There are many factors at play here, so please try to maintain your own bugs on the issue. Scott please log a new bug for yourself.
I have seen that the intel driver is much smoother than nvidia or fglrx too. For nvidia, I think the current biggest factor is a driver problem where it is much slower when sync to vblank is enabled (in the nvidia-settings dialog, not just compiz).
Regarding the issue of things being smooth near the middle of the screen but stuttering near the edge, that is an issue with things "damaging" the unity shell. When this happens, the unity shell has to force a fullscreen redraw which is slow. That is covered by bug 1080947.
All,
There are many factors at play here, so please try to maintain your own bugs on the issue. Scott please log a new bug for yourself.
I have seen that the intel driver is much smoother than nvidia or fglrx too. For nvidia, I think the current biggest factor is a driver problem where it is much slower when sync to vblank is enabled (in the nvidia-settings dialog, not just compiz).
Regarding the issue of things being smooth near the middle of the screen but stuttering near the edge, that is an issue with things "damaging" the unity shell. When this happens, the unity shell has to force a fullscreen redraw which is slow. That is covered by bug 1080947.