Intel 945GM graphics acceleration problem Ubuntu jaunty

* glxgears gives about 200fps in it's small window.
* google earth is torturous
* bzflag a bit ... urkish

can we fix it?

Incidentially s/Ctrl-Alt-Backspace|dontzap|xorg.conf edit/Alt-SysRq-[whatever]/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key
http://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/sysrq.txt

Changing display resolution doesn't help.
In fact lower resolutions seem very glitchy/bad!
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart
## => hang :(

$ glxinfo  |grep rend
get fences failed: -1
param: 6, val: 0
direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) 945GM GEM 20090326 2009Q1 RC2 x86/MMX/SSE2

hmmmm ...

my /etc/X11/xorg.conf is very basic
tried lots of various settings ...
http://codeidol.com/unix/ubuntu/X11/Enable-3-D-Video-Acceleration/
http://grumpymole.blogspot.com/2008/03/ubuntu-hardy-intel-945-graphics-driver.html
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-hardware-18/intel-945gm-and-3d-acceleration-625937/

package "xserver-xorg-video-intel"

This package provides the driver for the Intel i8xx and i9xx family
of chipsets, including i810, i815, i830, i845, i855, i865, i915, i945
and i965 series chips.

This package also provides an XvMC (XVideo Motion Compensation) driver
for i810 and i815 chipsets.

More information about X.Org can be found at:




This package is built from the X.org xf86-video-intel driver module.

Canonical provides critical updates for xserver-xorg-video-intel until October 2010.

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=24481
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzM3OQ
via http://forums.opensuse.org/hardware/laptop/418072-video-performance-intel-945gm-kernel-2-6-30-a.html
Intel Releases xf86-video-intel 2.8 RC Driver
Posted by Michael Larabel on July 13, 2009

Hmmm. Very recent.


http://blog.programmerslog.com/?m=200906
http://blog.programmerslog.com/?p=378
How to install the latest Intel drivers on Ubuntu
June 20th, 2009


So anyway I updated my drivers and xorg.conf settings.
But not kernel,
And ... AIE! and AUGH.
I get the ubuntu session login screen okay.
But when gnome logs in I just see the colour on whole screen and mouse pointer. Moving and clicking mouse I can see there's some action going on! Desktop is functional but cannot see anything. Switching away and back gives black screen.

restarting/reconfiguring xorg.conf in various ways doesn't recover.
verious errors starting X, see /var/log/Xorg.* MTRR error, others.

After wailing and gnashing of the teeth the solution was found to kill compiz and any other compiz process.
And System->Preferences->Appearance->Visual Effects->None

hmmm, no we can't fix it!

but at least we recovered from the big mess we made right!