Running with less than minimum specs

[Anonymous]

My friend's home computer is a 3 year old basic home office computer that just falls short of the minimum specs to run Fusion 360. He enrolled his son in a CAD summer camp which uses Fusion 360 and Blender. He, understandably, is not eager to go out and purchase a new PC just to support his sons summer camp activities.

I've asked about whether or not the PC could be used ina  few forums and people offered their opinions but they suggested I check here to get an opinion from someone from Autodesk.

Here are the specs:

Acer Aspire E15

Intel Core i3-7100U (2.4GHz 3MB L3 cache)

Intel HD Graphics 620. Up to 2110 MB Dynamic Video Memory

4GB DDR4 memory

1000 GB HDD

Note that this CPU is only dual core while the minimum specs call for a quad core processor. Also, does the video card have enough memory?

Thank you for whatever help you can provide.

[phil_eichmiller]

Hi,

Thanks for asking. Is this machine running Win 10?

If you try to install it and run it, what happens? 

Thanks,

[leowarren34]

Hi @Anonymous,

Did you make a post on Reddit? It's looking rather similar to one I came across today :).

You should be able to load Fusion but don't expect too much, if you only ran Fusion you may be able to run it but don't expect too much.

Fusion 360 is single-threaded in most operations so you really need 1 really fast core for Fusion, having extra cores is nice to allow room for background processes.

The main issue with GPU is both the lack of power and VRAM.

For a lower-end system, 2GB VRAM would be pushing it on a dedicated GPU.

4GB is Very low, 8GB is an absolute minimum with 16 and above acceptable. RAM is usually one of the easiest things to upgrade and if it's ddr4 then it could be used in a future system.

I'd suggest running the installer and seeing how it runs, unfortunately, with it being a laptop it makes upgrades very difficult but I can offer recommendations for a cheap but decent Fusion system.

[Anonymous]

Yes, it is running Windows 10.

My friend has not yet installed the software (I don't believe he has access to it yet).

[Anonymous]

Yes, it was me who posted on Reddit. Reddit users suggested that I also post the question here.

Memory is easy enough to upgrade so I'll suggest he does that.

I'd be interested in hearing of any  cheap but decent Fusion systems you can recommend.

Thank you.

[TrippyLighting]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I'd be interested in hearing of any  cheap but decent Fusion systems you can recommend.

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Provided it fits in his computer case, he should also be looking into upgrading to a dedicated graphics card. For around $70 a dedicated graphics card with 2GB of memory is a good investment and plenty for a beginner in Fusion 360 and Blender.

Edit: I overlooked that this was a Notebook. That'll make the GPU upgrade path pretty unlikely.

[Phil.E]

It's a free trial that starts immediately after installation. Over a good network this should take less than 5 minutes.

https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/free-trial

It's much faster and cheaper to see if Fusion will run on that machine by direct testing.