Activating Visuall Effects Crashes Lucid Lynx

[baluvix]

I have a fresh install of Lucid Lynx 10.04 on an Intel Dual Core, 2GB RAM, 160 GB HDD machine. Ubuntu runs fine as long as visual effects are not activated. But a few minutes after activating visual effects, my systems freezes and needs a manual reset to bring it back to life. I don't have a dedicated graphics card installed on my system.

lshw -C display at the terminal gave the following output:

WARNING: you should run this program as super-user.
*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: 82945G/GZ Integrated Graphics Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 2
bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
version: 02
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
resources: irq:16 memory:fea80000-feafffff ioport:dc00(size=8) memory:d0000000-dfffffff(prefetchable) memory:fea40000-fea7ffff

Is it because my systems graphics are low spec, or because it does not have a dedicated graphics card, that activating visual effects causes it to freeze?

[germanix]

It does not really matter if the graphics are dedicated or not. I would assume that your problem is with your graphics chip. I run a Sony Vaio with a Intel graphics media accelerator 900 with 128 MB Ram (shared) and I can not activate the visual effects in full. I run the normal effects but any higher setting would also crash my system.
Sorry!

[baluvix]

Thanks, sir. I think your hunch should be correct. I triple boot on my machine (Ubunutu/PCLOS/XP). PCLOS also has the same issue, activate visual effects and the system fails to respond after a few minutes. I wonder if putting in a grahpics card would solve the problem. And is there a way to get the Ubuntu to respond (without doing a hard reset)?

Thanks and regards

[germanix]

Before you run off and get a new graphics card you should first see if the problem maybe lies with your graphic driver. You may have to install the correct driver for your graphics card.
1. Go to System>Administration>Hardware Drivers
2. Supply your password in the authorization dialog box and click OK
3. In the Hardware Drivers window, check the enabled box beside your graphics card device driver
4. A dialog box appears, asking you to confirm that you want to enable the driver. It explains that enabling the driver enables visual effects on your desktop. Click the enable button.
5. The summary dialog box appears to tell you what new software will be installed. Click the apply button.
6. The driver will be downloaded and installed. Then the Changes Applied dialog box will appear to tell you that the changes are completed. Click the close button.
7. In the hardware drivers window, click the close button.
8. You need to restart the computer so that Ubuntu will use the new driver. Select System>Quit, and then click restart

( the above explains how it is done in Ubuntu 8.04, I assume it is still the same in 10.04)
My laptop is now 5 years old and my graphics card does not support 3D graphics, if you also have an old system (more than 3 years) you may have a similar problem, but try the driver first to see.
Hope this helps you.

[baluvix]

Thanks.

System > Administration > Hardware Drivers searches for available drivers and says "No proprietary drivers are in use on this system."

[germanix]

Well it seems there are no third party drivers for your graphics card. I guess your only option now is to get a dedicated graphics chip that will both support 3D and will also run under Linux (a driver is available for it) I suggest you ask in the Forums which graphic card would be best suited for your needs. I myself do not run compiz fusion and do not care to have a fancy graphic chip as I only use my laptop for work, so I am sorry that I can not help you any further with this problem. You will have to start a new thread to ask about which card would be best.
Have a nice day