Fusion on Mac after update = WORSE?

[odencustoms]

So I updated fusion this morning for the native support and its slower/ laggy/ non responsive at times. Running late 2022 MacBook Pro M1 Max with 32Gb Ram. On version - Fusion 360 2.0.16753 arm64 [Native]

I do use a space mouse, would that impact fusions performance at all? I have plenty of resources left according to activity manager, so perplexed at why it would be worse. It was pretty bad before running Rosetta but it was bearable. Ive had to force close 2 times, it closed on its own once and have restarted my computer twice. 

Any tips, clues or anything ? Reinstall maybe? Anything before that point though? 

[graham178]

I also experienced same issue, as if it's running at 5fps or less, right?

I found a solution: quit Fusion 360 and re-launch by forcing Rosetta essentially running it on Intel like before:

[lance.carocci]

@odencustoms could you please tell me more about your device?

1. What version of SpaceMouse driver are you running? The latest is 10.8.1, which was used to validate this update.
2. What version of macOS?
3. Does performance improve if you disconnect the SpaceMouse and restart Fusion?
4. Does the issue improve if you disable high resolution canvas graphics within Preferences > Graphics >Display?
5. Do you have any third party add-ins installed? Does disabling them improve things?

For what it's worth, I tested my SpaceMouse with driver 10.8.1 on macOS 11/12/13 and am getting a smooth FPS with a large model and high res canvas graphics on a 2020 M1 Air. Somewhere, there is something different between your machine and mine, we just need to figure out what.

@graham178 I saw your other post - if it's alright with you, it might be easiest to direct your Problem 2 discussion to this thread since it sounds like it may be a similar issue. Could you also please provide me the same information asked above?

[odencustoms]

It was outdated, I don't think I have updated it since I got this Mac in November. I just updated it, restarted the Mac, opened fusion and it crashed within 2 minutes. This is the report ID. 712762046

Running 13.4.1

It does not improve if I disconnect and close the space mouse 

I have never had high resolution canvas  on, I need speed not looks for what I do which is mainly using the manufacturing portion. 

Not sure what you mean by 3rd party add-ins so I assume no. 

[odencustoms]

And just happened again, crashed after opening. Report 712762491

[lance.carocci]

@odencustoms your crashes appear to be coming from the CAM tool library. I will circulate this with someone who is more familiar with that workspace.

[odencustoms]

Great, thanks. Will they reply here or by email ?

[lance.carocci]

Here, most likely, should they have questions for you directly.

Looking closer, the crashes are happening during or shortly after document open.

• 712762491 might be related to a parameter expression. There is reference to parsing a unique variable name.
• 712762046 appears related to the Materials library, and also involves interactions with the modeling browser. There is something related to UTF-8 formatting here, so character encoding is a possible theory - maybe a unique body name with some special characters?

Would you be able to provide this dataset to us to test on our own devices? You may DM me directly a link to the F3D if it is not something to share publicly.

[odencustoms]

I have been having issues with the post processor I can't figure out. I have traced it back to the probing actions. It keeps referring to something about ask angle ..... something something something. I will send the file via dm. Just a warning, it's a mess. I am close to buttoning everything up and plan to export each part to its own file soon when I finalize everything 

[graham178]

[SS- 2023-07-26 at 23.00.49.jpg]

[graham178]

Thank you VERY much for helping with this problem, I really appreciate it. 

Fusion 360 runs normally for 5-10 minutes, at which point the FPS drops to what seems like a stuttering 5fps or so.

Maybe it's worth mentioning that it's not just Space Mouse that is lagging, but even normal orbiting shift + middle button as well.

Re-launching Fusion 360 in Rosetta and it runs normally.

[blacktip]

Hello. Experiencing very slow framerate-panning & orbiting as well. Actually, the whole UI-experience is like wading in mud. I do not have a spacemouse – just a regular mouse. Running Fusion on a 2020 M1 Mac mini with 16 Gb RAM under Ventura 13.5. Will try to force Rosetta as per posted earlier to see if that makes any difference.

Edit #1: Ok … I don't seem to be able to tick the Rosetta checkbox in the Get Info-window. Guess the version of F360 I have is native apple silicon, or?

 

Edit #2: So, I unticked the Hi resolution graphics in the prefs, and yes – framerate seems to be back to normal. A pity, but better to have a smooth ride than sharp models … I guess.

[lance.carocci]

Hi @graham178, could you check for the latest SpaceMouse drivers? We added support for their SDK v4, which I believe requires driver 10.8.1+. Alternately, there is a toggle in the preferences to use the "Legacy" driver (SDK v3) which may alleviate some performance concerns, assuming it is indeed due to use of an older SpaceMouse driver.

[lance.carocci]

@blacktip please ensure that you are using Get Info on the Autodesk Fusion 360.app entity itself - the one in /Applications/ is a launcher script that points to the latest version after each update, which is why it does not have a toggle. Instructions and screenshots can be found here.

As far as graphics performance goes, some of it is going to depend on the complexity of your model, others might be individual graphics detail options within Fusion. High Resolution graphics can increase the number of canvas pixels by as many as 4x, so some performance hit is expected; however, there tends to be a greater performance hit for using better quality transparencies, selection styles, or more detailed material appearances. Modeling fastener threads (rather than using a visual representation of threads) will also greatly increase the complexity of the model needing to be rendered. Broadly, I would try keeping High Res graphics on and unchecking a few of the other options first, like setting minimum navigation FPS to 60.

[blacktip]

Re: graphics performance

My previous post was made right after I created one single box, i.e. the simplest (well) model you could design in F360, so the poor responsiveness wasn't due to a complex model. I have now played around with various combinations of settings in the prefs section, and here's my findings: 

1. switching back to hi res (whilst keeping the other ticked) slows down the performance to a non-working solution. Tried to force the min fps to 60 (default is 35), but that didn't do any good.

2. keeping hi res but also unchecking "Limit effects" makes the UI running smooth again, but unfortunately I lose ambient occlusion etc on the model.

3. I haven't found that settings like "Limit effects when graphics memory is low" does anything good or bad.

Again, I am not (currently) modelling anything complex at all. No modelled threads nor pixar-characters. Just a few boxes, really.

I'll revert back to low res for now, since it was/is clear that ambient occlusion and shadows help a lot when orbiting around. Pls post back if you need more specific information regarding my hw-setup. Meanwhile, I might try to install F360 on my M2 MacBook Air and see if I get similar performance drops as on my Mac mini.

UPDATE 15 minutes later:

So, installed F360 on my M2 MacBook Air and yeah, smooth sailing with crisp vectors. Seems like there's something going on with the M1 Mac mini (hooked up to a 4K monitor). Either the M1 doesn't cut it for hi res, or something else.

UPDATE +45 minutes later:

I just tried to hook up my MBA to my 4K monitor (took a while due to unplugging and replugging stuff from my Mini, installing kb + mouse drivers etc) and … when firing F360 up again, a severe lag was prominent. Seems that the throughput of data to an external monitor isn't optimised. I have the 4K LG monitor connected via a USB-C cable (the cable that came with the monitor, of which I have earlier tested many cables to get charging & syncing going).

My own theory is that there must be some sort of bottleneck when data is being sent to the 4K monitor, as opposed to being presented on the built in screen. I'm no tech person, but sure … the external display eats up more pixels than the built in, but not 4 times more (see screenshot). Nevertheless, the UI lag is so bad that work can't be done. Unplugging the external screen makes everything super smooth, and plugging it pack again bad. 

Hope this info helps.