Stuck with Unity 2d after installing 12.04LTS, no idea how to get to Unity 3d

Question

I have freshly installed Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64 bit on a dual-boot with Windows 7 64 bit, and the first thing I did was to install myunity by sudo:

sudo apt-get install myunity

When I run myunity, an error pops up and says that I am in unity 2d.

I have read posts but never had a clear answer. I know it must have something to do with my Nvidia Gt540M Optimus with a Intel HD 3000. I have also heard of bumblebee, which can solve Nvidia/Optimus issues.

SO I basically want to know how to put unity in 3d mode, and enable some sort of support for my Nvidia cards.

I am only 14, and beginning on Ubuntu, after a disastrous trial on Mint 13, so I would enjoy some very clear instructions and answers :)

My specs:

• Asus K53sv
• CPU: Intel i5 2410m 2.3Ghz; Intel HD 3000 graphics
• RAM: 4gb RAM
• GPU: Nvidia Cuda GT540m @gb Optimus w/ Intel HD 3000
• HDD: ATA Hitachi 640gb

I don't know what motherboard I have..

---

$ lshw -c display

WARNING: you should run this program as super-user.
*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 2
bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
version: 09
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
resources: irq:44 memory:dd400000-dd7fffff memory:b0000000-bfffffff ioport:e000(size=64)
WARNING: output may be incomplete or inaccurate, you should run this program as super-user.

---

Ok. I now seem to be in Unity3d (normal Unity). I did absolutely nothing. And I just noticed that I could open myunity without the error message saying I was in 2d mode.

So that's one problem ruled out! Thanks!

Now the question would be: how to use Bumblebee to have Optimus support?

Bumblebee doesn't seem to have a graphical interface, so I'm sort of...lost.

Is there a way to check that:

• Power consumption and performance goes up with optirun.

• Power consumption and performance goes down after closing the application.

Answer 1

I had the same problem with about the same hardware (GT520M instead). You need to install a graphics driver for the card. Installing bumblebee will let you use the Intel HD graphics by default (to save battery time) and the option to run applications with the Nvidia graphics card (using optirun). First, add the bumblebee repository and update:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bumblebee/stable
sudo apt-get update

Then, you can either install the open-source driver (Nouveau):

sudo apt-get install bumblebee

Or, for the proprietary Nvidia driver:

sudo apt-get install bumblebee-nvidia

Then, reboot and unity 3d should be working. To launch applications using the nvidia card simply do:

optirun <program name>

You can see the Ubuntu bumblebee page you more info. Hope this helps!

Answer 2

I think unity 3d should be automatically enabled after installing the right drivers. There should be a program for this called restricted driver. Just search for drivers in the Dash.