Fusion seems to not use discreet graphics card since 5/31 update.

[leganzish]

I have been doing a lot of rendering lately.  All local renders.  Prior to the update (which I took at the end of the work day 5/31) the renders were taking 1-2 minutes.  Since the update the renders are taking 8-9 minutes.  This is rendering the exact same design, same settings, same materials.  When running a render, my CPU is pegged at 100% usage for the full render.  After the render finishes it drops down to less than 10%.  This makes me suspicious that the intel graphics are doing the render.  I wish I could go back in time and see what the CPU was at for the 1-2 minute renders earlier.  Some other graphical behavior of the software has been slower/wonky since the update as well.  Diagnostics say it is using my Nvidia card, but I don't think it actually is.

I have checked my Nvidia settings and Fusion is set to use the high-performance Nvidia processor (as it was before).

As an aside, this is a new rig and I am new to Fusion.  I have the laptop hooked up to 2 monitors via a USB 3.0 DisplayLink.  When I got up and running, I could never get the Nvidia card to run in Fusion.  Come to find out it is some weird bug with the DisplayLink drivers because Fusion ran on the graphics card fine when disconnected from the dock.  After figuring that out, Fusion has run beautifully in all graphical situations and local renders.  Up until today and the new update.  Even after reboots, running disconnected from the dock, I had the results I described in the 1st paragraph.  

Anyone else seeing this or similar graphical strangeness since the update?  

I'll be happy to run any sort of diagnostics or send whatever information may be needed to chase this.

[Mike.Grau]

Hi @leganzish

Thank you for your post in the Forum.

We haven´t seen any issues with Render engine but curious to find out what´s causing the slowdown.

Could please share a bit more information with me via Private Message:

• Could you share a "Public Link" of your design via "Private Message" that I can test rendering here on my machine
• Send us the "Graphics Diagnostic" information using this article Here
• Send us the Installation, Application and Web Services Log files Here
• Share your "System information" and use the article Here

I hope this information helps. Please, keep me updated.

Thanks,

[Mike.Grau]

Hi @leganzish,

Thanks again for your Post in the Forum.
I wanted to check if you could share more information via Public Link and send it to me via Private Message?

Please, keep me updated.

Thanks,

[leganzish]

Hi @Mike.Grau, I apologize for the delay.  I was out of the office Friday and Monday.  I'd be happy to share that information with you.  I am gathering it all now and will PM you shortly.  Anything to help you figure it out!

Also, I don't think it is limited to the render engine.  All of the GUI seems to be operating more slowly than before.  I just did a test, and just rotating the design in the Model workspace made my CPU utilization jump from ~3% to >50%.  Is that to be expected?  I wish I could go back in time and see how the CPU reacted to render/rotate 2 weeks ago.  

[leganzish]

Mike, I sent the PM.  Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help you diagnose.

[Mike.Grau]

Hi @leganzish,

Thank you for sharing your design with me.

I have started a local render and an InCanvas Render with "Final" quality settings.

The InCanvas render needed 33s and the Local Render needed 40s.

I ran this on a 2 node / 16 core / 32 thread Intel Xeon.

The cloud rendering on save took actually a bit longer but this could be due to my network connection.

Overall, the rendering time is absolutely fine and supposed to use all available CPU threads, as assigned.

Unfortunately, I could not find data with link you have provided via Private Message.

I have created a shared Project and invited you to that.
Please, upload the Fusion360DiagnosticLogs.zip and your system information in this Project -> Folder=Forum_Fusion seems to not use discreet graphics card since 5_31 update

Please, let me know once it is updated.

Thanks,

[leganzish]

@Mike.Grau I must have screwed up that link.  Looks like it went to the whole folder rather than the specific zip I meant for it to.  Sorry, but I have uploaded Fusion Info.zip into the project you invited me to.  Hopefully the logs might give you a more clear picture of what's going on.  

What graphics card do you have in the system that ran those render?

[Mike.Grau]

Hi @leganzish,

Thanks for sharing the files with me.

I´m running Fusion 360 with a GeForce GTX 680 and it´s running fine on two monitors

Unfortunately, I haven´t been able to see any issue within the log files.

Could you please unplug the DisplayLink and test the rendering again on the Laptop screen.

I do suspect that the USB DisplayLink could be the cause of the issue, since I have seen similar issues like that.

Please, Limit the effects to optimize performance

You may want to disable the integrated Intel Chip within the BIOS settings for testing.

I hope this helps.

Please, keep me updated.

Thanks,

[leganzish]

Hi @Mike.Grau.  Thanks for the tips!  I did already run it only on the laptop screen before I started this thread.  I had previously figured out the hard way that the dock was causing the Nvidia card to go unused in Fusion and other apps, so that was right at the top of my troubleshooting list.  And unfortunately my BIOS does not have an option to disable the integrated Intel graphics.  (At least not that I saw, though I'm no BIOS expert.)  

I'll check limit effects to optimize performance though and see if that makes any difference.

Do you know of any good tool I can use to see what my graphics card is doing (like task manager shows for the CPU)?  It just doesn't seem like it's being used the way it was just a couple weeks ago.  

[leganzish]

Hey @Mike.Grau, I found MSI Afterburner to see what's going on when I run a render.  I've attached a screenshot of the graphs.  As you can see GPU 1 and 2 are not active at all and the CPU is at 100% usage.  Based on what you said before, this might be the expected behavior, but it still seems strange to me.  Can you confirm that the GPU is intended to be inactive during rendering?

Is there any way for me to run old versions of Fusion?  I'd like to see how those charts look on the version prior to 5/31 where it seemed to behave differently.

[Mike.Grau · Accepted solution]

Hi @leganzish,

Thank you for the update.

Yes, MSI Afterburner is fine. I do personally like GPU-Z which delivers quite a lot of information.

This is correct, local and InCanvas render is CPU based. The GPU will be used only  once you start rotating your design within Render environment.

No, you can not switch to a previous Fusion 360 build. As I know, Fusion 360 has been using CPU based rendering even in prior versions.

I hope this helps,

Thanks, 

[leganzish]

Thank you for your help and patience @Mike.Grau!

[Anonymous]

Hi - also see this thread... you may well be using your AMD card "disguised" as your integrated Intel GPU through the magic of "Linked Display Adapters" 

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-design-validate/fusion-problems-with-switchable-graphics/m...

[leganzish]

Thanks for the link @Anonymous!  I think the issue from this thread here is maybe different than the one in your link, because Fusion was still reporting that the Nvidia graphics were in use.  Apparently CPU graphics in render are the intended behavior,

Anyway, I actually did have the same problem as one of the people in the thread you linked.  Multiple monitors connected on a dock would prevent the GPU from being used.  And it wasn't just reporting; the performance was worse on dock than it was off dock.  There are a couple of workarounds in that thread if anyone reading this thread has that issue.