poor performance of nvidia driver

[Chogan]

i have a hp pavilion dv2500 notebook with nvidia Geforce 8400M Gs as graphic card.
i installed ubuntu 12.04 on it. everything is ok but nvidia driver.
when i installed nvidia graphic driver, performance reduced: unity became slow, firefox scrolling became slow and same thing happened for pdf reader. also boot time is longer.
i never had such a expectation, in fact my expectation was completely vise vera. i expected nvidia driver performance be better than nouveau.
now i'm using nouveau. in unity 2d it is ok but i cannot use unity 3d using nouveau in ubuntu 12.04.
who know what is the problem with my nvidia graphic driver? how can i solve that?
i installed that using "Additional Drivers".
i had same problem with nvidia driver in openSUSE also.

[Pjotr123]

Which version of the restricted nvidia driver did you install? There are several versions available in the repositories.

[Chogan]

i cannot remember the exact version number. but i dare say i tried several nvidia versions in ubuntu and openSUSE and all of them caused to this problem.

[Pjotr123]

You can check the version if you install Synaptic:

sudo apt-get install synaptic

You can use Synaptic for changing the driver. First try nvidia-current, then nvidia-173, then nvidia-current-updates and maybe finally even nvidia-experimental-304 and nvidia-experimental-310.

Stay with the driver that performs best, and only try the experimentals if there is really no good alternative.

If you lose display because of a driver change, you can repair it as follows:
https://sites.google.com/site/easyli...isplay-at-all-
(item 1, left column)

[Chogan]

as i explained, its several mounts that i using free open source driver (nouveau).
i tested both current and experimental nvidia drivers in ubuntu and openSUSE and i had the problem in all situations.
it is useful if look at my description about this problem in openSUSE forums too. here is the address.

[Pjotr123]

It appears to be a 5 year old computer, with an Nvidia card that has only 64 MB dedicated RAM. You shouldn't expect too much 3D performance...

I advise to install the Nvidia restricted driver again (the one Ubuntu advises is best, probably in your case the "current"), and stay with a 2D desktop. Like Unity 2D, or even better: my own personal favourite Xubuntu:
https://sites.google.com/site/easyli...roject/xubuntu

You can even transform your existing Ubuntu installation into Xubuntu:
https://sites.google.com/site/easyli...ct/alternative

If you apply some speed tweaks, your computer will fly:
https://sites.google.com/site/easyli...sproject/speed

Afterwards, test the performance (FPS rate) of your Nvidia like this:

glxgears

(you may need to install mesa-utils first)

Good luck and happy 2013!

[Chogan]

Thank you for your advise. but my laptop had a windows vista pre installed on it. and as you may know, windows vista is one of the heaviest OSs in th world but my laptop worked with vista very good. for this reason i expect ubuntu to be better than vista.

[Chogan]

now, i'm using free graphic driver nouveau and resault of glxgears is:

~$ glxgears
Running synchronized to the vertical refresh.  The framerate should be
approximately the same as the monitor refresh rate.
1454 frames in 5.0 seconds = 290.694 FPS
1441 frames in 5.0 seconds = 287.970 FPS
1566 frames in 5.0 seconds = 313.090 FPS
1737 frames in 5.0 seconds = 347.173 FPS
1766 frames in 5.0 seconds = 353.095 FPS
1869 frames in 5.0 seconds = 373.749 FPS
1490 frames in 5.0 seconds = 297.719 FPS
1726 frames in 5.0 seconds = 345.159 FPS
1696 frames in 5.0 seconds = 339.111 FPS
1705 frames in 5.0 seconds = 340.881 FPS
1610 frames in 5.0 seconds = 321.970 FPS
1447 frames in 5.0 seconds = 289.094 FPS
1473 frames in 5.0 seconds = 294.442 FPS
1449 frames in 5.0 seconds = 289.668 FPS
1449 frames in 5.0 seconds = 289.714 FPS
1465 frames in 5.0 seconds = 292.847 FPS
1469 frames in 5.0 seconds = 293.660 FPS
1520 frames in 5.0 seconds = 302.526 FPS
1299 frames in 5.0 seconds = 259.716 FPS
1464 frames in 5.0 seconds = 292.703 FPS

is it normal? if i install nvidia graphic driver, will it improve?

[mbuell]

I am having very similar problems with a Toshiba Tecra M11, intel I-5, with an Nvidia graphics chip using shared memory. My machine ISN'T 5 years old, but I also think that thought misses the point, and misses the problem.

Eg: My toshiba worked great, including 3-D, with the nvidia proprietary drivers, for 10.04. Today, I give ubuntu a fail on this machine and 12.04. I COULD go back to 10.04, but hey! 10.04 is about to run off support!

Unity and 12.04 have messed with the nvidia support. I do NOT know yet what is going on - as I am still involved in trying to make my machine productive again. I tried 12.04 Unity, and xfce - 3-D and dual monitor situations were messed up. So now I'm trying Mint to see if maybe leaving Unity out of the equation might help.

Since my nvidia chip is pretty new, I tried the "current" version, and the latest available from nvidia, and another one in between those two. Nvidia is aware that there is a problem generated by 12.04 (and 12.10), and worked up a couple of beta issues to try and deal with it. They improved matters, but didn't fix them. Nouveau is about the same-- it is useable, but no 3-D, and no dual monitor desktop extension.

Sorry to say I can't offer solutions. But, I can tell you that you are not alone. Keep posting. Maybe you will be the one to solve the problem.

[Chogan]

How can i find if my graphic card of my laptop supports hardware acceleration or not?