Veazer
January 13th, 2012, 06:09 AM
Despite my initial negative reaction to the Unity interface, I wanted to give it a fair chance and use it for a week or more. I've learned to appreciate lots of the new features and great use of screen real estate. I'm impressed with the power of quick lists, lenses, and the gnome-do-esque ability of dash. As far the the layout and usability of Unity, I like it much more than gnome shell. Sadly, i'm in the end it's just the poor performance that steers me away and back to gnome fallback.
I've tried it on my old netbooks and new machines, and all seems to really suffer from choppy window dragging, compiz effects like scale work poorly, etc. Running the benchmark compiz plugin, i can see the framerate cut in half simply by enabling the unity plugin. Why is it so heavy? I've seen complex 3D games running at better framerates. Graphically, Unity looks very simple to me so i don't see what causes it to perform so poorly.
I've tried Unity 5.x from the staging PPA and it performs better but still nothing like Gnome fallback or gnome 2.x from earlier ubuntus. In gnome classic, all compiz effects and window dragging is buttery smooth and feels less bogged down. If I could have the same or similar performance in Unity I would easily stick with it.
Is there anyway to improve Unity performance? I've tried the usual compiz tricks of disabling vsync, forced refresh rates, etc. but it still lags.
Machine specs:
Acer 1830T
Intel i7 680UM (2.5GHz max)
8 GB PC3-12800
Intel 3000 HD graphics
I've tried it on my old netbooks and new machines, and all seems to really suffer from choppy window dragging, compiz effects like scale work poorly, etc. Running the benchmark compiz plugin, i can see the framerate cut in half simply by enabling the unity plugin. Why is it so heavy? I've seen complex 3D games running at better framerates. Graphically, Unity looks very simple to me so i don't see what causes it to perform so poorly.
I've tried Unity 5.x from the staging PPA and it performs better but still nothing like Gnome fallback or gnome 2.x from earlier ubuntus. In gnome classic, all compiz effects and window dragging is buttery smooth and feels less bogged down. If I could have the same or similar performance in Unity I would easily stick with it.
Is there anyway to improve Unity performance? I've tried the usual compiz tricks of disabling vsync, forced refresh rates, etc. but it still lags.
Machine specs:
Acer 1830T
Intel i7 680UM (2.5GHz max)
8 GB PC3-12800
Intel 3000 HD graphics