Friendly Tech Ninja Linux how-to's for beginners

29Nov/09

Howto: Fix Performance of ATI Drivers with Compiz on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

Everyone know's that ATI drivers always seem to have something wrong with them, be it tearing in video or just general slow performance.

I happen to be victim to both of these currently, the way I got around video tearing was by changing my video output as I outlined in my previous tutorial, Howto:Fix ATI Video Playback. As for the performance issues I've finally found the answer! It turns out that it's got something to do with backfill we don't need to know what it is or what it does, all you need to know is getting rid of it fixes performance issues such as slow maximizing windows and also should fix video tearing!

Caution: I'd like to warn you in advance that doing anything with xserver could make your system unstable and crash you desktop interface. So do this at your own risk!

Step 1

Go to System->Administration->Software Sources, navigate to the Other Software tab and click Add... and paste in this text:

ppa:launchpad-weyland/xserver-nobackfill

Click Add Source and then Close and it will update your package list.

Note: This is a Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala tutorial if you are using older version add the appropriate source from here

Step 2

Now go to System->Administration->Update Manager and you should see two new updates for xserver-common and xserver-xorg-core if not Check for updates. Then install said updates.

Once done give your PC a quick restart and you should see it has now fixed your problem.

Note: You can also do this from the Terminal by running:

sudo apt-get update && upgrade

If you found this article helpful please leave a comment and subscribe.

Related posts:

  1. Howto: Fix Ubuntu 9.04 ATI Driver Issues
  2. Howto: Fix ATI Video Playback
  3. Howto: Install Dropbox on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala Beta
  4. Howto: Fix Alert/System Beep in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
  5. Howto: Fix ttf-mscorefonts-installer problems in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
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  • Aaron

    Worked Great For Me, Thanks,

    Dell Studio 1735
    ATI Radeon Mobility HD 3600
    Ubunto 910

    Linux Std17 2.6.31-14-generic #48-Ubuntu SMP Fri Oct 16 14:05:01 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

  • Aaron

    Worked Great For Me, Thanks,

    Dell Studio 1735
    ATI Radeon Mobility HD 3600
    Ubunto 910

    Linux Std17 2.6.31-14-generic #48-Ubuntu SMP Fri Oct 16 14:05:01 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

  • Aaron

    Worked Great For Me, Thanks,

    Dell Studio 1735
    ATI Radeon Mobility HD 3600
    Ubunto 910

    Linux Std17 2.6.31-14-generic #48-Ubuntu SMP Fri Oct 16 14:05:01 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

  • http://alperyilmaz.org/ alper

    my issue with ATI drivers is more than just performance issues, actually suspend/resume does not work in my laptop (w/ ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650). Is there a known workaround to fix this problem?

  • http://alperyilmaz.org/ alper

    my issue with ATI drivers is more than just performance issues, actually suspend/resume does not work in my laptop (w/ ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650). Is there a known workaround to fix this problem?

  • http://alperyilmaz.org alper

    my issue with ATI drivers is more than just performance issues, actually suspend/resume does not work in my laptop (w/ ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650). Is there a known workaround to fix this problem?

  • Olivier

    Did it for my Lenovo laptop W500 equipped with ATI.
    Wonderful. Problem is fixed.

    Thanks a lot for the information
    Olivier

  • Olivier

    Did it for my Lenovo laptop W500 equipped with ATI.
    Wonderful. Problem is fixed.

    Thanks a lot for the information
    Olivier

  • tombalabomba

    Works great for my T400!

    Thanx a lot!

    tombalabomba

  • tombalabomba

    Works great for my T400!

    Thanx a lot!

    tombalabomba

  • tombalabomba

    Works great for my T400!

    Thanx a lot!

    tombalabomba

  • Mystic

    It works! I have been looking for the answer since yesterday, thank you so much!

  • Mystic

    It works! I have been looking for the answer since yesterday, thank you so much!

  • Mystic

    It works! I have been looking for the answer since yesterday, thank you so much!

  • Daniel

    I did this with Karmic on an HD 4650 and after restarting I can’t boot into Ubuntu anymore :(

    • http://friendlytechninja.com/ Jonathan

      You should boot into recovery mode and delete your xorg config file.

    • http://friendlytechninja.com/ Jonathan

      You should boot into recovery mode and delete your xorg config file.

  • Daniel

    I did this with Karmic on an HD 4650 and after restarting I can’t boot into Ubuntu anymore :(

  • Daniel

    I did this with Karmic on an HD 4650 and after restarting I can’t boot into Ubuntu anymore :(

    • http://friendlytechninja.com Jonathan

      You should boot into recovery mode and delete your xorg config file.

  • http://www.drifta.co.nz/ Stretch

    To Daniel
    I suspect your problem will be the same as I had…after installing as per this guide I had to reinstall the ATi drivers, but in honestly I have just upgraded the Kernel prior to install

    ryan@desktop-bro:~$ uname -a
    Linux desktop-bro 2.6.31-19-generic #56-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jan 28 01:26:53 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux

    Basically I dropped into rescue mode from the grub menu, said drop to a shell with networking (not needed really unless you have to download the ATi driver again).
    Then simply ran
    sh ati-driver-installer-10-1-x86.x86_64.run (or whatever version u run)
    followed the automatic / basic install, reboot then all go again
    But in my case I suspect it was due to updated Kernel, although I did reboot after the Kernel update with no issues THEN installed the above,

    other commands you can try from rescue mode if that does not work are;
    aticonfig –initial -f (reinstall should more or less do that though)
    dpkg-reconfigure xorg (unsure of specifics of what that will do)

    Try the ATi driver reinstall and let me know how you get on

    Regards
    Stretch

  • http://www.drifta.co.nz Stretch

    To Daniel
    I suspect your problem will be the same as I had…after installing as per this guide I had to reinstall the ATi drivers, but in honestly I have just upgraded the Kernel prior to install

    ryan@desktop-bro:~$ uname -a
    Linux desktop-bro 2.6.31-19-generic #56-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jan 28 01:26:53 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux

    Basically I dropped into rescue mode from the grub menu, said drop to a shell with networking (not needed really unless you have to download the ATi driver again).
    Then simply ran
    sh ati-driver-installer-10-1-x86.x86_64.run (or whatever version u run)
    followed the automatic / basic install, reboot then all go again
    But in my case I suspect it was due to updated Kernel, although I did reboot after the Kernel update with no issues THEN installed the above,

    other commands you can try from rescue mode if that does not work are;
    aticonfig –initial -f (reinstall should more or less do that though)
    dpkg-reconfigure xorg (unsure of specifics of what that will do)

    Try the ATi driver reinstall and let me know how you get on

    Regards
    Stretch

  • Peanut

    Thanks a lot

    Worked for my HD 4650

    Previously Desctop Effects would not enable. Now Compiz works completely.

  • Peanut

    Thanks a lot

    Worked for my HD 4650

    Previously Desctop Effects would not enable. Now Compiz works completely.

  • Peanut

    Thanks a lot

    Worked for my HD 4650

    Previously Desctop Effects would not enable. Now Compiz works completely.

  • Ric

    Finally!! It works perfectly on my laptop ASUS PRO58Sseries equipped with an ATI HD 3650! Thanks! =)

  • Ric

    Finally!! It works perfectly on my laptop ASUS PRO58Sseries equipped with an ATI HD 3650! Thanks! =)

  • Ric

    Finally!! It works perfectly on my laptop ASUS PRO58Sseries equipped with an ATI HD 3650! Thanks! =)

  • Sam

    hey guys .. i am using a dell studio and it has a ati hd 4500 series i did install the drivers and all was working well .. but i had 1 major problem i was not able to resize the windows and sometimes my monitor just blinks and all the woobly feature goes off and i have restart my system to make thing work …

    thx in advance

  • Sam

    hey guys .. i am using a dell studio and it has a ati hd 4500 series i did install the drivers and all was working well .. but i had 1 major problem i was not able to resize the windows and sometimes my monitor just blinks and all the woobly feature goes off and i have restart my system to make thing work …

    thx in advance

  • Sam

    hey guys .. i am using a dell studio and it has a ati hd 4500 series i did install the drivers and all was working well .. but i had 1 major problem i was not able to resize the windows and sometimes my monitor just blinks and all the woobly feature goes off and i have restart my system to make thing work …

    thx in advance

  • Aan

    thanks ..it works with my ATI HD 4850… n_n …
    but i still have one problem..tearing wooble windows with compiz enabled..

  • Aan

    thanks ..it works with my ATI HD 4850… n_n …
    but i still have one problem..tearing wooble windows with compiz enabled..

  • Aan

    thanks ..it works with my ATI HD 4850… n_n …
    but i still have one problem..tearing wooble windows with compiz enabled..

  • Aasim

    Worked Perfectly on IBM thinkpad T400

  • Aasim

    Worked Perfectly on IBM thinkpad T400

  • Aasim

    Worked Perfectly on IBM thinkpad T400

  • Piero Campa

    Look out, it’s the only solution I also found for this tedious problem of ATI drivers, but it should have a drawback: memory keeping on filling up everytime you open/close a window.

    You could restart compiz, log-off, restart or open a 3D software (GoogleEarth?) to free the memory.

    …if I didn’t misunderstood this:
    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1306527

    Goodbye to all of you ;)

    • Piero Campa

      ..oh well, didn’t ‘misunderstand’!

    • Piero Campa

      ..oh well, didn’t ‘misunderstand’!

  • Piero Campa

    Look out, it’s the only solution I also found for this tedious problem of ATI drivers, but it should have a drawback: memory keeping on filling up everytime you open/close a window.

    You could restart compiz, log-off, restart or open a 3D software (GoogleEarth?) to free the memory.

    …if I didn’t misunderstood this:
    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1306527

    Goodbye to all of you ;)

  • Piero Campa

    Look out, it’s the only solution I also found for this tedious problem of ATI drivers, but it should have a drawback: memory keeping on filling up everytime you open/close a window.

    You could restart compiz, log-off, restart or open a 3D software (GoogleEarth?) to free the memory.

    …if I didn’t misunderstood this:
    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1306527

    Goodbye to all of you ;)

    • Piero Campa

      ..oh well, didn’t ‘misunderstand’!

  • Kais

    works like a charm. My PC has never been fatser and snappier

    Thanks for the tip.

  • Kais

    works like a charm. My PC has never been fatser and snappier

    Thanks for the tip.

  • http://www.teknologia.no/ Øyvind

    Hi! This works great on Ubuntu 9.10! Thank you so much! However, I want to switch to Mint, or Lucid Lynx (10.04) and how do I do this then? The ppa is for Karmic?

    Thanks!

    • http://friendlytechninja.com/ Jonathan

      Glad it helped you out. I really wouldn’t recommend using 10.04 on a production machine, it’s just going into Beta 1 today. That said I’m pretty sure that you can use ppa’s that are for older distros. As for mint, I haven’t got a clue.

      If you want to try 10.04 just install testdrive it’s got a ppa and everything. Works with Virtualbox and kvm.

      Hope that helps.

    • http://friendlytechninja.com/ Jonathan

      Glad it helped you out. I really wouldn’t recommend using 10.04 on a production machine, it’s just going into Beta 1 today. That said I’m pretty sure that you can use ppa’s that are for older distros. As for mint, I haven’t got a clue.

      If you want to try 10.04 just install testdrive it’s got a ppa and everything. Works with Virtualbox and kvm.

      Hope that helps.

  • http://www.teknologia.no/ Øyvind

    Hi! This works great on Ubuntu 9.10! Thank you so much! However, I want to switch to Mint, or Lucid Lynx (10.04) and how do I do this then? The ppa is for Karmic?

    Thanks!

  • http://www.teknologia.no Øyvind

    Hi! This works great on Ubuntu 9.10! Thank you so much! However, I want to switch to Mint, or Lucid Lynx (10.04) and how do I do this then? The ppa is for Karmic?

    Thanks!

    • http://friendlytechninja.com Jonathan

      Glad it helped you out. I really wouldn’t recommend using 10.04 on a production machine, it’s just going into Beta 1 today. That said I’m pretty sure that you can use ppa’s that are for older distros. As for mint, I haven’t got a clue.

      If you want to try 10.04 just install testdrive it’s got a ppa and everything. Works with Virtualbox and kvm.

      Hope that helps.

  • http://www.teknologia.no/ Øyvind

    Ok, too late :P I i’m installing Lucid right now..I’ll try it, someone said to me that it’s pretty stable already…but maybe that’s wrong?

    Is it possible that the driver works out-of-the-box with Lucid? Thank for the quick answer! :)

    • http://friendlytechninja.com/ Jonathan

      Lucid is using a new version of X.org which isn’t supported by the most recent ATI driver, so in short, probably not.

      I did try Lucid out on my ATI laptop and the open source drive was working pretty well, but that was Alpha 3 when I tried it, so it can only be getting better now.

    • http://friendlytechninja.com/ Jonathan

      Lucid is using a new version of X.org which isn’t supported by the most recent ATI driver, so in short, probably not.

      I did try Lucid out on my ATI laptop and the open source drive was working pretty well, but that was Alpha 3 when I tried it, so it can only be getting better now.

  • http://www.teknologia.no Øyvind

    Ok, too late :P I i’m installing Lucid right now..I’ll try it, someone said to me that it’s pretty stable already…but maybe that’s wrong?

    Is it possible that the driver works out-of-the-box with Lucid? Thank for the quick answer! :)

    • http://friendlytechninja.com Jonathan

      Lucid is using a new version of X.org which isn’t supported by the most recent ATI driver, so in short, probably not.

      I did try Lucid out on my ATI laptop and the open source drive was working pretty well, but that was Alpha 3 when I tried it, so it can only be getting better now.

  • Ali Karaağaç

    Guys get lucid and stay with opensource driver it’s better than offical ati drivers the new opensource drivers have video acceleration and best compiz compatibility .

    • http://friendlytechninja.com/ Jonathan

      I 100% agree, lucid’s open source drivers are amazing out of the box, work with compiz effects without any tweaking. Just great!

    • http://friendlytechninja.com/ Jonathan

      I 100% agree, lucid’s open source drivers are amazing out of the box, work with compiz effects without any tweaking. Just great!

  • Ali Karaağaç

    Guys get lucid and stay with opensource driver it’s better than offical ati drivers the new opensource drivers have video acceleration and best compiz compatibility .

    • http://friendlytechninja.com Jonathan

      I 100% agree, lucid’s open source drivers are amazing out of the box, work with compiz effects without any tweaking. Just great!

  • Øyvind

    I have a problem again. Whenever I try to watch a video on YouTube, or any site that uses flash, my computer shuts down by itself. it can happen after 2 minutes, or 10 minutes. It’s only happening when watching videos.

    Currently using Lucid Lynx LTS. Open source ATI drivers. Please help!

    • http://friendlytechninja.com/ Jonathan

      I suggest you file a bug on launchpad straight away, that’s a pretty bad bug.

      The only thing I can think of would be to uninstall flash and reinstall it. Hope that works for you.

    • http://friendlytechninja.com/ Jonathan

      I suggest you file a bug on launchpad straight away, that’s a pretty bad bug.

      The only thing I can think of would be to uninstall flash and reinstall it. Hope that works for you.

  • Øyvind

    I have a problem again. Whenever I try to watch a video on YouTube, or any site that uses flash, my computer shuts down by itself. it can happen after 2 minutes, or 10 minutes. It’s only happening when watching videos.

    Currently using Lucid Lynx LTS. Open source ATI drivers. Please help!

    • http://friendlytechninja.com Jonathan

      I suggest you file a bug on launchpad straight away, that’s a pretty bad bug.

      The only thing I can think of would be to uninstall flash and reinstall it. Hope that works for you.

  • Pingback: [Lucid Lynx+ATI] splash screen resolution and desktop effect lag – STFU noob!

  • Kylerobhew1

    @oyvindAre you sure your system isn’t overheating, that can cause this to happen. If you can check your temps.

  • junkhead

    does this work on lucid, you said it will for previous versions with link but not the new version

  • Kylerobhew1

    @oyvindAre you sure your system isn't overheating, that can cause this to happen. If you can check your temps.

  • junkhead

    does this work on lucid, you said it will for previous versions with link but not the new version

  • http://www.joomla-web-developer.com joomla developers

    I was very pleased to find this site.I wanted to thank you for this great read I enjoyed every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post.

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