Things seem to be getting worse and worse with this version of Fusion. There are several things that I tried and they all resulted in Fusion either not working correctly, hanging or crashing. I did manage to get 3 screen captures of the issues.

In this screencast, I was attempting to reproduce how Fusion was crashing yesterday in an exact manner. Unfortunately, I could not do that because the timeline was not working correctly. As seen on the screencast below, the timeline stopped moving forward. I could have stepped through it step-by-step or move it to the end with the arrow command but I didn't do that because that's not the procedure, which reproduced the crash

In the second screen cast, I tried to reproduce the reported yesterday again. Fusion did crash but much earlier in the reproduction process that before. I did submit a crash report under my email address matching this screencast. The crash report mentions the name of the screencast ("Fusion crash") in the description.

In this final screencast, I was yet again trying to work on my design and it hung. The screencast does not show the complete process but what I had done is more a component, performed "Compute All", and then wanted to revert the component back to its original position, so I pressed Ctrl-Z. This is when Fusion hung.

[Phil.E]

Got it thanks. I can repeat the crash, which is discussed below.

But first, unfortunately I have to go point by point in response, just to keep it all straight.

Video 1: This is as designed, at least if I understand you correctly. When you activate a component, the timeline shortens to only show you the features for that component. Apologies if I misunderstand you here, but it looks like you expect there to be a full timeline while a component is active. That won't happen until you activate the top level component again. This is covered in the Large Model Management document I attached in an earlier response. In case you missed it:

Video 2: The crash is happening partly due to your clicking on the screen. For now go slow, and try some of the performance improvements I suggested. Looks like your graphics effects are off, but all of your browser components are selectable which adds to the background slowness. Now that I can reproduce it we can fix it.

Video 3: You quit Fusion while it was still calculating. You can see the green progress bar. If Fusion was hung it would not show the progress bar.

To summarize:

• Your model has unique qualities. There is a higher than average density of edges and faces in individual components.
• Remedy: make the stuff you are not working on unselectable.
• There is a crash you can achieve that is related to performance problems (we call this "race conditions) which causes things to happen out of order in the background. We need to fix this and I think we can.
• Remedy: do as many of the performance suggestions as possible and have some patience.

Request:

Do all of the performance suggestions and read the two attached documents closely. Work on your model and let us know if things improve. You will need some patience, but what I really want to know is if the suggestions make any real difference. So far, I cannot determine the answer to this by your responses, which while valid, amount to spiraling away from the core issue. Thanks for showing us the videos, but let's not forget the original problem and the work we need to do to improve performance. In order for this discussion to be productive for both of us we need a baseline of expectations: did the original complaint of slowness in modeling improve when steps were taken. This is where we start. Thanks for helping us improve Fusion.

Best Regards,

[fulcrumusa]

@Phil.E,

Firstly, thank you very much for keeping up with this as it seems it's a never ending thing! I know it may seem frustrating that I keep going all over the place with this but the fact is that with the latest update of Fusion things which used to work no longer do. Having said that, I'll address your latest comment one by one.

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@Phil.E wrote:

Video 1: This is as designed, at least if I understand you correctly. When you activate a component, the timeline shortens to only show you the features for that component. Apologies if I misunderstand you here, but it looks like you expect there to be a full timeline while a component is active. That won't happen until you activate the top level component again. This is covered in the Large Model Management document I attached in an earlier response. In case you missed it:

I know that the timeline shortens and that is exactly what I expected. In fact, that is exactly what *did* happen. The timeline in the video is the timeline of that particular component. If you take a look at the video carefully, you'll notice that the timeline does change to show only events for the selected component. Therefore, what is happening in the video should not be expected behavior. The marker should be able to move freely through the entire timeline of *that* component.

Video 2: The crash is happening partly due to your clicking on the screen. For now go slow, and try some of the performance improvements I suggested. Looks like your graphics effects are off, but all of your browser components are selectable which adds to the background slowness. Now that I can reproduce it we can fix it.

I am sorry but you can't blame me for laughing a bit when I read that the crash was partly due to me clicking on the screen :). I've applied pretty much all of the performance improvements short of me making component unselectable. I can try that too. However, I have to ask why do I need to make components unselectable if I am isolating the component I want to work on? In that case, no other edges, vertices, or features should be interfering.

Video 3: You quit Fusion while it was still calculating. You can see the green progress bar. If Fusion was hung it would not show the progress bar.

As I mentioned in my post, Fusion had been stuck in that state for a long while before I even started the screencast. There was no real indication that Fusion was actually doing anything. The progress bar does not count because it doesn't really indicate any real progress. I've done my fair share of GUI coding and I am well aware that a progress bar like this one could certainly mean that an application is hung/frozen. I *had* to kill Fusion because otherwise, it would not have come back. A similar thing happened to me at least once before and I left Fusion alone to do its thing for up to 10 minutes without anything changing.

Finally, I am certainly not forgetting the original problem! I am very much committed to working on the original problem. Not only do I want to be able to continue work on my design but I also very much want to help make Fusion better. I really like it so far and I want to see it succeed. Unfortunately, Fusion was updated in the middle of the "debugging" process which threw a completely new set of variables into the mix. I've worked in the software industry for a very long time and know that testing, debugging, and consistency go out of the window if you update the core software in the middle of the process.

I am trying to provide as complete, repeatable, and consistent information as I possibly can. However, I also keep getting thrown new curve balls by Fusion, which I have been reporting. If I could go back to the old version so I keep using a consistent software version, I would.

[Phil.E]

Thanks for the response.

If you code UI, you should know about race conditions and asynchronous events that produce the need for null checks. 🙂 You clicked during other events and apparently it's not safe. The crash you found may be related to a recent change, there are only a few reports in the bucket other than yours, and all from the recent build. So you have found a way to repeat a random bug, and I've logged it with repeatable steps. The unique nature of your model seems to be a factor here.

All components are selectable. Activation of a component only does one thing: it funnels all the new information into that component. Just make a component active, and then start a sketch on a ghosted component. You can select it on the ghosted component, and the sketch goes into the active component.

Did you find any value in the attached PDF files? Most of this stuff is covered in those two documents.

Thanks, have a great weekend.

Regards,

[fulcrumusa]

@Phil.E,

This weekend I took the time to go through the documents that you attached. Most of the information was stuff that I already knew so not a lot of new hints.

I also took the time to play around with my design as per your suggestions. Here are the results:

Performance:

I opened my design on the desktop computer (the more powerful system). After Fusion updated, I opened my design and made just about every component "Unselectable". This did help performance and I can actually work with my design now. There are still some slow downs but I consider those minor and workable. It is interesting the difference that the various performance optimizations had. At this point, I think that all the other Graphics settings changes were completely unneeded.

I will try working with the design on my laptop as well and see if there are any issues there.

Crashes:

My desktop installation of Fusion was not crashing. I did not follow my previous procedure exactly mainly due to the fact that I wanted to follow your suggestions. Regardless, Fusion stayed up even after me leaving it running for hour after I accidentally hit the "Play" button on the timeline and not having a way to stop it. (By the way, I'll be submitting and "Idea Station" request for this.)

Bug with Timeline marker:

This is real!! Even with all your suggested changes and running on a new computer, the bug shown in one of my screencasts where the timeline refuses to move when dragged is still present. The timeline marker does move when I step through the timeline with the buttons on the left or when I click on a feature and select "Move timeline marker to here" (or whatever that option is called). It just refuses to move when dragged. Considering that there doesn't seem to be anything in the design that's preventing the marker to be moved, I consider it a bug that it doesn't move when dragged.

All in all, a good weekend. I'll have to remember to continue making components unselectable when I don't need them. I also think that this should be highlighted much more in your document. The "optimization" for working with a large design are not very prominent for a document that specifically talks about working with large designs.

Thanks again for all your help and time! I could mark this post are resolved by your "unselectable" comment. Do you prefer me do that or wait until the crash report has been resolved?

[TrippyLighting]

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@fulcrumusa wrote:

 Regardless, Fusion stayed up even after me leaving it running for hour after I accidentally hit the "Play" button on the timeline and not having a way to stop it. (By the way, I'll be submitting and "Idea Station" request for this.)

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There is at least one Idea in the Idea station askig for that. I voted for it!

Please search for it before submitting a duplicate 😉

[fulcrumusa]

@TrippyLighting, thanks for letting me know. I found it and voted it up. I am a bit concerned that it only has 48 votes but still hoping that it will get implemented.

[Phil.E]

If you wish to mark this resolved, go ahead. I'm glad you are having a better time with it. The crash is a new issue that we are working quickly to fix and has little to do with the problems listed here.

We are always working to make Fusion perform faster and with more capacity. This post and your model have helped us find some room for improvement, so thanks! In this way all Fusion customers will benefit from this conversation.

One last note about graphics: There is a performance hit because of Anti-Aliasing and Ambient Occlusion in particular. We can measure this effect and have found it to be important for users to have the ability to shut off effects for performance reasons. You may not notice it on your systems because you have okay graphics cards, but we know these can add a GPU load which is cumulative with all the other things going on. In the case of a large model, or one with many faces and edges such as yours, if you wish to achieve ultimate performance, turn off the graphics effects.

Thanks,