Slow FX/Unity perfomance in a Intel(r)915G/915GV/910GL Graphics, can be improved?

Question

Since I upgraded Ubuntu to 13.04, last Friday, FX on Unity is very slow.

This is a pretty annoying issue, because everything has an FX: Launcher menu, Appl. Switcher and so on.

I tried to disable something using Compiz, and now I can work, but I didn't solve everything, I still have the problem.

My hardware configuration is:

Memory:    3.1 GiB
Processor: Intel® Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz × 2 
Graphics:  VESA: Intel(r)915G/915GV/910GL Graphics
OS Type:   32-bit
Disk:      115.9 GB
Unity:     7.0.0

Do you think it's possible there's a hardware misconfiguration?

The unity_support_test script reports me this:

/usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p

OpenGL vendor string:   VMware, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.2, 128 bits)
OpenGL version string:  2.1 Mesa 9.1.3

Not software rendered:    no
Not blacklisted:          yes
GLX fbconfig:             yes
GLX texture from pixmap:  yes
GL npot or rect textures: yes
GL vertex program:        yes
GL fragment program:      yes
GL vertex buffer object:  yes
GL framebuffer object:    yes
GL version is 1.4+:       yes

Unity 3D supported:       no

I tried to install 3rd part drivers, but there are no available drivers.

Someone has an idea?

Answer 1

I have the exact same problem. Did you manage to fix it eventually?

12.10 worked perfectly, but 13.04 uses different driver (Gallium 0.4). Also to avoid black screen, I need to boot with "nomodeset" or "i915.modeset=0", and I read that Mesa 2.1 and up has problem with that. It needs KMS.

EDIT: Solved it. Turns out it's trivial issue. Yes, the nomodeset thing messes with graphics driver causing 3D acceleration not to work. The only reason I was using nomodeset was to fix the black screen. Turns out completely unnecessarily. I boot normally, get 'black screen' ...and fix that by hitting Fn+F5 (aka. brightness up button). :) Now 13.04 is running fast with 3D acceleration.