InvMark by TFI & Cadac, Inventor Performance Hardware Benchmark Tool with Leaderboard

[Neil_Cross]

Dear all - it's a pleasure to hand over to you, InvMark for Autodesk Inventor, a comprehensive hardware benchmarking solution designed entirely by myself, developed & hosted by Cadac Group, offered to the Autodesk community completely free of charge.

You can download InvMark for free from here

InvMark has been under intense continuous development for over 14 months, ensuring we release a fully featured and stable solution representative of the experience and knowledge behind it.  It runs as an addin within Autodesk Inventor, and is currently supported on Inventor 2021 and 2022.

InvMark has over a dozen test scenarios, including large 1000 part assembly pattern and constraint tests, large assembly drawing computation, FEA, Dynamic Simulation, multi style and context sensitive graphics tests, ray tracing and much much more.

InvMark grades your workstation/laptop and generates an InvMark score, along with a single-core and multi-core score based on how it performed on feature sets that leverage the CPU in different ways.  Each individual test is also graded separately allowing for finite comparisons between tests and hardware on a test by test basis.

InvMark has a public leaderboard where you can upload your score and compete against others in the Autodesk community, or visually compare your workstation to see how its performance sits against todays modern hardware.

The leaderboard is feature rich with a full score report card available for each test, along with full system specs and reference data.  Once logged in, you can see your historical uploads as only your highest score makes it to the leaderboard.

My introductory video announcing the release is here:

We have also integrated a unique feature which enthusiasts may find especially fascinating, our hardware sensor logging.  Every InvMark test (unless disabled) will log all available hardware sensors, every second, to a local CSV file.  This file contains CPU clock frequencies per core, temperature, RAM usage, GPU load, VRAM load, fan speeds if available, if your system has a sensor we log the data for you to convert to a graph for evaluation. 

I have created an extensive InvMark tutorial here which includes an overview of all tests, an explanation of all features along with a guide for how to use the hardware logging graph.

Thanks for your interest if you intend on trying out InvMark, we'll see you on the leaderboard 😉

[phlyx]

Did a reset utility on Inventor, removed every InvMark file from my computer and deleted the folders.  Reboot computer and then reinstalled InvMark with the cmd prompt, install went fine.

Then I opened Inventor, ran InvMark and got the same error.

@Neil_Cross, sorry for buggin you but I really want to run this.  Any idea what might be causing this?  

[Neil_Cross]

That "test will not run" message is my anti-cheat solution kicking in.

Basically it would be easy for people to cheese and cheat the test if they just deleted 99% of the models from the dataset so all the tests ran quicker, so I put in a scan at the start to make sure all the files are present.

Second to that, there's a mechanism in place to make sure nobody opens the models and deletes the content but keeps the file.

Obviously you haven't deleted any files, but that's what's being triggered.

My guess is you have some kind of aggressive local security software which is putting 2 of the files into quarantine or deleting them.  There's over a thousand files so I wouldn't have a clue which ones you've lost, but it's probably a dll or something like that.

See if you can verify the ApplicationPlugin folder content against this list and see if you've got anything missing:

[phlyx]

Thanks @Neil_Cross. I ran thru your list and I have invmark-addin.msi in that folder that you do not have.  Other than that, everything is correct.  I moved that out and it still gave the same error so didn't change the file count.   I did a file tree of the C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\InvMark folder and sub-folders and uploaded it to this message.  I wouldn't think 2 files are in quarantine as it found 1133 and it was expecting 1131, there are two extra files, not two missing.  Do you know what folder it's counting files in?

[Neil_Cross]

Ah ok yea sorry I just spotted that.

Tbh it's been nearly 5 years since I designed this mechanism so I don't recall the exact specifics.  But I've just counted these folders and the IPJ and it equates to exactly 1131.  Pretty sure I didn't include the other folders as tampering with those wouldnt affect performance.

I added 2 files to the root folder and it didnt trigger the error.

[phlyx]

Bizarre-O-world!  I moved Standard2021.ipt and Standard2022.ipt out of the InvMark Template folder and when I restarted Inventor and ran InvMark, I got the same error but it said it found 1129 files and was expecting 1131, dropped the count by 4 even though I only moved 2 files.  So I moved Standard2022.ipt back into the Template folder and when I restarted Inventor and ran InvMark it said it found 1131 files but was expecting 1131 so it won't run.  HUH?!?!?!  

Really have no clue what the cheat check is checking.  I have absolutely zero care for how my workstation compares to some other person's workstation somewhere else.  Not a contest to me.  Just trying to optimize my workstation so I can work as efficiently as possible,  Any chance there's a version out there without the cheat check? 

[Neil_Cross]

I've just ran a test and that's our code being flakey.  If there's a modified file, it still shows the text with the file count even if the numbers match.  We were doing all this late into the nights and weekends after our day jobs, over 12 months, so some fringe areas are going to be like that.

Try searching the InvMark directory for any files with "newVer" in the name, delete them.

The only other thing I can suggest is to do a search in the directory and list all Inventor files, and look at the date stamp on them.  There shouldnt be any files with a last modified date stamp after 2021 (except the templates).

And the IPJ should be date stamped 17/5/24.

Failing that, reinstall again and copy the content of the directory to the desktop... open Inventor and then if you still get the error, see if you can compare date stamps between the desktop copy and the plugin directory.

Frustratingly, the developer creates a log file in C:\temp which is supposed to log the differences found in the scan, but it looks like it isn't working now.  One of the reasons InvMark 2025 was late is due to the rework needed after Autodesk changed the API so much, so that might be busted now.

[phlyx]

Removed all InvMark files from C:\ and rebooted.  Did a clean install. 
 - The invMark.ipj is dat stamped 5/17/2024 6:15 PM. 
 - There are no NewVer files. 

 - There is only one "old" file, TFI Factory Layout.ipj.old date stamped 2/7/2021 12:43 PM. 

 - There is a file invmark-addin.msi that is date stamped the same as the install date/time 7/18/2024 4:09 PM (1,252 KB). 

- There are a couple other files with a 7/2024 date stamp, the rest are 6/26/24 or older.

     - InvMark.dll 7/5/2024

     - InvMark.dll.config 7/3/2024

     - System.Management.Automation.dll 7/3/2024

- Have not run Inventor or InvMark yet and made a backup copy of all files/folders.  There are 1,495 files.

- Ran InvMark, got the same error and there are the same number of files.  Does not appear any date stamps changed. 
- It created 3 log files and I attached them below.  If difference.txt is supposed to show files that changed, it contains 1,133 filenames, the same number it says it found (but was expecting 1,131).  The file missingFiles.txt lists 1,131 filenames, the number of files it was expecting to find.

[phlyx]

Okay @Neil_Cross, one last thing. There were 1,133 files in one log file but only 1,131 in the other.  So I did a compare and found these two files were not in the missing files log.

C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\InvMark\Ray Tracing\brick_floor_bump_4k.jpg

C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\InvMark\Ray Tracing\brick_floor_diff_4k.jpg

So I moved the actual files out of the InvMark folder and ran everything, expecting it to run.  But nope, got the same error, 1,133 files found and expected 1,131.  Thought I had something there.

[Neil_Cross]

All those dll's should be date stamped 2024, it's the Inventor files that should be 2021 or earlier.

The two things that stand out is your directory is missing files, you said there is 1495 files in the InvMark directory but there should be 1503:

Thats taken from a clean install just now.  So I'm still of the opinion that something on your system is interjecting and removing files, there's no other explanation I can think of which would explain why a fresh install would have less files for you.

The other thing is there shouldn't be a "InvMark-Addin.msi" file in the directory.  No idea where that is coming from but it shouldn't be in there.

[Neil_Cross]

Yea those 2 files are definitely needed, they're texture files for the ray tracing test.  Off the top of my head I can't think of any relevance those files would have to causing this.

[phlyx]

@Neil_Cross ... OMG, I moved the wrong files.  Those weren't the duplicates, the other location of the same files were.  I moved these files out of the InvMark folder and the program didn't crash!!!!!!  It's running InvMark right now!

C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\InvMark\Program Files Folder\InvMark\brick_floor_bump_4k.jpg

C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\InvMark\Program Files Folder\InvMark\brick_floor_diff_4k.jpg

It looks like those files are being created erroneously because they are already in another folder.  Might want to check but those two files were the problem! 

[Neil_Cross]

That's good news.

Just FYI that directory isn't something we create, we have no "Program files folder" directory.  I've never in my life used or created a folder of that name.

I know I keep pointing the finger but my next guess is that you might have an application option or some third party addin configured to create that folder as a relative path to the project file root? 

All I know is that I can guarantee 99.991% that we don't create that folder.  I'm leaving that .009% open just in case my developer went rogue but I highly doubt it, I've never seen that folder ever.

[phlyx]

I'm thinking it may be due to me running the MSI file as an admin inside an admin cmd window.   The install was ran at 4:09 PM and that's when the Program Files Folder was created.  The install MSI file wouldn't install any other way.  But it works and if someone else has an issue, maybe this gives you some direction on how to help them out.  👍

 

[prolater]

I had an opposite issue - not enough files are found right after a clean install. Tried to delete and reinstall which yielded the same result. Has anyone had this issue?

[Neil_Cross]

Can you attach these 2 files to the this thread please from your PC and I'll take a look

[prolater]

Pleased see the attached filed. Thanks, Neil!

[Neil_Cross]

I can see the problem and it could be a clash with an old build of InvMark leaving behind files that we don't use anymore.

In your InvMark folder you've got a bunch of files with references to "2024"

It's a long story but this was, shall we say a "development mishap" as there should never have been any files or folders within our installer with platform version references.  But some happened.

You should be able to fix it by uninstalling InvMark, delete the entire InvMark folder:

C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\InvMark\

Make sure you've got the latest version and reinstall.  There should no longer be any 2024 references in the install folder.

[phlyx]

Thanks @Neil_Cross, appreciate the help and the work providing this tool.  Really valuable info.  I don't care about competing with others for the fastest workstation but it is neat to see how far someone can push their system (and how jealous I can get about their system performance).  👍

[jaredpYTYMN]

Neil, i am unable to download invmark due to the Webview Runtime v2. Windows does not let me uninstall it. Does anyone have a solution around this?

Thanks.

[WHolzwarth]

I'm unable to finish install because of this message