Fusion 360 graphics drivers crashing

[Anonymous]

Hello!

I'm having issues with Fusion 360 crashing the graphics driver after a while, probably when I've created too many bodies. I've looked around a bit and everyone else who's had similar problems has just had insufficient hardware.

I have turned off iGPU a long time ago so that's absolutely not the problem here. Nor is it insufficient hardware.

- MB: ASUS ROG Strix Z490-E
- CPU: i9-10900k @ 5GHz, 1,38V
- GPU: 2x EVGA 2080 Super FTW3 Hyrdo Copper @ Core: 2130MHz, Mem: 8100MHz
- RAM: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 64GB @ 3600MHz, CL16-17-17-36, 1,42V
- Storage: Corsair Force MP510 4TB as C:\ "boosted" with PrimoCache.

I have several devices plugged in via USB (i.e. Flight Sticks, wheels, external NVMes, LED devices, etc) and I also have Space Desk installed so I can use my laptop as a secondary monitor and MSI Afterburner for overclocking the graphics cards. Exactly ALL drivers are up-to-date. OS is Windows 10 Pro.

Any ideas? 

[ryan.bales]

I dunno, i think you need to upgrade to a better computer 😂. But jokes aside, what do you mean by graphics crashing? Is it the warning the graphics driver has stopped working in the lower right taskbar? or something noticeable in Fusion. 

[Anonymous]

Darn it! I guess my computer is too old for Fusion 360 then 😉

Anyway, the program stops responding for a couple of seconds followed by a blank screen for a couple of seconds more. If I have YouTube running in the background it stops playing and the video goes blank too, so I have to reload the page. It's the typical symptoms of a video driver crash.

I haven't actually checked Event Viewer afterwards but maybe I should? We'll see next time it happens if it actually does happen again, because I may have solved it. I cleaned the drivers with DDU and reinstalled the latest ones available from Nvidia.

I'll be back in a couple of days with an update. If it hasn't crashed before that then it's safe to say it's working as it should.

By the way, does Fusion 360 support SLI? It would be nice if I could utilize both of my cards for some extra performance in case I ever decide to build something HUGE 😛

[Anonymous]

Okay, so it happened again while copying and pasting a cylinder. One of the errors gave no information whatsoever as you can see, but it looks like it's related to Nvidia, which further suggests that it's a video driver crash. Do you know if SLI setups can cause issues with Fusion 360?

By the way, Fusion 360 CTDs when the screen goes blank and without an error prompt.

[lance.carocci]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I also have Space Desk installed so I can use my laptop as a secondary monitor and MSI Afterburner for overclocking the graphics cards.

Do you know if SLI setups can cause issues with Fusion 360?

I hate to sound generically "paranoid engineer," but all of the above are suspect.

In my brief search through Space Desk's documentation, it wasn't immediately clear to me how the virtual display exists in Windows, but in the past I have seen software-based GPUs (e.g. using DisplayLink signal compression, etc) struggle with Fusion on start up, and these devices were fine if the display was connected after Fusion 360 was initialized. We've since traced this to an OpenGL API issue, and since your event log calls out Nvidia's OpenGL implementation specifically, this seems like a clue.

The fix/workaround requires overriding the OpenGL implementation used by the Qt application framework to a newer, but possibly less-stable approach. I mention this because Qt is utilized by many apps, not just Fusion 360, so there is a chance for this tweak to ripple beyond Fusion, however positive or negative the effect.

1. Right-click on My Computer/This PC on the Desktop or in the Start Menu and select “Properties”
2. In the left column of the System window that appears, select “Advanced System Settings”
3. Within the System Properties window that appears, click “Environment Variables” in the bottom right
4. Within Environment Variables, click “New…” under the System Variables section
5. For Variable Name, enter QT_OPENGL
6. For Variable Value, enter angle
   • An alternate option to try for Variable Value is software - edit the aforementioned variable rather than creating a new entry
7. Click OK to save the new variable
8. Launch Fusion 360

Undoing this change is as simple as selecting the variable you've created from the table, and clicking Delete.

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Overclocking and tweaking tools like MSI Afterburner, or even just going too heavy-handed with 3D overrides in the Nvidia Control Panel or Radeon Adrenalin, will cause instability now and then. It's always worth disabling these while troubleshooting, just to rule out compounding factors.

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@Anonymous wrote:

Do you know if SLI setups can cause issues with Fusion 360?

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Probably. I say that from the personal perspective that SLI/Crossfire-type technology hasn't really seen mainstream support inside or outside the gaming industry; the technology is not utilized in most workstations, which tend to utilize a single GPU. In short, linked GPUs could be a factor, simply because we do not see a lot of SLI/Crossfire configurations to know for certain.