Graphics is not smooth, it's choppy

[helpmekubuntu]

Hi everyone,
I am new to Linux as well as Kubuntu, so please bear with my lack of knowledge.
I am running Kubuntu on an old Computer which has AMD Athlon64 2800+ inside, and the graphics seems to be very choppy and discontinuous, I don't know the exact technical word to explain it. It is something similar to the behavior of a computer which has windows installed in it without the graphics drivers. I felt that it has something to do with the drivers. So I went to the Muon Package manager and started looking for the proper drivers. I found that installing the package named fglrx-updates, solved the problem partially. But still the graphics is not absolutely perfect. Although the main choppiness has gone, but still when I open a window I can see it appearing from top to the bottom of the screen. If I am opening a page on chromium, the page is also appearing in the same way. If I play a video on YouTube in full screen the whole thing is choppy and broken. I mean the graphics is still not as good as it was on Windows.

It would be very helpful if someone could find me a solution to this problem.

[OneLine]

Help us to help you

To help we need the basic information: http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthr...W-GUY-lt-lt-lt


Generic HowTo's

You told:

AMD Athlon64 2800+ inside ...I found that installing the package named fglrx-updates

The Ubuntu Community has:

- https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver

This guide will show you how to use the Free, Open Source driver for many ATI graphics cards called "radeon" or "ati".

- https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/ATI

By default Ubuntu will use the open source AMD or Radeon driver for cards manufactured by AMD. Some users however prefer the proprietary fglrx driver for various reasons.

[helpmekubuntu]

Thank you @OneLine for your reply. Following are the details about my system.

Kubuntu Release: 12.04
KDE Version: 4.8.5 (4.8.5)
Grub Version: 0.97-29ubuntu66 - Description-en: GRand Unified Bootloader (Legacy version)

Information about my PC
Type: Desktop
RAM: 2GB DDR1
HDs: 1 internal non-SATA 80 GB Hard Disk
Optical Drives: 1 internal


Typing lscup in Konsole gives the following-:

Architecture: i686
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
CPU(s): 1
On-line CPU(s) list: 0
Thread(s) per core: 1
Core(s) per socket: 1
Socket(s): 1
Vendor ID: AuthenticAMD
CPU family: 15
Model: 4
Stepping: 10
CPU MHz: 1799.846
BogoMIPS: 3599.69
L1d cache: 64K
L1i cache: 64K
L2 cache: 512K

I would also like to mention that on typing lspci -nn | grep VGA in console I got the following

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8M800/K8N800/K8N800A [S3 UniChrome Pro] [1106:3108] (rev 01)

[helpmekubuntu]

P.S. I forgot to mention, I have Windows XP installed along with Kubuntu.

[dmeyer]

By the way, often the trick to fix flash is to open a video > right-click > settings > Uncheck Enable Hardware Acceleration.

[OneLine]

I would also like to mention that on typing lspci -nn | grep VGA in console I got the following

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8M800/K8N800/K8N800A [S3 UniChrome Pro] [1106:3108] (rev 01)

It seems that you have a integrated Via GPU. The fglrx/Catalyst is only for the AMD GPU.

When searching with the " Ubuntu Via S3 UniChrome" ->

- https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UniChrome
- http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2034487
- https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/200388

The Via GPU support seems weak nowadays .


Maybe ?

Maybe the kubuntu-low-fat-settings and other slimming tricks will help:

- http://dohbuoy.wordpress.com/ -> http://dohbuoy.wordpress.com/2011/09/23/slim-it-down/
--- Edit---
A new link
http://claydoh.com/ -> http://claydoh.com/slim-it-down/
--- Edit---
- http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/09/k...older-hardware
- http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1889034

There are other, lighter, options:

- http://lubuntu.net/

[SteveRiley]

The Via GPU support seems weak nowadays .

Yep, indeed... http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...tem&px=MTIyNjU

[dibl]

Same deal with SiS chips -- as mentioned in the 12.10 release notes. It seems the *buntus are slowly walking away from some legacy hardware.

[helpmekubuntu]

It's pretty disappointing to hear that. I thought I could give my old computer a new life by installing Linux in it.
However I must mention here, I tried Ubuntu, and it didn't have this problem. The graphics was excellent. However it has another problem; the computer doesn't boot normally and gets stuck at the violet screen right after the grub screen. I found a work around; when it gets stuck one has to restart it by pressing the restart button, and then the violet screen won't appear, but instead it will drop to terminal, where typing exit several times gets one through.

Can anyone suggest a distro which might work. I tried lubuntu, but it has the same problem as that of Ubuntu.

[Robtygart]

It's pretty disappointing to hear that. I thought I could give my old computer a new life by installing Linux in it.
However I must mention here, I tried Ubuntu, and it didn't have this problem. The graphics was excellent. However it has another problem; the computer doesn't boot normally and gets stuck at the violet screen right after the grub screen. I found a work around; when it gets stuck one has to restart it by pressing the restart button, and then the violet screen won't appear, but instead it will drop to terminal, where typing exit several times gets one through.

Can anyone suggest a distro which might work. I tried lubuntu, but it has the same problem as that of Ubuntu.

I would look at Xubuntu or Lubuntu, both are light weight.

But your computer should run Kubuntu just fine, I dont' know why its not. I don't think my laptop is as nice as yours and it runs fine.

[NickStone]

If you press SHIFT-ALT-F12 (together) does it improve the desktop?

That key combination will enable/disable the desktop effects, useful for older machines / graphic chips.

[luckyone]

In System Settings/Desktop Effects/Advanced Try XRender along with Raster, instead of OpenGL and Native. Disable Desktop Effects first. You can enable them if this helps. Though there won't be as many usable Effects.